COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Execution of Eighteen Captured Employees of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior by the Islamic State of Iraq. (no video)




Iraq, issued to jihadist forums today, Saturday, March 3, 2007, the execution video of the eighteen captured employees of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. The Islamic State had announced the capture of these individuals on Thursday, March 1, claiming it to be primarily in response to the rape accusations of a Sunni woman, Sabrin al-Janabi, towards Shi’ite security forces. In that prior message, two demands were made of the Iraqi government to secure the release of these men within a 24-hour period. The following day, the group issued a second statement, announcing that due to the refusal of the Iraqi government to negotiate for the release, instead being “arrogant”, the Shari’a Courts of the Islamic State of Iraq ordered the execution of Allah’s Orders on the captured employees.


The video opens with footage of the men blindfolded and sitting in rows, and a message is shown on-screen that is also dictated. Its words are similar to those of the two prior statements, but add that the Mujahideen rose to action after the appeal of the Emir of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, which he presented in an audio message addressing Sabrin. They add: “This operation is only a drop in the bucket, and what will come is more wicked and bitter, with the permission of Allah the Almighty.”
SITE Institute

20 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Well, duece, it is "Back to the Future" in Iraq.

    "General Petraeus seems to agree that the prime minister's Baghdad security plan should not be seen as a crackdown but as a political effort that has important security aspects," Ahmed Chalabi, who heads the committee charged with building public support for the new effort, told me by telephone from Baghdad last week.

    Maliki has turned to the energetic but controversial Chalabi -- once supported by key figures in the Bush administration and then dumped by the White House, allegedly because of his ties to Iran -- to work on the task of reconciliation between Shiites and Sunnis at the neighborhood level. "People are fed up with the violence" and may be ready to overcome old differences, says Chalabi, who seems to have noticeably softened his harsh judgments of the limited place ex-Baathists should occupy in Iraqi society.


    Ahmed Chalabi
    Years have just wasted away.

    Back to the Future.

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  3. This is the back-ground source for the rape story:

    Rape Cases Emerge From The Shadows

    By Dahr Jamail & Ali al-Fadhily


    03 March, 2007
    Inter Press Service


    BAGHDAD, Mar 1 (IPS) - Reports of the gang-rape of 20-year-old Sabrine al-Janabi by three policemen has set off new demands for justice from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government.

    Janabi, who lives in the Hai al-Amil area of southern Baghdad with her husband, was taken from her home Feb. 18 to a police station and accused of assisting resistance fighters.

    Janabi told al-Jazeera channel Feb. 19 that three police commandos raped her in the police garrison after accusing her of cooking for resistance fighters.

    "One of them put his hand on my mouth so no one outside the room could hear me," she said in a videotaped statement. "I told them 'I did not know that an Iraqi could do this to another Iraqi'."

    She said "I begged them not to rape me and I swore to them that I was a good woman and I am like a sister to them, but they did it one after the other."

    Nouri al-Maliki's office issued a statement that medical evidence showed Janabi had not been raped. That statement has turned the event into a political crisis.

    Janabi is Sunni, and the police predominantly Shia. Sunnis have long accused the police of using heavy-handed tactics against Sunnis during "security operations." But this incident appears to be highlighting widespread displeasure with the Iraqi government at least as much as stoking strained sectarian tensions.

    Maliki's office described Janabi as "a liar" and recommended that the three accused policeman be commended, in response to demands for an independent investigation from both Shia and Sunni opposition groups.

    The New York Times reported that an Iraqi nurse who says she treated Janabi saw signs of sexual and physical assault.

    Stories of rape committed by both U.S. and Iraqi soldiers have appeared since the early days of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The first stories emerged from inside Abu Ghraib prison. These, along with photographic evidence of sexual humiliation, provoked widespread anger across Iraq.

    Rape victims in Iraq rarely come forward because they fear public scorn and humiliation. A Muslim woman who acknowledges being raped risks death at the hands of male relatives seeking to restore family honour.

