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The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

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War

Al-Qaeda- This Is Evil

July 8, 2007 by Jack Steiner 5 Comments

The following information comes from Michael Yon’s blog but it has been widely reported around the net.

Since my reporting of the massacre at the al Hamari village, many readers at home have asked how anyone can know that al Qaeda actually performed the massacre. The question is a very good one, and one that I posed from the first hour to Iraqis and Americans while trying to ascertain facts about the killings.

No one can claim with certainty that it was al Qaeda, but the Iraqis here seem convinced of it. At a meeting today in Baqubah one Iraqi official I spoke with framed the al Qaeda infiltration and influence in the province. Although he spoke freely before a group of Iraqi and American commanders, including Staff Major General Abdul Kareem al Robai who commands Iraqi forces in Diyala, and LTC Fred Johnson, the deputy commander of 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, the Iraqi official asked that I withhold his identity from publication. His opinion, shared by others present, is that al Qaeda came to Baqubah and united many of the otherwise independent criminal gangs.

Speaking through an American interpreter, Lieutenant David Wallach who is a native Arabic speaker, the Iraqi official related how al Qaeda united these gangs who then became absorbed into “al Qaeda.” They recruited boys born during the years 1991, 92 and 93 who were each given weapons, including pistols, a bicycle and a phone (with phone cards paid) and a salary of $100 per month, all courtesy of al Qaeda. These boys were used for kidnapping, torturing and murdering people.

At first, he said, they would only target Shia, but over time the new al Qaeda directed attacks against Sunni, and then anyone who thought differently. The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family. (Emphasis is mine)

Other bloggers who covered this include: Seraphic Secret, Sleeping Ugly and The Right Truth among others. It is worth mentioning again that a US Army raid netted a copy of the Al-Qaeda Torture handbook.

In modern society we often hesitate to use labels. In many ways I am sympathetic to that particular point of view, but at the same time I understand that there are needs that over ride others.

And let’s face it, an organization such as Al-Qaeda has no redeeming features. People who subscribe to this murderous and evil ideology need to be dealt with and handled with extreme prejudice. They would not hesitate to do so with us and we mustn’t with them.

Filed Under: Evil, Terrorism, War

D-Day

June 6, 2007 by Jack Steiner 2 Comments

Again I offer my thanks to those who fought so that we could live as we do today. Here is a link to what I wrote last year.

Filed Under: History, US. World, War

Al-Qaeda Torture Handbook

May 24, 2007 by Jack Steiner 3 Comments

The Smoking Gun has information about materials taken in a US Army raid on a house in Iraq.

MAY 24–In a recent raid on an al-Qaeda safe house in Iraq, U.S. military officials recovered an assortment of crude drawings depicting torture methods like “blowtorch to the skin” and “eye removal.” Along with the images, which you’ll find on the following pages, soldiers seized various torture implements, like meat cleavers, whips, and wire cutters. Photos of those items can be seen here. The images, which were just declassified by the Department of Defense, also include a picture of a ramshackle Baghdad safe house described as an “al-Qaeda torture chamber.”

I am more than a little disturbed by this. Scroll down the page and you can see the drawings here.

Hat Tip: EOW.

Filed Under: Al Qaeda, Terrorism, War

Voices of The Fallen

March 26, 2007 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Newsweek has a special section called Voices of the Fallen. It is composed of letters/videos/audio recordings that the families of fallen vets shared. Regardless of what you think of the war it is worth taking a moment to look/listen.

These people gave their lives. We can honor their memory.

Click here.

Filed Under: Iraq, War

Iran ‘seizes’ 15 British sailors

March 23, 2007 by Jack Steiner 3 Comments

Things continue to stay heated with Iran. There may be some confusion about whose waters they were in, but on the other hand I still think that Iran is testing. It is a dangerous game they play.

Iran ‘seizes’ 15 British sailors

LONDON, England (CNN) — An Iranian naval patrol seized 15 British marines and sailors who had boarded a vessel suspected of smuggling cars off the coast of Iraq, military officials said.

The British government immediately demanded the safe return of its troops and summoned Tehran’s London ambassador to explain the incident.

The Royal Marines and ordinary naval officers were believed to have been apprehended by up to six ships from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy who claimed they had violated Iranian waters.

British naval officials said the sailors, using small boarding craft, had completed an inspection of a merchant vessel in Iraqi waters when the Iranians arrived.

Commodore Nick Lambert, commander of the HMS Cornwall — the frigate from which the British patrol had been deployed — said the incident did not involve fighting or use of weapons.

“We’ve been assured from the scant communications that we’ve had from the Iranians at the tactical level that the 15 people are safely in their hands,” he said.

The British defense ministry said that it was pursuing the incident “at the highest level.”

There was no immediate comment from Iranian officials.

Lambert said the British sailors had been on a “normal, routine boarding” of a vessel that had aroused suspicions as it navigated the Shatt al-Arab, a disputed waterway that marks the border between Iraq and Iran on the shores of the Persian Gulf.

For more information click here.

Filed Under: Britain, Iran, Iraq, Politics, War

This Disgusts Me

March 21, 2007 by Jack Steiner 2 Comments

Animals behave like this, people do not.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Iraqi insurgents used two children as cover to get through a checkpoint in Baghdad and then blew up the car while the kids were still inside, a U.S. general said Tuesday.

The car went through a checkpoint Sunday and parked by a market across the street from a school, said Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations in the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Two adults jumped from the car, leaving the children in the back. Moments later, the car exploded, witnesses said.

Filed Under: Politics, Terrorism, War

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