I try to stay away from the toruture/Gitmo/Abu Ghraib discussions, but this caught my attention. An Al Qaeda training manual seized in the U.K. allegedly adviced its members that when captured or facing trial, “brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security.” I am not going to claim that all stories of torture are just rumors, but I cannot underestimate Al Qaeda and its efforts at propaganda. Take a look at the manual.

I am very skeptical of Amnesty International, and my skepticism started many years ago when I still lived in Colombia, long before this war came along, because of their, er, questionable, accounts of our quiet civil war. Purportedly well-meaning organizations like AI have an agenda, just like everyone else after all.

The whole time Jaime, my brother, a Corporal in the Marine Corps and a Combat Engineer, was deployed (spring and summer of 2003, spring of 2004 and summer of 2004 through spring of 2005), I felt we focused too much on the negative news coming from Iraq, and seldom heard of the Iraqi men training to defend their country from the terrorists and of our troops rebuiling stuff and helping the locals (not to say of all the atrocities the terrorists commit on innocent Iraqis). Jaime’s stories where scary, but I also knew good things were happening. I knew this because I made it a point to tell Jaime of good things happening in Iraq, things we do not hear of in the seven o’clock news, to remind him of what he was fighting for. After three tours, one injury, dead fellow Marines and many close calls, I am amazed at how well Jaime looks and feels these days. I think I owe it to him, after everything he has done and been through, to at least try to make all of you aware of the other side of all this negative news. Everyone here claims to support the troops, but I wonder how many of us actually think they are doing a good job, and how many have taken the time to read about the good things happening in Iraq. We spend hours and days arguing over Koran flushings and Bush (all valid things to talk about) but maybe some good news from the front lines could do us all some good (by the way, Jaime and I had many conversations about the war before he was deployed the first time and have argued over all aspects of the war, from whether the US should be involved to why Jaime has to be a warrior, and those conversations are never easy).

Some blogs where entires like these are found, from the frontlines (these are excerpts from some entries).

Cpl. Tom Sloan
AR RAMADI, Iraq (June 4, 2005) — While a majority of 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment’s frontline forces patrol the urban battlefield hunting for insurgents, a platoon of Marines with Company B have a different role in the securing of this city and the restoration of its infrastructure – training Iraqi Security Forces.

“They come to us knowing basic military knowledge,” said 2nd Lt. Michael L. Burke, the platoon’s commander. “We sharpen their skills and get them to the point of being able to conduct missions in the city.

…Marines teach them the fundamentals of patrolling, marksmanship and how to conduct hasty vehicle control points while on patrol. The soldiers are also taught detainee handling procedures and how to set up security positions.

Strowmatt, who’s in Iraq for the third time supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom, said he is honored to be a part of training Iraq’s future security forces.

“I believe in the mission the Marines and I are doing,” he said. “Working with them on a day-to-day basis and seeing them improve is gratifying. It’s a window into seeing the whole country getting better. The ISF will, with our help, eventually be able to take care of securing their own country so that I might not have to come back here a fourth time. We’re making our mark on Iraq by training these guys, which is something we can look back on later and say, ‘yeah, we were a part of that.’”

Since assuming the training role two months ago, Burke and his platoon of Marines have trained 600 ISF. He’s confident in the force they’ve stood up.

“They are very capable and professional,” he said. “They take charge and the general principles of mission accomplishment and troop welfare is important to them. Their performance is a testament to the Marines’ hard work.”

HADITHA, Iraq(June 2, 2005) — Since the middle of March, Team 4, Detachment 4, 5th Civil Affairs Group, II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD), has played a vital role in Haditha. The city is known as one of the hottest spots in western Iraq.

During Operation New Market, which began on the night of May 23, the main objective of the CAG team, led by Maj. Matthew D. Chisholm, Team 4 leader, was to assess recent damages done to Haditha Hospital. The hospital was damaged earlier in the month when insurgents occupied the building. The team also wanted to talk to the staff to see how the hospital was functioning and ask locals their opinions about personal care.

“It is very unfortunate that the hospital was involved in the situation,” said Chisholm, a San Diego native. “After an attack such as this one, the CAG team has to stop and look at the overall situation. We immediately begin to get things running, like communications and laboratory capabilities. The next closest hospital is Hit, so people need this hospital to get care.”

“The insurgents came in and took over [the hospital],” said a doctor working there. “We didn’t want them here but they came anyway.”

“We could all see how much the insurgency is hurting their own people by destroying the hospital which usually could serve up to 500 patients a day,” said Cmdr. David C. Lu, 5th CAG medical officer and civil affairs liaison.

