Chief DeWayne Browning

Chief DeWayne Browning in Iraq

Old guys in a new Army

The difference between Vietnam and Iraq from Vietnam veterans working in Iraq.

In Iraq, "no such thing as POW". The enemey has "absolutely no value" for life.
Iraqi civilians near the base are growing "more positive toward U.S. forces".
"...the people in the United States respect what the soldiers are doing,"
"At its peak the Vietnam War had more than three times as many on the ground as the roughly 140,000 in Iraq today. The new Army that these vets serve in is all volunteer. There are women in uniform all around, as pilots, MPs, mechanics and nearly all other jobs except for infantry and armor units."

One Vietnam vet's Iraqi mission
By Patrick Jackson,
BBC News -November 15, 2006

DeWayne Browning is one of a small number of Americans uniquely qualified to compare the Vietnam and Iraq conflicts, having served in both as a helicopter pilot.

With George W Bush visiting Vietnam for the first time this week, the recently retired pilot spoke to the BBC News website about his efforts, second time around, to bring some humanity to the horror of war.

Mr Browning got drafted - but not for Vietnam. Ironically, his combat call-up only came in 2004 when he was asked to go to Iraq as a 55-year-old reservist in the California Army National Guard.

Back in 1969, he had pre-empted the draft by signing up for helicopter training, seeing it as a more interesting prospect than the regular army.

Serving in Vietnam with the Americal Division, he flew Huey troop carriers and occasionally Cobra gunships.

He went to Iraq theoretically as a higher staff officer but was soon transporting soldiers on a Black Hawk, the Huey's successor.

And his commanders had another, more unorthodox job for Chief Browning which indirectly led to a humanitarian mission of his own.

"...Why?"


Vietnam vets in Iraq see 'entirely different war'
By Steven Komarow,
USA TODAY - June 20, 2005

TIKRIT, Iraq — Before dawn, the pilots digest their intelligence briefing with coffee. The sun rises as they start preflight checks. Just after 7:30, they start rotors turning on their UH-60A Black Hawk, and ease it smoothly into the desert sky ...Read it all.

Horrific violence. Beheading of school children in Indonesia.

The trial begins for assassin Hasanuddin.

Carefully planned by Hasanuddin, the Jakarta trader had for objective to decapitate six girls. On October 30, 2005, he carried out his crime and eventually butchered three girls with the help of five other men. The children had been watched on their regular path to school. They apparently severed the heads in a "cleanly" manner, placed them in plastic bags with the note, "Wanted: 100 more Christian heads, teenaged or adult, male or female; blood shall be answered with blood, soul with soul, head with head." .

Beheaded girls were Ramadan 'trophies'
By Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta correspondent
The Australian - November 09, 2006

Indonesian schoolgirls beheadings 'act of charity'
By Adrian Morgan, Spero News - November 09, 2006
Photos of Alfita Poliwo (left) and Theresa Morangke - Source for these photos Spero News

"... Ida Yarni Sambue (15), Theresia Morangke (15), and Alfita Poliwo (19) - were decapitated, and their companion, Noviana Malewa, was hacked in the face with a machete, but survived. The killings of the three schoolgirls, whose heads were placed in plastic bags and left near a church in their village, signaled a resurgence of sectarian conflict in the province of Central Sulawesi...."

Last year, this horrific crime was reported in several blogs covering Islamic terror but it seems that main stream media ignored the story.

Read Atlas Shrugs for more on this story: Beheading Sweet Young Christian Girls on their Way Home from School October 29, 2005 - Photos Reuters Alertnet





Recently in Iraq, a 14 year old Christian boy was decapitated by a Islamic group -AINA, Assyrian International News Agency - October 29, 2006

14-year old Christian boy beheaded in Iraq -MND, MensNEWSdaily - October 30, 2006

For more, see at Gates of Vienna, by Dymphna - Arab Sport: Crucifying Christian Children in Iraq The Assyrian International News Agency reports the latest atrocities against Christians in Iraq. - October 12, 2006

Analysis and Commentaries
About the Moro Islamic Liberation Front - MILF.

