One of Ours

..."This shows how base and vile those who wear the robe of Islam have become," said Abdullah Sahar, a political scientist at Kuwait University.

The video was released on the internet yesterday, but appeared too late for columnists in the Middle East to comment. But many Arabs said today that the grisly execution, attributed to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group, surpassed the US military's abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, which has been the top story for the past 10 days in the Middle East.

"We were winning international sympathy because of what happened at Abu Ghraib, but they come and waste it all," Mr Sahar said of the militants responsible.

[...]

Mustafa Bakri, editor of the weekly Al-Osboa newspaper in Egypt, said Berg's execution will only harm efforts to expose US offences against Iraqis.

"Such revenge is rejected," Mr Bakri said of the execution. "The American administration will make use of such crimes just to cover their real crimes against Iraqis."

[...]

Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, the two main satellite networks, aired carefully edited segments of the video. In Al-Arabiya's edit, a militant draws a knife and jerks Berg's torso to one side. The rest is not shown.

"The news story itself is strong enough," said Jihad Ballout, a spokesman for Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television. "To show the actual beheading is out of the realm of decency."...

...from Army Spc. Joe Roche...The next time you see one of those photos from the prison abuse scandal story, remember that the soldiers in those photos are aberrant. This is what an American soldier is really like.

[...]

Goal one: His so-called Mahdi Army militia is fighting alone...

Goal two: His one-time powerbase, Sadr City in Baghdad, has been lost...

Goal three: Other Shia leaders are breaking from him now in large numbers...Our units, in fact, are operating w/in 500 meters of the most sacred Shia religious sites in these cities, and you should notice that the local people are not resisting. This is what the pessimists amongst you are preventing you from understanding. Something like this would have been impossible before Sadr and his militia thugs went into there to hijack Iraqi Shia Islam. The people of Najaf and Karbala know we are not there to conquer and occupying the religious sites; we are there to liberate them from this would-be tyrant who is trying to hijack them. His uprising has been contained, despite Sadr's desperate efforts to expand.

Goal four: Now Sadr's patrons and mentor in Iran are breaking from him...

[...]

I'm not writing you blind to the casualties this is causing us. My battalion, the 16th Armored Engineers, should be home reunited w/ family and friends after serving a full year here. Instead, we are still here where the temp is reaching 115-125 degrees. And some of my fellow soldiers have fallen. Units of my battalion are right in the front of the fighting. Your prayers are needed. [A soldier] lost his eyes and a hand last week. The surgeons are trying to salvage his hand now by re-attaching it. This tragedy is a real nightmare. Another suffered shrapnel wounds in his abdomen. Others have been cut badly. Miracle of miracles, however, Sgt. Morales on Friday was shot in the CVC (helmet) -- the bullet ricocheted around his head and fired into the back of his seat, never cutting his skin!!!

...Sadr's militia is in panic and desperate, so they are dangerous, but you need to keep this all in perspective. The pessimists would have you believe this is a disaster. Don't listen to them. I think some of them feel that their reputations require our failure because they have been so negative all along, so they are jumping at every opportunity to sensationalize what is happening here as a disaster. Eliminating Sadr's threat is part of the overall mission and we are further ensuring the liberation of the Iraqi people. This has to be done, and we are doing it.

Don't be seduced by those who would rather that we sit back and just enjoy the freedoms past generations of Americans have sacrificed to gain for us. This is our time to earn it. I remember President Bush saying after the September 11th attacks: "The commitment of our Fathers is now the calling of our time."

A relative of mine was forced as the millions of Iraqis to serve in Saddam’s army...And as tens of thousands of Iraqis, he decided to run away. He remained a fugitive for years, hiding from the eyes of the military police. He couldn’t see his family more than 2 or 3 times in the year. We helped him find a job and a place to hide where they couldn’t find him.

Few days ago I was visiting his family to pay our respect in the 1st annual anniversary of his father’s death.
When I saw my relative, and despite the nature of the occasion, I felt happy. Here’s a free man. I smiled as I said, “you must be very happy to be free again, and not fear the MP”.
He said, "you can’t imagine! It’s like being born again. I’ve never felt so free before”.

“But what are you doing for a living now? I hope you’ve found a job”. I asked. He smiled as he said, "I volunteered in the new army".

