Tomomi

A very gentle, happy and lovely Japanese lady living in Hong Kong and loves to work with dragons in the sky.

loving you not

turning a new page...

reality
love you not

memory focused on you
time brings enjoyable you
traitor thoughts dwell in you

even
perfect moments become you

but you, you
because there is no other you

else
memory would be no more
time would be now

even
thoughts would touch

you
love you not
you are not

you never existed
but in the mind

Novermber 24, 2007 Houston Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo

Related article and photos from the Houston Chronicle. I have been blessed with the friendship of Father Adam McClosky and it is a joy to see his pictures while in Rome celebrating the raising of Archbishop DiNardo to the Cardinal College.
Smiley N. Pool: Chronicle / Archbishop Emeritus Joseph A. Fiorenza of the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese celebrates Mass at the Papal Basilica of St. John Lateran.
Smiley N. Pool: Chronicle / Mary Louise Hancock and her husband Edgar, left, greet Father Adam McClosky, pastor of All Saints Catholic Community in the Heights, as they arrive at the Papal Basilica of St. John Lateran for a welcome Mass.

November 18, 2007 God son Alex at the park

Some photos I took of Alex while walking at Herman Park. Few others can be found here.
This is a funny one. "Please, get me out of here." Funny because he walked into the bushes and needed some help getting out of them.And this is one is so much like Alex. Clever and sneaky but with a big and happy heart.My favorite photo is this one. Sort of a kid in life heading along the road of life.

November 18, 2007 Stuck in time

Stuck in time
With every click of the clock
Time stretches
With one hand in the past
Both feet in the present
And the other hand in the future
Both handS grasping
Grasping what it was or could have been
Reaching for what it will be or might be

Stop the clicking
Tick tack tick tack
What a common undetected tick
Or was it a tack
Tick tack tick tack
Might be the clock on the mantel
Or the passage of time
Who is to say?
It was a moment past

November 7, 2007 Man kills eight at Finnish school

Following is a picture published by the BBC related to the article of an 18 year old shooting students at a Finnish school. If a society dresses its policemen like the one shown, makes me wonder who are instigating violence in society.

Photos

A private conversation leaving a contrast between the hand and the face.

Sun light though the clouds in Poltava, Ukrain.

Seven Pillars of the Community by Mel Chin. Houston, Texas.

Public art in Kiev.

Religious reflection in Frank something Ukrain.

Che Guevara

Che Guevara an icon for the revolutionary mind. Couple pictures published by Aljazeera.

A sign, showing the distance to the location where Guevara's corpse was found 10 years ago, is seen in Vallegrande. The country's current president Evo Morales is an admirer of Guevara and ceremonies honouring his death were being held across the country [Reuters]

The Bolivian artist Tupa stands next to his six-metre-high statue of Guevara in his workshop in La Paz, Bolivia. The statue made out of scrap metal weighs between six and seven tonnes and will be erected next month in Independence Square in nearby El Alto [EPA]

September 14, 2007 Girl, 14, fled abuse, 'mind control' of polygamy

There is a thin line between god's word and people's interpretation of god's word. Recent news coverage bring to attention abuses of men over others in particular children. CNN has an article about Sara Hammon with the highlights: Sara Hammon says women were told marriage was their ticket to heaven, Hammon says she was sexually abused by her father and brothers, She describes her father's 19 wives as second-class citizens in the household, and
Hammon left the community when she was 14 years old.
The following photo and article link is from theHOPEorg.org.

Damon Winter / LAT - Sara Hammon, 30, escaped her polygamous family in Colorado City, Ariz., when she was a teenager. She was the 63rd of 75 children of her father and his many wives. Hammon said she was physically and sexually abused as a child by her father and brothers. (Article can be found at theHOPEorg.org).

Dylan Ratigan

Pleasant surprise. During one of my trips to London I had the opportunity to share a friend's flat with Dylan Ratigan for a couple nights. That was when he was after a good looking anchor woman residing in London.
Can read the article by the New York Times where this photo was published.

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times - HOT TIP CNBC’s Dylan Ratigan looks to appeal to a younger, affluent audience.