    Dr. Harith al-Dhari, secretary-general of the Sunni religious group The Association of Muslim Scholars, told reporters this week that rapes take place often, but victims are not coming forward to file complaints.

    But since Janabi went public with her story, other stories of rape have begun to emerge.

    On Feb. 22 a 50-year-old Sunni woman accused four Iraqi soldiers of raping her and attempting to rape her two daughters. She took her story to minister Izzidin Dola, who then brought the mayor of her city and a group of tribal chiefs to her home in order to take her statement.

    "At least four police officers participated in that crime and they are facing legal procedures," Dola told IPS.

    "The Iraqi police are following the example of those who trained them," Ahmed Mukhtar, a school headmaster in the northern Iraqi city Mosul told IPS. "American soldiers did it more than a thousand times and got away with it. They sentenced that soldier who killed Abeer after raping her with a hundred years imprisonment, but we Iraqis are not fools, and we know he will be on parole sooner than he hopes."

    Mukhtar was referring to the gang rape of 14-year-old Abeer al-Janabi last year near Mahmudiya south of Baghdad. Janabi was then killed together with her parents and younger sister. Soldiers then burnt the bodies in an attempt to cover their crime.

    Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, 24, was sentenced Feb. 23 to 100 years in prison, but is eligible for parole in 10 years. Cortez pleaded guilty to the rape and killing.

    Iraqi resistance groups have issued statements declaring that the Iraqi police and soldiers involved in recent rapes would be given "proper punishment."

    (Ali al-Fadhily is our Baghdad correspondent. Dahr Jamail is our specialist writer who spent eight months reporting from inside Iraq, and has been covering the Middle East for several years)

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  4. Can the US embed Western mores and values in the Iraqi forces in 8 to 12 months?

    After four years of first class, the US at it's best, training efforts.
    How could anyone expect a greater rate of real change, in 8 to 12 more months?

    Even the Katrina recovery has fallen short, why would the results of US Federal "reconstruction" in Iraq be expected to exceed their results inside our own Homeland?

    The Federals have proven themselves dysfunctional.

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  5. Prince Bandar is workin' his magic, but it may not be enough:

    It would have been a sensitive visit in any case - a meeting between the two most prominent figures in the Middle East today, who represent the Shi'ite and Sunni worlds - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Saudi king Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz VI.
    ...
    Bandar's father, Prince Sultan (the country's minister of defense) is next in line to the Saudi throne, as his half-brother Abdullah is already over 85. Bandar maintains close ties with the Muhabarat [special police force] in Saudi Arabia, whose main function is protecting the country from terror (mainly Shi'ite), and is expected to succeed his father as king.
    ...
    Saturday evening, Ahmadinejad landed in Riyadh to a king's welcome. Feasts were prepared for him. Abdullah meant to speak with him about everything, but first and foremost the nuclear issue. Because they don't share a common language (Ahmadinejad knows only Farsi, and Abdullah doesn't speak it) the conversation was conducted through an interpreter. Abdullah was obviously trying. He sat close to Ahmadinejad, something he doesn't often do with his guests, and tried to smile for the cameras before the meeting.
    ...
    The Iranian president essentially spurned the Saudis' hand, extended in hopes of preventing a major crisis in the Gulf. The Saudis themselves are also afraid of such a crisis, with its many possible scenarios. Could the 15 percent of their Shi'ite population begin an uprising? Could Iran attack them? This scares them.

    Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, sales talk and when to make his move. Apparently he has decided that it isn't yet time to let Iran off its crazy merry-go-round, and continues to defy the United States and the West.
    ...
    The tension builds.

    by Dr. Guy Bechor who is head of Middle Eastern Studies at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya. printed in the JPost

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  6. In referencing an essay written by Harrison, I did not mention habu. No slight was intended. Apology is offered to all who may have been offended.

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  7. "The Islamic State had announced the capture of these individuals on Thursday, March 1, claiming it to be primarily in response to the rape accusations of a Sunni woman, Sabrin al-Janabi, towards Shi’ite security forces."