“Really! I thought you’d never wear a uniform after that terrible experience” He replied "Oh no, this is entirely different".

I said, “I'm sure it is, but who convinced you to do so!? And when did that happen?”
"A friend of mine who volunteered before I did told me some nice stuff that encouraged me to do the same, so I volunteered about a couple of months ago" He replied.

“So tell me about it, are you happy with this job?” I asked.
"You can’t imagine! It’s nothing that we’ve learned or knew about the military life". He answered...

...My relative’s face was glowing as he continued, "you can’t imagine how much valued we are and how much our religion and traditions are respected. When we pass by a mosque, the officer in charge shouts “no talk” until we pass the mosque by a considerable distance, and when one of the officers enters our hall, if he sees that one of us is praying he remains silent and order us to keep quite until our comrade finishes his prayer"...

...“I feel I’m somebody now. I’m respected and get all what most people get. Do you believe that they threw one of the Iraqi officers out of the army because he used us to do him personal services, like carrying his bags, and when we complained about his behavior, they told him “ Do you see any of us, American officers use our soldiers? You can go home. You still have the mentality of the old regime and you can’t fit in this new army!” imagine that! They listen to our complains, we the soldiers, and bring us justice even if it involved the higher ranked officers. This had never happened in the old army.”

“But what about the dangers you are going to face when you graduate? You’ll face it everyday, and you’ll probably have to fight Iraqis. Have you thought about that? And how do you feel about it!?” I felt some regret as I asked this question, but it was too important to ignore.

My relative said, “Of course I thought about it!” He sighed as he continued, “Dangers were there since I was born; wars, MP chasing me for years, chaos…etc. These will not stop me from going on with my life, and I have a feeling that those thugs are the same people who oppressed me along with all the poor Iraqi soldiers. No, I’m not afraid of them and I’ll do my job. At least this time I know I’m doing the right thing and that my services will be appreciated”...

...France arrested another radical imam yesterday.

...Yashar Ali, of Iraqi origin, was arrested in a housing estate outside Paris and placed under investigation. Ali is suspected of belonging to the Salafist sect, whose preaching "runs counter to French values."

France has cracked down on radical preachers in recent weeks - in direct contrast with Britain, where firebrand imams are tolerated, despite often being in clear violation of incitement and race hate laws.

Five imams have been deported this year...

President Jacques Chirac has warned France's human rights industry that if its lawyers find a way to keep hate-speech preachers in the country, he will change the law to protect French citizens.

...French Muslim congregations rely on imported preachers - often from radical sects, particularly in the impoverished suburbs around large cities.

Since 2001, France has expelled dozens of Muslim preachers.

France's two most recent interior ministers, Nicolas Sarkozy and Dominique de Villepin (yes, him) have pledged to bring the nation's 5 million plus Muslims closer to France's mainstream. Sarkozy launched a Muslim council for France, but was knocked back when voters elected extremists rather than the moderate Paris preachers the minister backed...

...[Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown] went on to argue against further cash demands from Brussels...

Brown said that any rise in payments to Brussels would be "unrealistic, unjustified and unacceptable."

Brussels is demanding a budget increase to 650 billion Euros - a hard sell as most of the Eurozone's contributing nations are struggling with recession, made even more difficult as evidence of waste and corruption leaks from the EU's bureaucracy every day. The EU's own auditing office has been unable to declare the Union's accounts clean for nine years running...

...The enemy has attacked America on its own soil and therefore must be defeated utterly. Members of the US military have committed a court-martial offense and therefore they must be punished severely. Any withdrawal from Iraq will not bring safety from enemy action inasmuch as they attacked Manhattan and Washington DC nearly two years before [Operation Iraqi Freedom]. Any withdrawal from Iraq without first setting up a stable and responsible government there would result in a bloodbath beside which the massacre of the Shi'ites and the gassing of the Kurds by Saddam would be a pale moonlit shadow. Therefore we must persist until victory.

And the final fact is this. The only exit from war's inhumanity is through the doorway of victory. For while it may be mitigated, controlled and reduced to a certain extent fundamentally "war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it", though victory can end it. While it continues, as many in the Left who long for a 21st century Vietnam hope, it will unleash unpredictable forces which no one can control...