Moro Islamic Liberation Front - MILF, Global Security

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Security in Southeast Asia
Report Summary by Zachary Abuza USIP, United States Institute ofr Peace

"Senior Fellow Zachary Abuza noted that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has waged a secessionist campaign in the southern Philippines since 1978, when they broke away from the secular Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). Their avowed goal is to establish an independent homeland for the Moro peoples that will be governed by sharia (Islamic law). Though initially armed and supported by the Libyan and Malaysian governments, by the early 1990s, the MILF had lost much of its state support. To that end, the MILF forged a tentative relationship with Al Qaeda, receiving money through Saudi charities, as well as limited military training, though while trying to build up its self reliance. While they always remained focused on the “near enemy” and the establishment of their own homeland, they were willing to take advantage of the support that transnational groups offered them; in exchange, they had to give some assistance to groups, such as Al Qaeda’s regional affiliate, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), in pursuance of the war against the “far enemy.” While the MILF is not a transnational group that seeks to establish a pan-Islamic caliphate (known in Southeast Asia as Nusantara Raya), they have given assistance to groups such as JI and the Abu Sayyaf group (ASG).

Since 2002, the JI, arguably the most lethal of all of Al Qaeda’s regional affiliates, has perpetrated three deadly bombings in Indonesia—in Bali (October 2002), the JW Marriott in Jakarta (August 2003) and at the Australian Embassy (September 2004). Despite the MILF’s denial of ties to JI, credible evidence soon emerged that several JI members involved in the three bombings were trained in MILF camps..."

Beheading in the Name of Islam
By Timothy Furnish, Middle East Quarterly -Spring 2005

[...]Apologetics and Reality

Some American commentators say that Islamist decapitations are intended as psychological warfare and devoid of any true Islamic content. Imam Muhammad Adam al-Sheikh, head of the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, for example, claimed incorrectly that "beheadings are not mentioned in the Koran at all."[5] Asma Afsaruddin, an associate professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Notre Dame, also misrepresented Islamic theology and history when she told a reporter, "There is absolutely no religious imperative for this." [6] The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as well as the American Anti-Arab Discrimination Committee (ADC) have both signed on to a statement that such killings "did not represent the tenets of Islam." [7] Sam Hamod, former director of the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., claimed that the Qur'anic passage on beheading unbelievers did not actually mean that people should be killed. [8] Such fulminations have had an effect: the Western news media has, perhaps as a result of political correctness or its own bias, twisted the reality of Islamic history and propagated such revisionism. With such apologetics, Western academics either display basic ignorance of their fields or purposely mislead. The intelligentsia's denial of any religious roots to the recent spate of decapitation has parallels in the logical back flips and kid-glove treatments in which many professors engaged in order to deny a religious basis for violent jihad. [9] Afsaruddin and Hamod aside, Islamists justify murder and decapitation with both theological citations and historical precedent.
Decapitation in Islamic Theology
Groups such as Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi's Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad (Unity and Jihad) and Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Hasan bin Mahmud's Ansar al-Sunna (Defenders of [Prophetic] Tradition) [10] justify the decapitation of prisoners with Qur'anic scripture. Sura (chapter) 47 contains the ayah (verse): "When you encounter the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads until you have crushed them completely; then bind the prisoners tightly." [11] The Qur'anic Arabic terms are generally straightforward: kafaru means "those who blaspheme/are irreligious," although Darb ar-riqab is less clear. Darb can mean "striking or hitting" while ar-riqab translates to "necks, slaves, persons." With little variation, scholars have translated the verse as, "When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks." [12]
For centuries, leading Islamic scholars have interpreted this verse literally. The famous Iranian historian and Qur'an commentator Muhammad b. Jarir at-Tabari (d. 923 C.E.) wrote that "striking at the necks" is simply God's sanction of ferocious opposition to non-Muslims. [13] Mahmud b. Umar az-Zamakhshari (d. 1143 C.E.), in a major commentary studied for centuries by Sunni religious scholars, suggested that any prescription to "strike at the necks" commands to avoid striking elsewhere so as to confirm death and not simply wound. [14] [...]

