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The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Sunday, June 1, 2008

Fellow Marine Lost

On leave from the violence he had survived in the war in Iraq, a young Marine was so wary of crime on the streets of his own home town that he carried only $8 to avoid becoming a robbery target.

Despite his caution, Lance Cpl. Robert Crutchfield, 21, was shot point-blank in the neck during a robbery at a bus stop. Feeding and breathing tubes kept him alive 4 1/2 months, until he died of an infection on May 18.

Two men have been charged in the attack, and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason said Friday the case was under review to decide whether to seek the death penalty.

"It is an awful story," said Alberta Holt, the young Marine's aunt and his legal guardian when he was a teenager determined to flee a troubled Cleveland school for safer surroundings in the suburbs.

Crutchfield was attacked on Jan. 5 while he and his girlfriend were waiting for a bus. He had heeded the warnings of commanders that a Marine on leave might be seen as a prime robbery target with a pocketful of money, so he only carried $8, his military ID card and a bank card.

"They took it, turned his pockets inside out, took what he had and told him since he was a Marine and didn't have any money he didn't deserve to live. They put the gun to his neck and shot him," Holt told The Associated Press.

The two men charged in the attack were identified as Ean Farrow, 19, and Thomas Ray III, 20, both of Cleveland. Their attorneys did not respond to The Associated Press' requests for comment.

Crutchfield knew he was returning to Iraq for another tour of duty, but had hesitated to tell his family until he was nearing the end of his 30-day leave.

He apparently had a troubled family. Holt wouldn't discuss it except to say "his mom and dad didn't raise him, just his grandmother and me." He didn't smoke or drink, she said.

He had attended Cleveland's inner-city East High School, but asked that he be allowed to live with his aunt and grandmother and attend suburban Bedford High School for his final two years.

"He saw his school was in turmoil and asked to get out," Holt said.

Bedford High teachers recalled Crutchfield's smile, his pride in his appearance, his determination to join the Marine Corps after graduation in 2005 and his aspiration to become an architect.

"He was friendly and kind and willing to help out in any way that he could," counselor Yvonne Sims said in an e-mail.

Connie LaNasa, who works in the school office, said Crutchfield was a well-behaved student and went about his school work with little notice.

"He lived out what he wanted to do and that is to be a Marine," LaNasa said.

Faculty members remembered Crutchfield as a top student in the computer design program, an office assistant and participant in the prom fashion show.

After his long hospitalization, an infection broke out a week before he died. "He said it felt like he was getting hit by lightning," Holt said.

When Crutchfield's body was laid out Tuesday in the Sacrificial Missionary Baptist Church, his white military dress hat was tugged down close to his eyes to conceal the skull flap that had been kept open to relieve swelling in his brain.

Marines provided an honor guard at his funeral service and carried the casket to his grave at the Western Reserve National Cemetery near Akron.

He was buried there on the same day as a Vietnam veteran, two veterans from World War II and three from Korea.

*****

What they hell do they mean "under review to decide whether to seek the death penalty"! Having survived his attempted murder by proxy that the shrub and cabal set up for him in Iraq to be gunned down by a couple of petty two-bit pieces of shit ... under review my ass! The line for volunteers for the firing squad forms behind me - and I don't think there will be any lacking in numbers of those standing in line.

Semper Fi

Lance Corporal Crutchfield

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Celebration

Carolina Naturally is having a month long celebration for its first birthday coming this July 1st.

Hopefully you will find something informative, amusing or unexpected here during the month of June.

Stay Tuned!

Daily Funny

Screengrab from donut sleeper cell training video surfaces

So they were right. Oh, and pssst: I am wearing nothing but a glazed kaffiyeh at this very moment!

(Thanks to the folks over at Boing Boing)

All is not well in Extremist Fundie-Land

Muslim extremist women are challenging al-Qaida's refusal to include - or at least acknowledge - women in its ranks, in an emotional debate that gives rare insight into the gender conflicts lurking beneath one of the strictest strains of Islam.

In response to a female questioner, al-Qaida No. 2 leader Ayman Al-Zawahri said in April that the terrorist group does not have women. A woman's role, he said on the Internet audio recording, is limited to caring for the homes and children of al-Qaida fighters.

His remarks have since prompted an outcry from fundamentalist women, who are fighting or pleading for the right to be terrorists. The statements have also created some confusion, because in fact suicide bombings by women seem to be on the rise, at least within the Iraq branch of al-Qaida.

A'eeda Dahsheh is a Palestinian mother of four in Lebanon who said she supports al-Zawahri and has chosen to raise children at home as her form of jihad. However, she said, she also supports any woman who chooses instead to take part in terror attacks.