July 27, 2007 Jorvan Vieira: Iraq's coach and an ambassador of peace

Following article was posted by soccerblog.com


Brazilian coaches rank a distant second to their players, the number one export to the soccer world. From Washington in the J-League, Zinha in the Mexican Primera, to Edgar Barretto in the Indian NFL, Brazilian players don't just make up the ranks but are their league leaders. The amount of financial transactions and business that involve Brazilian soccer players must be equivalent to the GDP of a small country.

There have been a handful of Brazilian big name coaches, Big Phil Scolari, Carlos Alberto Parriera, and Zico who shared the spotlight in the 2006 World Cup but none went the distance. Since then, Parriera has moved to South Africa, Big Phil has been retained as Portugal's coach, and Zico resigned following Japan's dismal showing.

The perception so far is that Brazilian players make their coaches look good. And since attack is the best form of defense, both defenders and coaches in Brazil are often overlooked and derided. That maybe one reason why when you peruse Globoesporte or any other sport periodical there is hardly a mention of Jorvan Vieira, the present coach of the Iraqi team. He is a former coach of Vasco da Gama and Botafogo, and since those days has gone onto coach 26 club teams and five national squads.

A nomad who has coached numerous small clubs and countries under the radar. In the high flying world of Brazilian soccer he is small potatoes. He is a legend in Morocco where he converted to Islam and assisted Jose Faria in leading the country to the 1986 World Cup, the first African country to do so. Vieira looks more like an ascetic and carries a professorial air, he in fact holds a doctorate in sports sciences from France and speaks 7 languages, including Arabic. He is a very well respected club coach in the Middle East and has also coached the Oman and Kuwait U20 squad in a career spanning 15 years.

The Iraqi coaching job came to him as three other candidates rejected the offer as they were issued death threats. In Brazil, coaches are unceremoniously removed. In Iraq, you don't have that luxury. Vieira's predecessor Akram Ahmed Salman tried to quit after he and his family received death threats, but Iraq's soccer chiefs rejected his resignation. Vieira's assistant can't return to Iraq because the last time he was in Baghdad, gunmen threatened to kidnap his son. In fact, this is the story of many soccer players in the team who have lost family members in the civil war sweeping the country. The dislocation caused by the war is so severe that the makeshift Iraqi FA headquarters is a hotel lobby in Amman.

For someone who came only five weeks before the Asian Cup, Vieira shows a remarkable grasp and understanding of his players and the effect the war has had on them.

"Some of them, if they go to Iraq, they are going to be killed," Vieira said of his squad. "When you don't know where your home is, where your things are, you are lost in space. It's the same when you have no organisation in your house. You don't know where you put your socks or your trousers. It's the same here. They are lost people because of the war."

Very few gave him a chance to succeed. But Vieira understood his job did not entail just coaching a team but acting as a healer.

"They've been through so much. The players are so strong, but sometimes too strong. They have so much pain that I have to be not only a coach, but a psychologist, a father, and a friend to them.They are a very good example of unity to the Iraqi people."

He has been clear on one thing. He and his team are here not just to participate but to play well and challenge for the Asian Cup despite the almost insurmountable problems and the abbreviated training period.

"I have to be confident about winning. I can't talk about my problems, and say we'll do nothing, because I am not a loser. I've lost very few times in my life."

But Vieira has been modest about his own achievements with this overachieving Iraqi team.

"The congratulations should not go to me. It should go to my players, my staff who are working behind me," a humble Vieira told a press conference after his side's stunning 3-1 victory over the Socceroos. "Because without these people I can not do anything. I'm not a magician."

His influence in unifying this team has been nothing short of miraculous, proving many naysayers wrong. He again mentioned that he was not a magician. Humility seems to be a defining trait. He mentions how everyone was at loggerheads in the beginning and his first initiative was to get them all together, bringing players from the various sects, Shia, Sunnis, and the Iraqi Kurds, together.

"I tried to unify them. Now they are together, they kiss each other, they shake each others' hands. They are not fighting or talking politics. They accepted my way. I am not a magician, but I know football can change people."

Vieira may claim not to be a magician but he seems to have a strong sense of destiny. He knows this is no ordinary coaching job.

"When I see everyone working together, it touches my heart, I cannot explain this feeling," he said. "But if the results don't come, maybe the problem will come back. I hope I can make a difference."

So far it is working out fantastically. Iraq are through to the finals to meet Saudi Arabia, a country where Nashat Akram, one of Iraq's heroes plays his club football. The Iraqis have surpassed Vieira's own expectations.