The Sacred Muslim Practice of Beheading
By Andrew G. Bostom, FrontPageMagazine.com - May 13, 2004

"Reactions to the grotesque jihadist decapitation of yet another "infidel Jew," Mr. Berg, make clear that our intelligentsia are either dangerously uninformed, or simply unwilling to come to terms with this ugly reality: such murders are consistent with sacred jihad practices, as well as Islamic attitudes towards all non-Muslim infidels, in particular, Jews, which date back to the 7th century, and the Prophet Muhammad's own example.

According to Muhammad’s sacralized biography by Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad himself sanctioned the massacre of the Qurayza, a vanquished Jewish tribe. He appointed an "arbiter" who soon rendered this concise verdict: the men were to be put to death, the women and children sold into slavery, the spoils to be divided among the Muslims. Muhammad ratified this judgment stating that it was a decree of God pronounced from above the Seven Heavens. Thus some 600 to 900 men from the Qurayza were lead on Muhammad’s order to the Market of Medina. Trenches were dug and the men were beheaded, and their decapitated corpses buried in the trenches while Muhammad watched in attendance. Women and children were sold into slavery, a number of them being distributed as gifts among Muhammad’s companions, and Muhammad chose one of the Qurayza women (Rayhana) for himself. The Qurayza’s property and other possessions (including weapons) were also divided up as additional "booty" among the Muslims, to support further jihad campaigns..."

Killing by Beheading is Islamic!

By Syed Kamran Mirza - Faith Freedom

Big question-‘is the beheading Islamic?’

Yes, beheading is, of course, an Islamic justice to the infidels, criminals, and sinners. This cruel way of killing infidels is sanctioned by Islamic Sharia laws. Denial to the grotesque beheading of western Kaffirs by those Islamic terrorists (in Iraq) that it is not Islamic is yet another clear sign of ignorance, hypocrisy, or intellectual dishonesty by the defenders of Islam. Islamists are not ready to take the burden of ugly reality of the fact that human beheading is 100% consistent with the sacred Islamic Jihadi practices. Hatreds towards other religion such as Jews, Christians, Hindus and other polytheists are the ardent teachings of Islamic holy book Qur’an. Beheading was practiced by the Prophet Muhammad himself during the 7th century period of Islam and by the most Islamic rulers thereafter.

Saddest thing is no Islamists will ever tell you the truth about the intimate relation of beheading in Islam! ... read it all here.

Understanding Islam
Hysciences, highly recommended.

Previous post on violence and Islam at Difficult Images Cautious extremely graphic images.

Meanwhile, this music video made in France glorifies violence.
Hat tip. No Parasan

Kim Chapiron and friends playing with cruelty SHEITAN.


Sheitan is an horror movie see the script here with the participation of the well known actor Vincent Cassel.

In this interview, Kim Chapiron, creator of the group Kourtrajmé, and director apparently of this horrible video, prides himself to be have the most hardcore artists-group of the planet. His father, Christian Chapiron created a punk-group called Bazouka in the 70's. Chapiron added that his father's group terrorized the world with his music while doing "everything".

Kim, who brags about his own sick mind, appears also very proud of his poetry. You can read in the interview what he will do with grand-mother. In my views, this is simply emotionally corrupted. I can't see his point.

Previous post on violence and Islam at Difficult Images
Caution; extremely graphic images

This post was also published at Difficult Images.

Chicago - Desire No Shackles

Edited.

Even in the Age of Information, it would seem that not all information is created equal. We have seen this in the closing of a successful 3-year-old production of Mozart's opera 'Idomeneo', because as Berlin police said, it posed 'incalculable risk' of inciting Islamic fundamentalists to violence. These and other acts of cultural and artistic intimidation are a stark reminder that censorship throbs with power while the lifeblood of art is wrung dry.

Last year, outrage from Muslim students led Harper College, located just outside Chicago, to remove an exhibition of works by Amir Normandi depicting the oppression women suffer in many Islamic countries. Partly in response, Normandi, an Iranian-born Muslim, has curated a new exhibition of works by local and international artists entitled, 'Desire No Shackles, / 'Imagine No Borders', to examine oppression, and the notion of borders in Islam and other contexts.

