Turned on His Radio

I just read this. In a major American newspaper.

The U.S. military in Iraq is expanding its efforts to recruit and fund armed Sunni residents as local protection forces in order to improve security and promote reconciliation at the neighborhood level, according to senior U.S. commanders.

Within the past month, the U.S. military command in charge of day-to-day operations in Iraq ordered subordinate units to step up creation of the local forces, authorizing commanders to pay the fighters with U.S. emergency funds, reward payments and other monies.

Read on.

You know what I wish?

I wish the people now making noises about how we can't leave Iraq because of the threat of sectarian strife...

WOULD STOP FUCKING FUNNELING WEAPONS AND MONEY INTO A SECTARIAN CONFLICT.

Hide me until it's over...

ONWARDS: this.

The goal is to put the new, irregular forces in place quickly -- hiring them on contracts and providing them with uniforms without waiting for access to lengthy police and army training programs.

In the long term, commanders say, the goal is to incorporate the units into the Iraqi security forces. The initiative arises out of efforts underway by some U.S. military units to enlist forces from local tribes as well as insurgent groups in different neighborhoods, most of which have been predominantly Sunni.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, called the development of the grass-roots forces the most significant trend in Iraq "of the last four months or so" and one that could help propel slow-moving efforts at national reconciliation among Iraq's main religious sects and ethnic groups.

"This is a very, very important component of reconciliation because it's happening from the bottom up," he said in an interview Friday. "The bottom-up piece is much farther along than any of us would have anticipated a few months back. It's become the focus of a great deal of effort, as there is a sense that this can bear a lot of fruit."

U.S. commanders acknowledge that there is a risk that the Iraqi government will refuse to hire some or all of the local force members and will instead use the names of the Sunni recruits as target lists.

"What the government is afraid of, and we understand that, is they don't want another armed militia of some sort. So what we're looking for is sort of an interim measure . . . to take advantage of these groups," said Brig. Gen. James Campbell, deputy U.S. commander for Baghdad, where he said 18,000 more police officers and 30 police stations are needed.

It troubles me greatly that it is assumed here that the creation of armed ethnic militias is somehow related to the process of "national reconciliation."

Nothing makes ad hoc ethnic-mishmash post-colonial nation-states gel into political harmony more smoothly than the imperial patronage of partisan death squads.

THESE PEOPLE ARE NUTS.

Comments

[Dolly Dagger]

This is Bush's bombing of Cambodia and Laos. A last ditch desparate effort to salvage what is obviously lost.

And we know how well that went.

[Peter D]

Because Saudi Arabia supplied the men, money and ideology that changed the world on 9/11 and to assist the Sunnis in their attempt to eradicate the Shiites, we are going to give Saudi Arabia $20 billion worth of weapons, bombs, bombers and bullets. Just in case the Shiites get too far ahead. Until 9/11, I thought the people who ran the country were inept ideologues. Now I think the people who are running this country are absolutely fucking crazy.

[mike in pr]

And let's not forget that the majority of suicide bombers in Iraq come from Saudi Aabia.

[itcanthappenhere]

It has a certain poetry to it . If you are afraid of Cholera and you think of nothing else but dying of Cholera why would want to ruin your death with sneezes ?

[flory]

THESE PEOPLE ARE NUTS.

No shit.

Aren't some of these "armed Sunni residents" also know by the title "al Qeada in Iraq"? You know -- the guys we keep hearing are the ultimate terra-ists?

[myiq2xu]

Hey, I hear there are a bunch of Sunni Muslims training in Pakistan. Why don't we hire those guys?

They work for Osama somebody. He's a Saudi, so I'm sure they're friendly.

I wish the people now making noises about how we can't leave Iraq because of the threat of sectarian strife...

WOULD STOP FUCKING FUNNELING WEAPONS AND MONEY INTO A SECTARIAN CONFLICT.

You fail to understand that the enemy of your friend's friend's enemy is the friend of your enemy's friend's enemy.

This is why you libs keep losing elections.

[¡El Gato Negro!]

Maybe what we need ees John Negroponte leading some of hees famously nonpartisan deathsquads, eh?

so.

[myiq2xu]

I recall a comment about Afganistan that seems just as appropriate for Iraq:

In Afganistan, you can't buy loyalty, you can only rent it.

[Tom Hilton]

Hey, one man's 'insurgent' is another man's 'grass-roots force'.

I mean, it all depends on whether you think the glass is empty, or you think the glass is potentially full.

[ina]

Nothing makes ad hoc ethnic-mishmash post-colonial nation-states gel into political harmony more smoothly than the imperial patronage of partisan death squads.

You can say that again! (No, really, that is a fine specimen of a sentence).

P.S. & OT: You are not alone in thinking that I would be fond of Neko Case. Many folks have now said so. I have yet to hear her, but a friend at a party tonight sang a few lines from a song that sounded quite lovely...

[shrimplate]

Religiously insane stupid power-hungry alcoholic fuckwits rarely, if ever, have good ideas.

That's why we shouldn't allow them them to have political power.

[SteveB]

recruit and fund armed Sunni residents...in order to... promote reconciliation... according to senior U.S. commanders.

Now that's some first-class journamalism, right there.

I wonder how many years you have to work at the Post before you can, without even thinking, put a completely self-contradictory statement in the lede of your story, followed, of course, by "according to senior U.S. commanders."