Greek mythology often encapsulated an entire culture's worst fears and depravities-and over centuries of story-telling became ever more complex and layered and bizarre.
But what is strange about reading Michael Yon's graphic descriptions from Iraq is that al Qaeda (or its kindred) seems almost in a single generation to be outdoing a millennium of savagery present in Greek history and myth. You have to go to Thucydides's Mycalessus to find a parallel of wiping out even the animals of a small village.
On Friday, Yon reported that al Qaeda served up a son for dinner to his own family" a barbarism reminiscent of Atreus (hence the "curse" on the House of Atreus) cooking (sans feet and hands) and then serving his twin brother's sons to their unsuspecting father Thyestes. So Yon reports a revolting modern-day Thysestean feast:
[blockquote]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.[/blockquote]
What is striking about all this savagery"whether with the filmed beheadings of Westerners in Iraq to the recent flaming Johnny Storm human torch at Glasgow, screaming epithets as he sought to engulf bystanders and ignite his canisters " is the absolute silence of the West, either distracted by Paris and i-Phones or suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome and obsessed with Guantanamo.
It is hard to recall an enemy so savage and yet one so largely ignored by rich affluent and distracted elites as the radical jihadists, as we have to evoke everything from mythology to comic books to find analogies to their extra-human viciousness.
For a self-congratulatory culture issuing moral lectures on everything from global warming to the dangers of smoking, the silence of the West toward the primordial horror from Gaza to Anbar is, well, horrific in its own way as well...
On June 29, American and Iraqi soldiers were again fighting side-by-side as soldiers from Charley Company 1-12 CAV, led by Captain Clayton Combs, and Iraqi soldiers from the 5th IA, closed in on a village on the outskirts of Baqubah. The village had the apparent misfortune of being located near a main road " about 3.5 miles from FOB Warhorse " that al Qaeda liked to bomb. Al Qaeda had taken over the village. As Iraqi and American soldiers moved in, they came under light contact, but the real threat were the bombs planted in the roads and maybe in the houses.
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The firefight progressed. American missiles were fired. The enemy might have been trying to bait Iraqi and American soldiers into ambush, but it did not work. The village was riddled with bombs, some of them large enough to destroy a tank. One by one, experts destroyed the bombs, leaving small and large craters in the unpaved roads.
The village was abandoned. All the people were gone. But where?
Soldiers from 1-12 Cav allowed me to go to the village in one of their M-1 tanks.
As often happens in Iraq, the first time I meet American combat soldiers, we are invariably about to go off and do something serious. Although the soldiers usually do not know me from Adam, they are courteous and professional, and always watching out for me. And so it was with LT Baxter, who was commanding the M-1 tank that I"d be riding along in, and who made sure I didn"t break my neck getting into the tank. I nearly pulled him off getting up, but luckily he was strong.
The tankers drove off FOB Warhorse, and only a few miles later, we arrived at the outskirts of the abandoned village.
American soldiers began unloading dozens of body bags, and the Iraqi soldiers, with grim looks, carried them into the village.
Captain Clayton Combs has been fighting hard in Diyala for about ten months, much of it side-by-side with Iraqi soldiers from the 5th Division. Each time I"ve come into contact with the 5th, they seem better than the rest, and American officers and sergeants who work with them have good things to report about them, saying that although the 5th still has far to go, and cannot sustain itself logistically, it can fight.
Captain Combs said the 3-25 has never run away from combat, and never refused to close on the enemy. Combs said, "I"ve fought with 3-25 (this Iraqi unit) for 10 months in Diyala and they have always come when I am in trouble. They always go on patrols when I ask. They never back down."
I asked Captain Combs to repeat what he said, making sure he realized I was planning to quote him directly. A veteran like Combs would be unlikely to append his name to such words if he weren"t dead serious. Captain Combs repeated his words and stuck by them. He then demonstrated that faith when we took off into the danger zone with nine soldiers from 5th IA: just Captain Combs, Iraqi soldiers and me. As we passed through the village, Captain Combs pointed out the nice houses, saying the people had been simple farmers with comfortable homes and lives.
Until al Qaeda came.
The houses all were empty. We passed by two donkeys each shot in the neck. Al Qaeda had killed their livestock.
Al Qaeda often plants bombs inside the dead bodies of the animals and people they"ve killed. They have even rigged children"s bodies.
Some steps later, we passed by a crater " one of many in this village " made on June 29 when bomb experts destroyed an IED.
Then a few steps beyond the crater, Captain Combs pointed out a car that had been filled with explosives. American soldiers had destroyed it with a Thermite grenade.
