Thoughts on the military and military activities of a diverse nature. Free-ranging and eclectic.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Horsemen.


This is coolbert:

"Janjaweed, the weed that needs pulling". Well, this is true, is it NOT!! That quote was taken from an article describing the predations of the Janjaweed "militia" upon the people of the Dar Fur region of the Sudan.

Mounted horsemen equipped with AK-47's, RPG's [rocket propelled grenades], and a whole lot of hate and just plain vicious barbaric mentalities.

Horsemen sent by the "central government" of the Sudan to put down a mild insurrection in the western most part of that country. Horsemen that attack, without provocation or warning a village, murder the male adults, rape the females, burn all dwellings, loot what can be looted, and then drive the survivors into the desert to fend for themselves. This is happening right now, as we speak.

It turns out that these janjaweed are common criminals that have been released from prison by the Sudanese government specifically for the purpose of creating all this mayhem and terrorizing the more or less defenseless civilian populace of Dar Fur. This has created a humanitarian crisis of Biblical proportions.

The use of common criminals by Islamic governments to do their dirty work is something that is of ancient lineage.

During the time of the "terrible" Turk [the Ottoman Empire], such released criminals were organized into "units" called bashi bazooks [surprisingly, originally organized from Afghan tribesmen]. Irregulars whose purpose WAS to terrorize whatever community the Turkish Sultan wanted to oppress and subdue. Criminals who would not be paid as would be a regular soldier. Criminals whose pay would be loot, plunder, rape, and the sheer joy of being able to do whatever they wanted. NOT only were able to do whatever they wanted, but were encouraged to do so.

To this day, in the Balkans, hate of the Turk and Islam is in large measure due to the atrocities committed by the bashi bazooks, atrocities that even went so far as to precipitate war between Russian and Turkey, the former coming to the aid of their Orthodox brothers and sisters.

"The Bulgarian Massacres - April 1876

Rebellion in Bulgaria resulted in Turkish irregulars, the Bashi-Bazooks, massacring 12,000 Bulgarian Orthodox Christians. The result was outrage in Europe and, importantly, Russia. The Berlin Memorandum, issued by Austria, Germany and Russia (but not supported by Disraeli who believed the Dreikaiserbund countries were expecting to partition Turkey ) issued a final warning to the Turks."

"Russo-Turkish War - 1877

In April 1877 Russia declared war on Turkey in defense of Balkan peoples."

Selecting criminals, releasing them from prison, and organizing them as irregular fighters just cannot, under any circumstances, result in good. Such persons, possessing criminal mentalities are uncontrollable and create a situation, by their excesses, far worse than whatever existed before.

coolbert.

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