"I want to be in the last four," he said. "If I had more time, I would tell you I'm going to make the final but now that's not possible. If we got to the final then, as the Arabs say, 'it is with God'."

The Iraqi soccer team, the power of football, God, and Jorvan Vieira. The Iraqis love him and want him to remain. As for Brazilians, some should be getting warm fuzzies that it is one of them that is shaping the Iraqis historical run. And it is not a player.

July 29, 2007 A victory for the Iraqi people

Congratulations to Iraq on their 1-0 victory to claim the Asian Cup.

Following article was published by the New York Times. Enjoy the music.

July 29, 2007, 8:20 am
A Pre-Match Music Video

By The New York Times

Here are the lyrics to the song in this video, El Youm Yomak Ya Iraqi, or “This Is Your Day, Iraqi,” by Hussam al Rassam:

This is your day O Iraqi
You are the man with a sense of honor
Play, play and make your opponent in constant bewilderment
Your father, mother, brothers are all waiting for your victory
Your sweetheart will boast among the beautiful girls of your neighborhood
All Iraqis eyes are watching you; the flag is waving in your hand
Victory is always for us, and we won’t accept anything else

The singer, Hussam Mahmood Hashim, was born in 1978 in Hilla, with seven brothers and two sisters. He graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts (painting department) in 1996, and that is why he is nicknamed ‘al-Rassam’, which means the painter. He then studied the lute in the same institute and graduated in 2003.

Al-Rassam left Iraq, with many other artists (he happens to be a Shiite), because of the poor security situation and particularly because Islamic extremists carried out a wave of killing actors, singers, and artists. He took part in a youth song festival in Algiers in 2001 and won his first award. Al-Rassam is well known for his folkloric and national-themed songs.

July 28, 2007 Pasadena, Texas - Police brutality free to harm people

Following article was published by the Houston Chronicle. Amazing that we live in a very violent society where enforcers are judge and executioners.

July 28, 2007, 12:53PM
Man struck by police saw freedom for 1 hour
New specifics from Pasadena PD emerge on the day of his funeral
By ROBERT CROWE

On the day of Pedro Gonzales Jr.'s funeral, community activists Friday called for a federal inquiry into the Pasadena man's death as new details emerged, further complicating a case in which the actions of two officers have come under scrutiny.

Grieving family members learned Friday that the man had been released from the Pasadena Jail about one hour before officers Jason Buckaloo and Christopher Jones re-arrested him on suspicion of public intoxication. Police said Gonzales — spotted sitting in the bed of a pickup less than a mile from the jail — resisted arrest and force was needed to restrain him on July 21. A few hours later, Gonzales was found dead in a jail cell. He had injuries to his head, arm and ribs.

"There's no way he would have been able to buy alcohol because he only had 64 cents in his pocket when he left the jail," Rick Dovalina, spokesman of the League of United Latin American Citizens Council, said Friday.

As the Harris County District Attorney's Office and the Internal Affairs Division of the Pasadena Police Department conduct investigations into Gonzales' death, Dovalina and other activists said an independent investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice is necessary.

Dovalina met with Gonzales' family Friday to discuss all that he had learned about the incident after a meeting this week with Pasadena Police Chief Mike Massey, Capt. Bud Corbett and other officials.

Witness wasn't mentioned

Dovalina reported that officials told him Gonzales was released about 1 a.m. the morning before he was re-arrested. During that meeting, Dovalina said, police officials never mentioned to him that a witness had told police that Gonzales was motionless when the officers hit him.

They also never mentioned that witness Evelyn Moreno had called 911 to report that she had seen the officers beating Gonzales for two minutes.

A recording of the the emergency call Moreno made at 2:09 a.m. reveals the concern in her voice. The 20-year-old woman said she was driving home when she noticed the officers hitting Gonzales outside a business in the 1300 block of East Harris.

On the recording it is difficult to hear Moreno, who called from a pay phone, because she initially wanted to remain anonymous. The female dispatcher's responses seem to indicate that she understood that Moreno was reporting police brutality.

The dispatcher gave Moreno a non-emergency phone number to call, but Moreno declined to call, saying she did not think anyone would take her seriously because the dispatcher did not seem too concerned.

