This is from mil.blogger Michael Yon who is with the 3-2 Stryker Brigade near Baqubah, Iraq.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/...-july-2007.htm

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.

Is this just arab hyperbole? Possibly. But there's no denying the widespread reports of al Queda meeting with families who had young men and slitting the throat of the oldest son if he failed to conscript.

It can't be denied that AQIZ has slaughtered entire villages. Fathers made to dig graves for their children and then being murdered in front of their families.

Are these really the people we want to turn the middle east over to? Something everyone should think about before surrendering to the knee-jerk "We've got to get out of there."

__________________
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

Only the Iraquis themselves can decide to drive these monsters out of their midst. Al Queda in Iraq simply could not exist without significant locla support and increasingly the leadership is Iraqui, not Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian. Its a horrible problem but its only a problem the Iraqui's themselves can fix.

__________________
A song that says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqITJFGyq4s

Ultimately, yes.
However the Iraqis are clearly not ready to take over all the heavy lifting by themselves.
Some of the Iraqi units are excellent, but some are not up to speed yet. We need to stand by them as they learn to do it for themselves or Iraq will become an al Queda state and no one will trust us to stand with them.

__________________
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

On Sunday, the New York Times' public editor took the paper to task for not sufficiently explaining the difference between Al Qaeda and "Al Qaeda in Iraq."

The former is bin Laden and Company, the people who master-minded 9/11. The latter is a group of Iraqis who found bin Laden inspiring and named their insurgency after his. The former is like the original McDonalds; the latter a franchise with an independent owner. I don't know whether the latter pays any royalties for the use of the name.

The important fact here is that Al Qaeda in Iraq would not exist but for the U.S. presence.

The trick is that you have to persuade and control people based on their own psychology. The American psychology behind war is like that of our view of police. You break in arrest and then help reform the criminal. The muslim version is that of extreme control and zero pity for law breakers. That's what we have to do or we might as well leave.

Well since most of the world view Iraq as a more or less unilateral occupation most of the world does not trust us to "stand with them" anyway.

__________________
A song that says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqITJFGyq4s

Good thinking on the part of the public editor! The most important thing to know is does Abu Hamza al-Muhajir have the keys to the al Queda tree house (statements by Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi might lead one to believe otherwise, but they're not as informed as the NYT PUBLIC EDITOR).

The terror training camps in Ramadi, Sammara, and Salman Pak were surely peaceful in nature and of no threat to anyone. The GSPC, Ansar al-Islam and Islamic Army Shura were no threat to anyone. And even if they were, we should have waited for them to hit us, like we did pre 9-11.

__________________
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

Gee, do you think U.K., Germany, Italy, France, Canada, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Mexico, Portugal, Denmark, Kuwait, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Rep., Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, Philippines, Bulgaria... wouldn't stand with us when they needed to? I think if you'd look at their militaries, you'd see they've outsourced their defense to us.

How about the people in Afghanistan and Iraq, are they standing with us?

The rest of the world, with very few exceptions break, into two groups: Those who don't "need" us but rely on us when they do.
Those that are populated by people who desperately wish we'd come stand with them.

__________________
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

Oh, I suspect that they were probably about as "peaceful in nature" as Camp Lejeune. (Why should the United States be the only one with terror training camps?) The point the editor was addressing wasn't whether "Al Qaeda in Iraq" had the capacity to kill people. His concern was to clarify their identity and motives. His informed conclusion was that the primary connection between bin Laden & Co. and these people in Iraq was that both were using the same name. (Bush, of course, wants to conflate the two because Al Qaeda is his favorite bogeyman.)

After making such a botch of Iraq, it's amazing (to me) to witness defenders of the war's continued disinterest in cause and motivation.

There's an old (possibly apocryphal) Civil War story about a rebel prisoner who, asked what he was fighting for, said "I'm fightin' cause yer down here!" Never, ever underestimate the loathing of people for someone outside of their locality coming in and telling them what to do.

Since polls in Iraq still show more 70% of Iraquis want a a US withdrawal and hundreds of thousands of Iraquis have fled the country for Iraq the answer would clearly be "No". That would explain the carbombs and IED's silly rabbit.

__________________
A song that says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqITJFGyq4s