Another woman signed a more than 2,000-word essay of protest online as Rabeebat al-Silah, Arabic for "Companion of Weapons."

"How many times have I wished I were a man ... When Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahri said there are no women in al-Qaida, he saddened and hurt me," wrote "Companion of Weapons," who said she listened to the speech 10 times. "I felt that my heart was about to explode in my chest...I am powerless."

Such postings have appeared anonymously on discussion forums of Web sites that host videos from top al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. While the most popular site requires names and passwords, many people use only nicknames, making their identities and locations impossible to verify.

However, groups that monitor such sites say the postings appear credible because of the knowledge and passion they betray. Many appear to represent computer-literate women arguing in the most modern of venues - the Internet - for rights within a feudal version of Islam.

"Women were very disappointed because what al-Zawahri said is not what's happening today in the Middle East, especially in Iraq or in Palestinian groups," said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, an organization that monitors militant Web sites. "Suicide operations are being carried out by women, who play an important role in jihad."

It's not clear how far women play a role in al-Qaida because of the group's amorphous nature.

Terrorism experts believe there are no women in the core leadership ranks around bin Laden and al-Zawahri. But beyond that core, al-Qaida is really a movement with loosely linked offshoots in various countries and sympathizers who may not play a direct role. Women are clearly among these sympathizers, and some are part of the offshoot groups.

In the Iraq branch, for example, women have carried out or attempted at least 20 suicide bombings since 2003. Al-Qaida members suspected of training women to use suicide belts were captured in Iraq at least three times last year, the U.S. military has said.

Hamas, another militant group, is open about using women fighters and disagrees with al-Qaida's stated stance. At least 11 Palestinian women have launched suicide attacks in recent years.

"A lot of the girls I speak to ... want to carry weapons. They live with this great frustration and oppression," said Huda Naim, a prominent women's leader, Hamas member and Palestinian lawmaker in Gaza. "We don't have a special militant wing for women ... but that doesn't mean that we strip women of the right to go to jihad."

Al-Zawahri's remarks show the fine line al-Qaida walks in terms of public relations. In a modern Arab world where women work even in some conservative countries, al-Qaida's attitude could hurt its efforts to win over the public at large. On the other hand, noted SITE director Katz, al-Zawahri has to consider that many al-Qaida supporters, such as the Taliban, do not believe women should play a military role in jihad.

Al-Zawahri's comments came in a two-hour audio recording posted on an Islamic militant Web site, where he answered hundreds of questions sent in by al-Qaida sympathizers. He praised the wives of mujahedeen, or holy warriors. He also said a Muslim woman should "be ready for any service the mujahedeen need from her," but advised against traveling to a war front like Afghanistan without a male guardian.

Al-Zawahri's stance might stem from personal history, as well as religious beliefs. His first wife and at least two of their six children were killed in a U.S. airstrike in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar in 2001. He later accused the U.S. of intentionally targeting women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I say to you ... (I have) tasted the bitterness of American brutality: my favorite wife's chest was crushed by a concrete ceiling," he wrote in a 2005 letter.

Al-Zawahri's question-and-answer campaign is one sign of al-Qaida's sophistication in using the Web to keep in touch with its popular base, even while its leaders remain in hiding. However, the Internet has also given those disenfranchised by al-Qaida - in this case, women - a voice they never had before.

The Internet is the only "breathing space" for women who are often shrouded in black veils and confined to their homes, "Ossama2001" wrote. She said al-Zawahri's words "opened old wounds" and pleaded with God to liberate women so they can participate in holy war.

Another woman, Umm Farouq, or mother of Farouq, wrote: "I use my pen and words, my honest emotions ... Jihad is not exclusive to men."

Such women are al-Qaida sympathizers who would not feel comfortable expressing themselves with men or others outside their circles, said Dia'a Rashwan, an expert on terrorism and Islamic movements at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

"The Internet gives them the ideal place to write their ideas, while they're hidden far from the world," he said.

Men have also responded to al-Zawahri's remarks. One male Internet poster named Hassan al-Saif asked: "Does our sheik mean that there is no need to use women in our current jihad? Why can we not use them?"

He was in the minority. Dozens of postings were signed by men who agreed with al-Zawahri that women should stick to supporting men and raising children according to militant Islam.

Women bent on becoming militants have at least one place to turn to. A niche magazine called "al-Khansaa" - named for a female poet in pre-Islamic Arabia who wrote lamentations for two brothers killed in battle - has popped up online. The magazine is published by a group that calls itself the "women's information office in the Arab peninsula," and its contents include articles on women's terrorist training camps, according to SITE.

Its first issue, with a hot pink cover and gold embossed lettering, appeared in August 2004 with the lead article "Biography of the Female Mujahedeen."