Pasadena officials said an ambulance or police unit was not dispatched to the scene after Moreno called because the incident happened in a matter of two minutes. Paramedics treated Gonzales at the jail after he complained of injuries, but he refused further treatment and was placed in a cell before he died, said Capt. Corbett.

About 7:30 a.m., Gonzales was found dead in a holding cell. Preliminary autopsy reports show Gonzales died from a punctured lung related to a fractured rib. Police said the injuries were the result of force they were required to use because he resisted arrest for public intoxication.

Although autopsy results are incomplete, Dovalina said he doesn't believe Gonzales was drunk or on drugs before his death. The man would not have had time to go to a store to purchase alcohol because Texas businesses must stop selling beer or alcohol after 1 a.m. And there are no bars near the jail because it is a dry portion of Pasadena, family members said.

"It's not right what happened to my husband," said his wife, Diana Gonzales. "He had a 13-year-old daughter and two sons who loved him." Gonzales' family buried him after a simple funeral Friday. To pay for the service, one relative sold an old van. Others chipped in what little they could.

Activists are calling for a federal review of local investigations because, they said, Pasadena police have changed their stories multiple times and held back key information before the Chronicle began inquiring into Gonzales' death.

Pasadena police officials stated Monday that Gonzales was possibly injured about 2 a.m. when he tripped and fell in a parking lot as police officers escorted him to a patrol car while arresting him for public intoxication.

After the Chronicle asked police on Tuesday to explain how he could have suffered multiple injuries by tripping, Corbett said Gonzales sustained some injuries during a struggle with Jones and Buckaloo.

Gonzales' family is especially troubled that Buckaloo had previously been indicted on charges of using excessive force on a 15-year-old South Houston High School student in 2001. A jury found him not guilty in a 2002 trial of official oppression.

Jones, who began working for Pasadena PD this year, had previously worked for the Grandview Police Department in Missouri from April 2002 to July 2006.

A city of Grandview human resources director said he voluntarily left the department. There were no complaints in his personnel file, she said.

robert.crowe@chron.com

July 10, 2007 As War Enters Classrooms, Fear Grips Afghans

Photos and excerpts from article published by The New Work Times.

QALAI SAYEDAN, Afghanistan, July 9 — With their teacher absent, 10 students were allowed to leave school early. These were the girls the gunmen saw first, 10 easy targets walking hand-in-hand through the blue metal gate and on to the winding dirt road.

The staccato of machine-gun fire pelted through the stillness. A 13-year-old named Shukria was hit in the arm and the back, and then teetered into the soft brown of an adjacent wheat field. Zarmina, her 12-year-old sister, ran to her side, listening to the wounded girl’s precious breath and trying to help her stand. But Shukria was too heavy to lift, and the two gunmen, sitting astride a single motorbike, sped closer.

As Zarmina scurried away, the men took a more studied aim at those they already had shot, killing Shukria with bullets to her stomach and heart. Then the attackers seemed to succumb to the frenzy they had begun, forsaking the motorbike and fleeing on foot in a panic, two bobbing heads — one tucked into a helmet, the other swaddled by a handkerchief — vanishing amid the earthen color of the wheat.

Six students were shot here on the afternoon of June 12, two of them fatally. The Qalai Sayedan School — considered among the very best in the central Afghan province of Logar — reopened only last weekend, but even with Kalashnikov-toting guards at the gate, only a quarter of the 1,600 students have dared to return.

Joao Silva for The New York Times: Afghan girls and boys waited to enter their classrooms at the Martyred Saadia School in the town of Qalai Sayedan, 40 miles south of Kabul. The school was recently renamed to honor one of two female students gunned down on June 12 on their way home from school and just reopened last weekend.

Joao Silva for The New York Times: The school in Qalai Sayedan, built four years ago by the German government, enrolls boys through grade 6 and girls through grade 12. Two years ago it was named the top school in the province. Perhaps because it is considered a model for a different kind of future, it has been attacked repeatedly.

Joao Silva for The New York Times: Zarmina, 12, who witnessed the murder of her sister Shukria last month, did not return to the school in Qalai Sayedan when it reopened last weekend. Only 25 percent of the school's students have come back so far.

Andean women playing soccer (/football)

Photo from the Guardian Unlimited.
Callao, Peru: One of the players in the National Andean communities soccer championship takes a shot.
Photograph: Martin Mejia/AP

August 7, 2001 Bolivian footballers reach new high

Following article was published by the BBC.