Featured artists: Amir Normandi, Maryam Hashemi, Marcia Middleton Kaplan, Tim Arroyo, Diane Carriere, Rosy Torres.


Please help us strike a blow to censorship and promote freedom of expression and artistic integrity by posting this event on your blog.

For more info on the events and on the artists, see 'Desire No Shackles / 'Imagine No Borders'

Honour killing, cultural hell

Killing in Birmingham UK: Six Year Old Girl Burned To Death For Muslim ‘Honor’
LGF
September 20, 2006

Swiss charge Pakistani over 'honor killing' of wife
AFP
August 23, 2006

UK: Marry A Muslim Girl - Hide For 13 Years
Giraldus Cambrensis
May 26, 2006

Pakistan: Muslim Honor Killings Confronted?Giraldus Cambrensis
May 28, 2006

Winning the War on the Islamo-Fascists means Liberating the Women
Stefania - Free thoughts
February 18, 2005

Photo source: Freethoughts

Articles:

Honor Thy Father -- Or Else
Muslim cut his daughter's throat for taking a Christian boyfriend
Cousins in 'honour killing' face life for knifing bride
Burned alive

Honor killing in the Netherlands?
December 07, 2003
Dhimmi Watch

Culture of death? Palestinian girl's murder highlights growing number of 'honor killings'
Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services

"ABU QASH — Rofayda Qaoud — raped by her brothers and impregnated — refused to commit suicide, her mother recalls, even after she bought the unwed teenager a razor with which to slit her wrists. So Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud says she did what she believes any good Palestinian parent would: restored her family's "honor" through murder.
Armed with a plastic bag, razor and wooden stick, Qaoud entered her sleeping daughter's room last Jan. 27. "Tonight you die, Rofayda," she told the girl, before wrapping the bag tightly around her head. Next, Qaoud sliced Rofayda's wrists, ignoring her muffled pleas of "No, mother, no!" After her daughter went limp, Qaoud struck her in the head with the stick.
Killing her sixth-born child took 20 minutes, Qaoud tells a visitor through a stream of tears and cigarettes that she smokes in rapid succession. "She killed me before I killed her," says the 43-year-old mother of nine. "I had to protect my children. This is the only way I could protect my family's honor..."

Study shows regional discrepancies in perception of ‘honor killings’
September 20, 2006
Daily News Turkey

ANKARA – Turkish Daily News
A survey carried out by the U.N. Turkey bureau in six cities around the country showed that the people of the southeastern city of Şanlıurfa were the least aware of women's rights.
The study, called Protection and Development of the Human Rights of Women and Girls,� carried out in the provinces of Şanlıurfa, Van, Izmir, Trabzon, Nevşehir and Kars, where the U.N. Joint Program on Women is being implemented, aimed to find out about the state of women, their needs and demands.
Apart from Şanlıurfa, 90 percent of women said there was a women's rights problem in Turkey, calling for measures to ensure gender equality. Women of Şanlıurfa were shown as less developed when it came to women demanding equality and measures to solve their problems. The study in the province, where 34.8 percent of women are illiterate, revealed that lack of education ensures that women there do not have access to the means to learn more about their rights. Similar problems and illiteracy rates exist in Van and Kars.

A quail of a tale in Pakistan
Damon Lynch
September 20, 2006

" DSZT believes that when an individual violates cultural norms, they have violated the rights of the community and must therefore be punished. I suggested that even if one was in total agreement that such behaviors were in violation of community rights, why did the perpetrator need to be killed? Could they not be punished in some other manner? He responded by saying that such people were no longer human, and therefore had to be killed. I pressed the issue further, saying that people can be led into such behaviors due to difficult circumstances over which they may have had little control, such as traumatic marriages devoid of love or childhoods in which they experienced sexual or emotional abuse. Furthermore, people make mistakes. Is not compassion therefore superior to community sanctioned murder? DSZT rejected this approach. He said that were these punishments not in place, society would break down and many people would naturally behave immorally. Killing wrongdoers is therefore essential to preserve decency..."