    "Rape is being used in the settling of scores in the sectarian war." Yanar Mohammed describes how a Shia girl was kidnapped, raped and dumped in the Husseiniya area of Baghdad. The retaliation, she says, was the kidnapping and rape of several Sunni girls in the Rashadiya area. Tit for tat.

    Meanwhile, where are the feminist groups? What are they up to these days?

    Melody Drnach, vice president of action for the National Organization for Women, said NOW officially refers to so-called snowmen as snowpersons."

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  8. Could Iran attack them? This scares them.


    Someone somewhere is actually expected to believe this?

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  9. Meanwhile, where are the feminist groups?

    Defending the right of Jihadi feminists to wear a burka.

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  10. The JPost is no longer reliable, if it ever was, mat?

    Since the Saudi spin has even infiltrated those pundits in the heart of Israel?

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  11. Desert Rat said, "Since the Saudi spin has even infiltrated those pundits in the heart of Israel?"

    Not Prime Time Glick.

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  12. d'Rat,

    I read it for the readers comments and opinions. For News, I listen to Israeli talk radio.

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  13. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  14. Trish,
    Your posts more often than not have an enigmatic quality, leaving us to guess WHY you think what you think.
    (from those years as an interogator)
    A penny (or even mored) for your thoughts about why you think Newt is so far off the mark.
    I don't mind (much) saying that I am too dense to know.

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  15. (from those years as an interogator)
    That was supposed to have a question mark (?) after it.

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  16. The Mohammedans have no industrial base, the 1930's fascists had industrial parity, in EU at least.

    The fascist of the 1930's were a mortal aggressive peril and EU was razed by Armies.
    The Mohammedan Legions have attacked across no border, they've annexed no territory, they've signed no Munich type treaty.

    A mortal peril is not met with profeminist propaganda in the Arab world. A nonmortal cultural threat is met that way, with propaganda, a mortal threat is met with steel.

    So, as trish explains it, to meet a mortal peril with less than steel, is harebrained.

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  17. As for US propaganda, we sell ourselves daily.

    Anna Nicole, Ms Spears & Ms Richie.
    They tell our tale, well.

    duece spoke of the rude "young Americans" in Costa Rica, presenting a new form of "ugly".

    Sturgis, NASCAR, or Daisy Duke jeans. Black, white, brown.
    Rap, Country, Rock, it's all US

    I'm not sure I'd buy it, as packaged and sold.

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  18. Why is Chalabi back? Have they not realised it was his recommendations egging Bremer on that resulted in the disastrous post-war policies? Truly back to the future, as dr has succintly put it.

    re: invasion

    KSA is nevertheless believing in this, judging from their recent decisions regarding beefing up their conventional military forces, no matter how unlikely - should Iraq fall victim to Iranian domination. Even so, Iran's army is far from competent. In comparison to the Saudis? That I'm not so sure of.

    re: grand strategy

    Now that requires all aspects of national power to be subjugated to that sole objective of projecting this "grand strategy", and if Gingrich's expecting the Democrats - of all people, who over the past six years have failed to come up with any solid, justifiable alternatives - to devise something like this and actually have the principles to stick to it, he's sorely mistaken.

    I'm cautiously wary about his reference to "dictatorship", especially his recommendation about female rights: one wonders if he is not influenced by the Transnational Progressivists. Contrary to what he thinks, female rights is far from the cleanest fight - it is as riven with internal divisions as any other political movement.

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  19. DR,

    Anna Nicole, Ms Spears & Ms Richie.
    They tell our tale, well.

    Its Britney w/o her panties that sends the Mohammedans into a ulululululu frenzy! The Talibes don't even want to see the skin on a woman's face & dear Britney is not only sans panties, she's got a smoothie. How in the hell is that sexually repressed, but overcharged, Mohammedan male mind gonna process that!

    Come to think of it, if we just want them all to blow a gasket (literally), our porn industry might be the best weapon.

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  20. I'm just moppin' up as usual, after all the rabble rousers have gone home.

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