The highest match in the world gets under way
By Andrew Enever in La Paz

Two of the players who were to take part in the highest football match in the world did not even make it to the pitch - struck down by altitude sickness as they climbed their way to the 6542m (21,424 ft) summit.

But armed with four orange footballs and two goalposts painted black to aid visibility in the snow, the 15 remaining players set about laying out the pitch for their historic fixture on Mount Sajama, South America's second highest mountain.

At 1030 last Thursday, the referee blew his whistle.

Mario Perez Mamani knocked the ball to Primo Quispe Luna who laid it back to Juan Caballero Churata. The match was under way, and for once those starring in the arena of a world footballing event were all Bolivian.

The plan had been hatched some time before, in the offices of the Club Andino Boliviano and the High Altitude Pathology Institute (Ippa) back in the world's highest capital city, La Paz. Three doctors at Ippa, experts on the effects of altitude, were convinced that sporting activities could take place at very high altitudes.

And with a flat, snow covered crater at its summit, Sajama, an extinct Andean volcano lying close to the Bolivia-Chile border, offered the perfect environment to test the theory.

Initial attempt
Ippa and Club Andino announced at the end of June that an attempt would be made to stage a match on 7 July. On the day, a team of 35 began their ascent, but logistical problems and terrible weather conditions thwarted the attempt.

"We have demonstrated that with good physical and mental health one can take part in any sport at any altitude" Bolivian doctor

"We were not well enough prepared," said Dr Gustavo Zubieta Snr. "Many set off to reach the summit but very few actually got there." Following the failure, a number of organisations that had backed the first attempt withdrew their interest. But undeterred by the lack of support, Ippa and Club Andino began preparations for a second attempt.

Race to the top
This time there was a sense of urgency, as the failure had opened a window for groups from other parts of the world to achieve the record first. In particular, the Japanese Government had expressed an interest in leading an expedition.

But the preparations moved quickly and less than a month after the first attempt, with a smaller more cohesive group, and perfect conditions, the match went ahead successfully.

The two teams, one made up of villagers from Sajama, and the other from members of the La Paz Mountain and Trekking Guides Association, played for 20 minutes each way on the 35m by 50m pitch.

Top of the world
"Those who took part are extraordinary men," said Dr Zubieta. "They climbed to 6542m and after using up a large part of their energy still played a football match. "They could beat any team in the world at this altitude."

Ippa, who had funded the record breaking expedition, carried out tests on all the players following the match and none of them showed problems in reaction to their high altitude exertions.

"We have demonstrated that with good physical and mental health one can take part in any sport at any altitude," claimed Dr Zubieta.

"The Bolivian people are happy to see us winning in football because we have always lost in the major championships.

"This was the best championship of all because no players had ever played at this altitude. This group of Bolivians did and they won," he said.

Winter 2006 Life is a gift by Rafael McDonnell

Article published by The North Texas.



Jawdat Haydar published his first poem as a North Texan -- 80 years ago

Jawdat Haydar (’28) has worked as an educator, an executive with the Iraq Petroleum Co. and a farmer. Now 101, the native of Lebanon has published a new collection of his poetry, 101 Selected Poems.

Haydar, who is one of the best-known poets of the Middle East, published his first poem eight decades ago as a student at North Texas. Printed in a newspaper then known as the Dallas News, it was about life in Texas:

“The skies of Switzerland are clear and blue/The old German castles are pretty, too/France is charming and England not less/But there’s no place like dear old Texas.”

Many of Haydar’s poems now focus on large issues such as injustice, war, peace, life, death and man’s interaction with the natural world.

“What first inspired me to write poetry was the beauty of nature and

the diversity and mysteries of the world,” he says. “Once I started writing, I realized that through my work I can express my deep inner feelings of beauty, love, ambition, passion, pain, despair, loss and worry.

Yesterday I was the prince of my youth
Today I'm the emperor of my years
My empire but a domain of the truth
A smile in the spring in winter but tears
from "The Prince of Youth"

“In my 100 years I have seen a lot of changes around me in the world, but the elements that inspired me to write remain constant all through my life on this earth,” he says.

Haydar says his poems often carry a message.