The article read:

"We will stand, covered by our veils and wrapped in our robes, weapons in hand, our children in our laps, with the Quran and the Sunna (sayings) of the Prophet of Allah directing and guiding us."

(From the AP)

*****

If anyone needed further evidence of the insanity of extreme fundamentalism I submit the above ... substitute any religious sect or conservative political group in lieu of Islam in the piece above and you will see it applies to all.

Texas CPS Under the Microscope

For nearly two months, Texas child welfare officials had insisted conditions at a polygamist group's ranch were so abusive that none of its members should be allowed to keep their children.

Now, however, one of the largest custody cases in U.S. history is unraveling, and some are looking for what went wrong when the state raided the Yearning For Zion Ranch and removed more than 400 children.

Since the state Supreme Court ruled that the Texas Department of Child Protective Services overreached when it swept the children into foster care, agency officials have been unwilling to discuss the case, their strategy or what went wrong.

However, some close to the debacle say the operation was doomed from the start by a series of missteps.

First is the oddity of a religious sect the agency knew little about, exacerbating the inherent perils of balancing parents' rights and child safety. Then there were the abuse allegations, starting with a mysterious telephone call and echoed by disgruntled former members, seemingly accepted at face value.

And an ill-fated 1992 brush with another religious sect - which led to the fiery deaths of 21 children at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco - still lingers on the agency's collective conscience.

"It's difficult to know whether, in fact, they screwed it up," said Linda Spears, vice president of the Child Welfare League of America, a national collection of nonprofits that aid abused and neglected children. "It's the 20/20 hindsight thing."

Folks in Schleicher County, a dusty patch near the middle of Texas, had been at least curious, if not suspicious, of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway from the Mormon church whose members believe polygamy earns glorification in heaven.

Members of the group revered leader Warren Jeffs as a prophet. Since the start of the group's Texas ranch, he has been convicted in Utah as an accomplice to rape and is jail in Arizona awaiting trial on separate charges.

Sheriff David Doran cultivated a confidential informant to monitor the group's activities, and former FLDS members recounted abuse and forced marriages to anyone who would listen.

Investigators "listened to a lot of misinformation and allowed themselves to be kind of captivated by these anti-FLDS people," said FLDS spokesman Rod Parker.

When someone purporting to be a pregnant 16-year-old called a domestic abuse hot line claiming her middle-aged husband beat her, authorities went in with Child Protective Services workers on April 3. But the calls may have been a hoax.

"We had no choice but to treat those calls as credible. If we had not treated them as credible and something bad happened, people would be very upset," said Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety, which is still investigating possible sex abuse at the ranch in addition to the origin of the hot line calls.

Children and mothers were taken away from the ranch because CPS workers thought it would be better to interview them at a neutral location, something that wasn't done in the last high-profile brush the agency had with a religious sect - the Branch Davidians.

CPS workers were confused about names, ages, and relationships of the children and adults in the complicated group marriages of the FLDS. The agency said at the time it believed sect members were deliberately misleading investigators about the names, ages and parentage of the children.

Although caseworkers said when they took custody of all the children that the sect was forcing underage girls into marriage and sex and training boys to be adult perpetrators, only a few dozen of the children swept into custody turned out to be teenage girls, and only a handful had children or were pregnant. Of 31 mothers CPS said were minors, at least half turned out to be adults.

David Schenck, an attorney for some of the mothers, said CPS workers were confronted with a decision when they arrived at the ranch: identify all the men who might be suspected abusers or grab all the children.

"They were interested in taking care of kids, but the problem is they took on more than the evidence is going to support," he said.

Parker called the agency "heavy-handed." A state appeals court essentially agreed, saying the state failed to show that any more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused, and had offered no evidence of sexual or physical abuse against the other children. The Texas Supreme Court agreed in a ruling issued Thursday.

Spears, a caseworker-turned-advocate, said that despite the high-profile nature of the FLDS case, the dilemma faced by CPS is little different than in most removal cases.

"At the time you walk in, you have very little information even in the best cases," she said, noting the snap risk assessments caseworkers are often asked to make.

The second-guessing, too, is typical. CPS also was criticized for its handling of the Branch Davidians cult at its ranch compound outside Waco. Allegations of abuse at the Waco ranch had swirled for years, but interviews with children at the compound produced no outcry of abuse and CPS closed its investigation in 1992.

A year later, federal agents raided the fortified compound in a weapons investigation. Fire broke out and the 21 children died.

Spears said agencies worry about making wrong calls and seeing harm come to children. Decision-making often swings in reaction to criticism of previous cases or child deaths.

"It swings back and forth," she said. "There's no exact science being practiced here."

So, the Soap Opera continues ...