...We'll make this work, just like we make everything else work to the best of our ability. The Marines fought hard in Fallujah and took a lot of very evil people out of the fight. That effort, and the associated loss of Marine lives, was not in vain. We're already seeing a significant decrease in the enemy's ability to attack our forces. The supply lines are open again and everything is flowing freely through the country. Their efforts to cut us off in order to break our willpower failed. The Iraqi people are tired of the enemy and they are turning them over to us left and right.

...The last CBS poll put the numbers under 50% for the first time. I know that doesn't mean a loss in support for the troops, but supporting "the troops" while not supporting the mission doesn't do much for us. If we're over here for nothing then vague "support the troops" statements carry little weight.

The Marines are in high spirits. The troops in Fallujah are doing what Marines do best, and they're true professionals. Everyone else is driving forward, wondering what all the fuss back home is all about. We don't feel that we're losing anything - in fact, we're finally addressing issues that should have been addressed some time ago...

...I read reports that we were cut off and couldn't get supplies. Reality: Not true, they failed. A popular revolution was taking place in the south and Sadr was leading a new Shia revolt. Reality: Not true. Shia militia are killing Sadr's folks in Najaf because they don't respect him and they're sick of him. He's the same buffoon he was last month. Falloujah would ignite the Arab world (how many times have we heard that one). Reality: Despite the best efforts of Al-Jazeera to make us look like Atilla the Hun, there has been no explosion of populist anger. The same problems exist that existed last month - no better, no worse.

...We will be able to settle this place down and help the Iraqi people back on their feet if we're able to ignore the hysteria on T.V. and recall the national willpower we had in the 1940's. What happened to our country?

Have we really become so addled and weak-willed that we can't stick something out through a little rough patch?

I have faith that we'll get the backing we need to finish our work in Iraq.

Please have that faith with me and support our mission as much as you support our Marines.

Semper Fidelis -

Captain B
Fallujah, Iraq

...I don't know why people were so shocked, maybe it's just because I've seen these people put woman in children in their path while in an engagement with American troops. I always thought to myself, if I was in a situation to get captured, I would save the last bullet for myself or keep fighting till they had to kill me. If it's true or not, it doesn't matter, most soldiers have the mentality that if they are captured by islamic extremists, they will be tortured and killed without any mercy. This is the idea in the Infantry anyway, I know I would never allow them to take me alive if I was capable of it. Alot of soldiers will tell you that it's morally wrong what they did, but alot of them are upset at why the world is so upset when in some cases we slap or humiliate a prisoner, that seems to be more of a crime than burning and dragging American CIVILIANS through the streets and hanging them on a bridge as trophies. Sometimes I just shake my head in disgust. If we kill them in self defense, we are called murderers, if they kill us, they are heroes and freedom fighters. It all just makes me sick.

The Army general who investigated the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad said yesterday that he had found no evidence the misconduct was based on orders from high-ranking officers or involved a deliberate policy to stretch legal limits on extracting information from detainees.

Instead, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba attributed the scandal to the willful actions of a small group of soldiers and to "a failure of leadership" and supervision by brigade and lower-level commanders.

[...]

But several senators challenged the notion that low-ranking soldiers could have devised the particularly humiliating measures on their own, and Taguba reported that military guards probably were influenced by intelligence personnel. He also clashed openly with the Pentagon official responsible for intelligence, Stephen A. Cambone, over the propriety and significance of a decision last November to place Abu Ghraib prison under the command of a military intelligence officer.

...Taguba testified that the move made military guards subject to the tactical control of interrogators, thus violating Army doctrine and blurring lines of responsibility...

[...]

...Asked by Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the committee chairman, to put "in simple words" how the abuses happened, Taguba said: "Failure in leadership, sir, from the brigade commander on down. Lack of discipline, no training whatsoever and no supervision. Supervisory omission was rampant."

Pressed by several senators on whether any order had been given to the guards "to soften up" the detainees prior to interrogation, Taguba said he discovered none, nor any "overall military or intelligence policy" to do so. But he said that the military guards who have been charged with committing the abuses were influenced by military intelligence personnel and private contractors responsible for interrogations.

"We did not find any evidence of a policy or a direct order given to these soldiers to conduct what they did. I believe that they did it on their own volition," said Taguba...