I feel so sad for the cookie monster :(

(otherwise known as el mostro comegalletas)

As you all know, the oppression of Muslim women in western democracies is something I find outrageous. When a liberal state is directly or indirectly assisting in oppression and other illiberal and undemocratic behavior, it is particularly important to raise people’s awareness on the matter. As this article tells us, some young Muslims at Rutgers University are unhappy that Islamic activities on campus are dominated by adherents of the Wahhabi lobby, which consists of a cluster of organizations backed by Saudi Arabia and which professes the doctrines of the Wahhabi sect, the most radical form of Islam. As the article notes, not only Muslim women, but also Muslim men who practice a different kind of Islam are subject to Wahhabi oppression, at Rutgers and elsewhere in this country.

In April, the Islamic Society of Rutgers University, which has more than four hundred members and receives significant financing from the university system (the state), held an election. Fatima Agha has been outspoken about the events she witnessed during the ISRU election campaign, which she believes violate university policy, and which should clearly make you feel unconfortable about the election too. Some quotes from the article:

On April 21, a university employee named Mostafa Khalifa delivered a lecture to ISRU members on the nature of leadership. The apparent intent of the lecture was to assure that the ISRU election would have an “Islamic,” rather than a democratic and American character.

When voting itself took place, it was announced at the meeting that four male positions and three female positions were contested. According to Ms. Agha… [this] indicated that ISRU considers women students a lesser group — and thus supporting one of the most serious charges leveled against Islam, that of sex discrimination… ISRU is supposed to be a student service organization for the betterment of life on the Rutgers campus. It must therefore adhere to state and federal laws against sex discrimination. The board of ISRU does not have religious responsibilities, and Ms. Agha therefore challenges its establishment of a sex or gender standard for membership.

The seven elected representatives would then choose the ISRU president, who would bear the title “amir” or “commander.” This last detail, showing that ISRU had adopted the vocabulary of a paramilitary group rather than a student organization, is the most disturbing element in this story. Ms. Agha notes that, as announced during the elections, the “amir” of the Rutgers Muslim students would be required to be male and would enjoy “dictatorial power.”

According to Ms. Agha… [election tellers] did not even ask to see Rutgers I.D.

…embodying the Wahhabi manner, ISRU frequently sponsors lecturers who attack the beliefs of Shia and other pluralistic traditions in Islam, and engage in hate speech against non-Wahhabi believers.

UPDATE: This article talks about the responses Stephen Schwartz received to the above article.

Since I have been talking about oppression of Muslim women in Western democracies, I figured I would post about it, and for those interested in reading more about feminist critiques of multiculturalism, I suggest Susan Okin’s Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women.

I believe we should be outraged that a purportedly liberal country like Canada would endorse what amounts to government sanctioned oppression of women, in the name of religious tolerance and for the sake of expediency.

The challenges and flaws of multiculturalism, and what I have been referring to when denouncing Islamic culture as not just different from ours, but truly bad for its people, are more eloquently discussed in this article (from a subscription only site):

(more…)

This story reminded me of a post about the definition of terrorism v. insurgency we had a while back. I argued for an expanded definition of terrorism, by loosely defining terrorism as people who target and terrorize innocent civilians to achieve a political goal by hostile means. Like I said at the time, I think Americans should know about the terrorism in Colombia since U.S. tax dollars and military might and brains are very involved in everything going on down there. A quote from the article:

“What happens in Colombia could create a legal precedent — defining when a terrorist is no longer a terrorist — that could be applied to future efforts to disarm other “foreign terrorist organizations” elsewhere, like Hamas and Hizbollah.”

I am not sure how I feel about the transition program yet. I clearly feel strongly about terrorist organizations in Colombia, and I know that talking to terrorists has been fruitless in the past, resulting in more land concessions, more violence and more displaced poor peasants and the urban misery it brings. I do not think talking to thugs works, because their word cannot be trusted, and the leftist guerrillas/terrorists have become mere thugs, devoid of any marxist socioeconomic ideal. The right-wing militias are equally deplorable and violent, but they are the outgrowth of a national army incapable of taking on the guerrillas, and a political class unwilling to take the hard stance that President Uribe is taking. (Left and right mean different things in Colombia than in America.) The militias have at times degenerated into thugs themselves, losing sight of their original goal of fighting the guerrillas where the government could not. At the same time, I have seen in my lifetime a very violent leftist rebel organization which still had not lost sight of its ideal succesfully complete peace talks and reintegrate into society, becoming a political party. Can the AUC turn around and reintegrate themselves as productive citizens of Colombia? I hope so, I am not sure, but now the U.S. needs to decide, soon.

I thought this article tied into a discussion we had a couple of days ago over the leftist bias in academia. It also argues that there is an anti-science bias on the left.

Here are some excerpts:

Republicans are too anti-science to become good professors. That’s the essence of Paul Krugman’s recent New York Times column explaining why there are so few Republican college professors. …

Many college leftists want more women but fewer Republicans in their ranks. They cite diversity as the reason for desiring more women, but this creates a problem since this diversity rationale would seem to indicate that they should also seek to hire more Republicans. …

Much of the left in humanities departments doesn’t believe in science. They feel that it’s wrong to privilege scientific over other types of knowledge. Leftists have been known to use literary theory to demonstrate flaws in science.