A short walk later, as we passed more abandoned homes, I saw an empty AK-47 magazine on the ground. The houses were in shambles: broken glass and ski masks littered the area. The Iraqi soldier with the goggles saw a photograph on the ground, and picked it up.
We walked into the palm groves nearby. There was a terrible stench. The heat and the vegetation reminded me of the Killing Fields in Cambodia. I had visited the Killing Fields shortly before the most recent trip to Iraq"¦
Click here to read the full dispatch " with graphic photos " from Michael Yon from Iraq.
" Michael Yon is an independent writer, photographer, and former Green Beret who was embedded in Iraq for nine months in 2005. He has returned to Iraq for 2007 to continue reporting on the war. He is entirely reader supported and publishes his work at www.michaelyon-online.com.[/i]
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John Adams The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.
Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
This is the exact point on which I disagree with how we are dealing with this enemy. There is nothing other than death that will ever stop these sick bastards.
We don't have the man power to quickly and throughly hunt these guys down and exterminate them.
And unless we become determined to finish this job we need to get out and let someone with the desire to kill these nut jobs.
I have said it before and I'll say it again, the only way to deal with this enemy is to exterminate them like roaches and rats. It is going to call for total warfare, no mercy, no quarter given.
The saddest part is that due to the last2-3 decades of the pussification of America, we haven't the guts, the resolve, or the will to do what is neccessary anymore. WWII ended only 62 years ago, yet only 62 years later America has become the land of the wussies.
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1 SHOT-1 KILL: NOT JUST A MOTTO, IT' S A WAY OF LIFE.
The US has become a totalwussy state. i usuallysubstitute another letter at the beginning of that wordto describe the lack of national resolve. Except for military personnel no one has any guts anymore: The politicians have no guts, the general populace are content to sit at home and whine about an "unjust war" or cheerlead.
Now it is PC for the news panjandrums to refer to enemy POWs as "detainees." When a POW is captured the whiney media says that US forces "arrested" him.
The worse thing that ever happened to this country waswhen the US military allowed the newsies to send uncensored real time stuff onto the networks. Now the scumbags go and search outenemy combatants andgive them free air timeon TV. Never mind that they never tell the US military where the enemy is hiding. Sorry, i gotta puke.
God help us if we ever get into another war like WWII.
Far too much political correctness when dealing with these sub-human terrorists. How many innocent died during the saturation bombing during WW II? It was accepted because all knew what had to be done to win the the war as well as the concequenses of not winning.The problem is thatthe mainstream media is handcuffing the free world by looking for political correctness. I'm sure that a terror attacktaking out CNN's headquarters in Atlanta would change the way the media would report on terrorism. When these terror attacks happen to the innocent it is just news and that means dollars to the mainstream media. I hope and pray that it does not take another 9/11 to firm the resolve of the free world to exterminate these extremist terrorists.
We are dealing with a species of humanoids that refuse to leave the fifth century. And there are those that think we can actually win something by fighting this war.
This war is a one side takes all affair and we seem incapable of seeing our true enemy.
Here is just another example of why we will not win until we decide that they all must die for there to be victory.
A rabid dog is given more respect than this...........[:'(]
TEHRAN, Iran " In a rare confirmation, Iran[/b] on Tuesday said a man convicted of adultery was stoned to death last week in a village in the northern part of the country, Iran's judiciary spokesman said.[/b]
Jafar Kiani was stoned to death in Aghchekand[/b] village, 124 miles west of the capital, Tehran, on Thursday, Ali Reza Jamshidi told reporters. It was the first time in years that Iran has confirmed such an execution.
"This verdict was carried out Thursday," Jamshidi told reporters.
Death sentences are carried out in Iran after they are upheld by the Supreme Court. Under Iran's Islamic law, adultery is punishable by stoning.
Jamshidi didn't elaborate on how the stoning was carried out, but under Islamic rulings, a male convict is usually buried up to his waist while a female criminal is buried up to her neck with her hands also buried.
Those carrying out the verdict start throwing stones and rocks at the convict until he or she dies.
For the sake of sounding like a broken record, everyone started losing their guts when the women's movement started and they let them keep going. Further more you have people trying to say that there is no difference in boys and girls. People want the boys to sit nice like little girls and play nice. Not my sons, my sons are going to be raised as sons. Baseball, football, cars, trucks, fourwheelers.... My sons may grow up and decide they don't want to be in the military but it won't be because they were raised like girls.
Not for the weak stomach