Honor Killings Are Against Islam Widespread and brutal crime is a gender issue
Smita Poudel
September 17, 2006

Legalized Murder Killing for "Honor"
Laura Jamison
Summer 2003
Amnesty International Magazine

Thousands of Women Killed for Family "Honor"
Hillary Mayell
National Geographic News
February 12, 2002

"...In India, for example, more than 5,000 brides die annually because their dowries are considered insufficient, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Crimes of passion, which are treated extremely leniently in Latin America, are the same thing with a different name, some rights advocates say.
"In countries where Islam is practiced, they're called honor killings, but dowry deaths and so-called crimes of passion have a similar dynamic in that the women are killed by male family members and the crimes are perceived as excusable or understandable," said Widney Brown, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch."
"...nothing in the Koran, the book of basic Islamic teachings, that permits or sanctions honor killings. However, the view of women as property with no rights of their own is deeply rooted in Islamic culture..."

Reputation is Everything, Honor killing among the Palestinians
James Emery
WorldandI.com

"...If a woman brings shame to the family--through allegations of premarital or extramarital sex, by refusing an arranged marriage, or attempting to obtain a divorce--her male relatives are bound by duty and culture to murder her. "

"...Steeped in a collective sense of identity, families take pride in the accomplishments of individual members and feel shame if one of them does something dishonorable. "The family plays a role in every aspect of life in the Arab world," says Nimrat. "Whatever you do, you have to consider the immediate family and extended family, even the neighbors. How will they react? What will they think?"

Unlike Western countries, which champion individualism, Arabs focus on the group. The family is more important than the individual.
In the feudal, patriarchal societies of the Middle East, honor is based on what men feel is important, and reputation is everything. Unfortunately, thousands of women have been killed in the name of honor because imagination and rumors are as important as actions and events. Most, but not all, of these killings involve Muslims. Some Jewish communities, from the ancient fortress of Masada to conservative Hasidic sects of today, have similar views of tradition and ritual law but refrain from killing women in the name of honor.

The murder of females in the Middle East is an ancient tradition. Prior to the arrival of Islam in AD 622, Arabs occasionally buried infant daughters to avoid the possibility that they would later bring shame to the family. This practice continued through the centuries. It may still occur today among Bedouins, who consider girls most likely to sully the honor..."

The Price of Freedom

Image: Cox & Forkum Steven Vincent -August 05,2005

August 02, 2006 was the first anniversary of Steven's brutal death

Steven Vincent: Bloggers remember one of their own

In New York last week, I had the privilege to meet with Lisa Ramaci-Vincent. We talked about the wonderful man Steven was, the profound marks he left behind and the recognition he received during his life and after his tragic death. He was an honest and gifted writer known to be attentive to those he met. He was a successful art critic in New York but touched by the horrors of September 11, exactly five years ago today, Steven Vincent decided to leave for Iraq. He devoted his time to follow the reconstruction but was savagely murdered in Basra during his third trip on August 02, 2005.

Admired by many, Steven always maintained a dignified humility in life. He will always be deeply missed.

***

A few days ago, Iraqi journalist Ali Fadhil gave a brief TV interview on one of the major news broadcaster. I think it was on CNN.

Most of the content of this interview can be found in an article Mr. Fadhil published on September 6, 2006. Iraq’s Endangered Journalists

During the interview, Mr. Fadhil describes the perils that Iraqi journalists are facing every day. He is genuinely and quite understandingly concerned for the safety of Iraqi journalists and for the freedom of the press.

While, in his article in The New York time, he recognizes that "building a free press in Iraq was one of America’s greatest achievements" he explains how the situation has been dangerously degrading since. He also reports that American soldiers are responsible for the death of 14 Iraqi journalists.

Towards the end of the TV interview Fadhil is asked to comment on freedom of speech during Saddam's reign. Visibly relieved, he strongly admits that freedom of the press and freedom of movement have hugely improved since the fall of the regime.

Ali Fadhil's devotion to his country is commendable and his worries regarding the freedom of the press are quite understandable but I wished that during his TV interview he had found something to say about the enormous efforts that brought him the new freedoms he so wants to keep.