“Nature is a gift from God. I hope that through my work I can convey a simple message, saying: ‘People of Earth, better listen and be awake, be wise, read the past to make the future. Do not pollute nature, do not destroy it, avoid wars; otherwise, you shall lose the paradise you are living on,’” he says.

Haydar grew up in the Bekaa Valley, east of Beirut. He remembers when he was a young boy he bought candy from British soldiers stationed in the area before World War I, during the last days of the Ottoman Empire. He describes his homeland as “a dot on the world map” but says it is mentioned in the Bible, a place “where beauty and dreams meet in poetry.”

In a 2003 interview with the Daily Star of Beirut, Haydar said he got the opportunity to come to the United States and study thanks to a chance encounter in a movie theater in Lyon, France. He assisted a woman who had dropped her handkerchief. It was the wife of the American consul to France. Two weeks later, Haydar was on a boat to the United States and then took a three-day train ride from New York City to Denton. He says to save money, he only ate breakfast cereal on the train.

Haydar says the North Texas campus still holds a warm place in his heart.
I dreamt my lifeline beaded with the years

Each was blinking happiness in my brain
All were spent without regrets, without tears
And I had determined to start again
from "Guess?"

“My years at North Texas are among my cherished days and moments. After all these years I consider it home. I’ll never forget the man in the registrar’s office who was generous enough to lend me some money to start my life in the new world and, more importantly, to help me achieve my dream. The last time I was on my campus was when I graduated in 1927-28.”

After graduation, Haydar became the principal of a school in the Lebanese city of Aley, and later in Nablus, on the West Bank. For 25 years, Haydar then worked for the Iraq Petroleum Co. as a recruitment executive based in Lebanon. He retired from the company in 1960, worked in the plastics industry and then went into farming. He also unsuccessfully ran as a candidate for the Lebanese parliament.

Haydar, who lives in Beirut, has six daughters, 17 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren, some of whom live in Europe and the United States. He still gets up early in the morning to write his poems out by hand, and his daughters transcribe them onto a computer. Haydar and his poetry have been honored with the Lebanese Order of the Cedars, the Gold Medal of Lebanese Merit and the Medal La Croix de Grand Officier of France. Haydar has also been honored with other medals, including one from Pope John XXIII for humanitarian efforts.

He says his philosophy of life is simple and easy to follow.

“My secret for long life is always being thankful to God and enjoying every second of it,” he says. “Life is a gift. Be happy when you can.”

Editor’s note: As we went to press, we learned that Jawdat Haydar passed away in Beirut in early December.

Human agony - would you support wars if the man on the picture was you?

I wonder when we profess to be Christians or other God fearing religion and at the same time we find excuses to permit violence are we not thinking about "them" not to be like us? What would your child tell you if he/she had to go through concrete/war walls to go to school? Picture and commentary from AP.

Ali Jassim mourns as he takes part in the funeral procession for his brother Isam, in Shiite holly city of Najaf, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, April 22, 2007. Isam Jasim, age 13 was killed by unknown gunmen in the Shiite Muslim city of Kufa. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani).
Schoolchildren pass concrete walls in Adhamiya district in Baghdad April 22, 2007. The U.S. military is putting up concrete walls to protect five neighbourhoods in Baghdad in a new strategy some residents said on Sunday would isolate them from other communities and sharpen sectarian tensions. REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani (IRAQ)

Clare Lindley

While visiting London had the opportunity to listen a folk music trio playing Irish and Scotish music. Clare Lindley and Brian Mullan were part of the trio. They are superb musicians with lots of talent. Clare is a very charming/beautiful woman and Brian a soft/gentle person. If need more info about them they have a page in myspace.com and a page of Kooch.
Photos below were found in related web articles.

Jan Allain and Clare Lindley

Clare's charm, her smile and her fiddle.

This pic reminds me the second and last time I heard them play in a pub in the east side of London, or was it the south east? Regardless, it was a lovely evening that lasted after closing of the Tube so had to take an early AM bus trip on top of a double decker.

April 6, 2007 Dutch Soldiers Stress Restraint in Afghanistan

From article published in the New York Times.

(Tyler Hicks/The New York Times) In south-central Afghanistan, a region controlled by the Taliban and tribes opposed to the central government, a Dutch-led task force has been pursuing a counter-insurgency approach. Its tactic emphasizes development and diplomacy over hunting and killing of Taliban fighters.