We hear too little on the price we must pay to guarantee our liberties and we hear hardly nothing on the sacrifices America made to this day to free Iraq from its decades of violence and nightmarish regime. We are however constantly reminded of the growing discontent with American policies in Iraq and elsewhere and America's "mistakes".

We all know that the difficulties in Iraq are mostly due to terrorism of internal and external origins and to the struggle between Iraqis themselves. Meanwhile the Arab media and MSM have been consistently leading a dishonest coverage of the war. All this goes well with this blind hatred for Bush's administration but surely does not help Iraq's future and everyone's interest. The challenge is to overcome all this together.

Lisa Ramaci-Vincent had something to say on one of Ali Fadhil's observation and reminded us all that Steven Vincent paid with his life for reporting a story.

Forwarded by Lisa Ramaci-Vincent

The New York Time
A Journalist’s Death
To the Editor:
September 9, 2006

While reading “Iraq’s Endangered Journalists,” by Ali Fadhil (Op-Ed, Sept. 6), I was shocked by his claim that “foreign reporters ... have the advantage of being considered untouchable by the Iraqi police and security forces.”

Might I remind Mr. Fadhil that on Aug. 2, 2005, my husband, Steven Vincent, an American journalist living in and writing from Basra, was kidnapped and killed by five men in police uniforms?

Two days before Steven’s murder, The New York Times ran an Op-Ed article he wrote in which he disclosed how the British Army was ignoring both the infiltration of the Basra police force by Iranian-backed Shiite militias, and the resulting spike in fundamentalist violence. He specifically mentioned the white police vehicles used to abduct and kill an ever increasing number of people; two days later, one of those vehicles came for him.

Steven thus has the dubious distinction of being one of the few foreign journalists in this Iraq conflict specifically targeted for execution.

Lisa Ramaci-Vincent
New York, Sept. 7, 2006

Photo taken a couple weeks ago at ground zero.

Diane

Beheaded: Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed - Sudan

Difficult Images, September 07 2006 Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed, found beheaded

Update, September 08, 2006
More on Sudanese editor Mohamed Taha Mohamed Ahmed.

Dead child abused for better photo.

...

...
It is painful enough to lose a child, what about when his lifeless body is used for photo opportunity?

Videofootage of Green Helmet acting as a cynical movie director in Qana, July 30th, 2006 - TV magazine "ZAPP, Germany's NDR

From the excellent LGF

Qana's Children
Sammy
July 31, 2006
The Free West

War with Photographs
How terrorists of Hizbullah make propaganda with dead children.
Julian Reichelt and Sebastian von Bassewitz
IHC ask the question, "Was the whole world deceived by terrorists of Hizbullah?"
Israel Hasbara Committee.

An open letter to AP, AFP, and Reuters about the Qana photos
To Robert Spencer, Charles Johnson, and their readers...
Jihad Watch

Children and their family dying in unimaginable brutality don't quite get the same attention from the world today. Sudan (See The Art of War ).
Rwanda - 1994, on 800,000 killed, 300 000 were children (UNICEF).

On August 02, 2006 in Iraq: Children killed by bombs during soccer game.

When Israelis fires hit innocents used as shields by Hezbollah, we weep, when Muslims kill or abused other Muslims and none-Muslims in Iraq or anywhere else in the world, we barely notice or if we do, we forget too quickly.

Remember the Beslan Massacre.
On September 1, 2004 more than 1200 school children and adults were taken hostage by Muslim terrorists at School Number One in Beslan, Russia.

A confrontation between the hostage-takers and Russian security forces lead to the death of 344 civilians, 186 of them children, while hundreds more were wounded and deeply traumatized.


A confrontation between the hostage-takers and Russian security forces lead to the death of 344 civilians, 186 of them children, while hundreds more were wounded and deeply traumatized.

Photo credit Stinger-Russia/ Reuters
Soucre:Ossezia, si conclude in un bagno di sangue il dramma degli ostaggi


Today, how many were savagely killed in Iraq ?
From Daily War News

Child abuse, photos sources :

<-Town Hall, see baby 1, baby 2

Green Helmet and child, Zombie Time

Child dispayed by a "soldier" with bran new uniform, Riehl World View