 AP Photo by Petros Giannakouris |
Capt. David N. Simms wanted the tribal sheiks to have no doubts — the $500,000 his unit spends every month to pay and equip local tribesmen to keep peace here will soon run out and they had better be ready when it’s gone.
Simms handed the sheiks 600 applications for a vocational school in nearby Baghdad. It’s one option, he said, to prepare the men for life after he stops giving them salaries.
The “Sons of Iraq” are the estimated 80,000 fighters — mostly Sunni tribesmen and former insurgents — recruited and paid by the U.S. military to help fight al-Qaida and maintain security in neighborhoods, including this Sunni farming community west of Baghdad.
The program has been a remarkable success, helping reduce violence across the country by 80 percent since early 2007 at the cost of $216 million to date.
Nearly two years into the program, however, the U.S. is gradually handing over responsibility for the Sons of Iraq to the Shiite-led government. By January, the military hopes to turn the entire program over to the Iraqis.
We’re handing over enough dollars to provide continuing jobs for about 5 to 20% of the Sons of Iraq, depending on local kickbacks.
They’ve all been armed and trained to hunt. They will be turned loose to find gainful employment.
Who do you think they will hunt?
Brilliant concept:
US should de-localize the military:
Why pay top dollars for American soldiers, when you can buy cheaper troops on the 3rd world. Maybe even China. It’s time to globalize warfare.
Close the barracks at home and go to south east Asia.
#1, isn’t the use of a mercenary army one of the sure signs of the collapse of a country as a world power?
What can possibly go wrong?
Sure, go ahead and disparage our brave soldiers and IGNORE the tremendous success of the surge. Nevermind that Baghdad is peaceful again. Who cares that property values are up in Iraq. Why bother reporting the brave deeds of our soldiers when we can just call them “thugs.”
Sure, that’s supporting our troops. NOT.
I’m done with this waste of bandwidth.
#4 – Matt Garrett – I’m done with this waste of bandwidth.
Unplug your modem.
I think if we let Iraq be Iraq (like we let Poland be Poland), the Iraqis could root out the al-queda in about a day !!! They know who is native and who is not !!! Then the Iraqis could get on with restarting the Oil Fields !!! But of course, Dumbya/Cheney STARTED THE IRAQI “WAR FOR OIL” TO GET TO ***DICTATE WHO WILL RUN THE OIL FIELDS AND FOR WHOM (EXXON/MOBIL IF YOU ARE WONDERING)*** !!! Don’t forget that BOTH SADDAM AND OSAMA WERE BOTH CIA “ASSETS” THAT HAD OUTLIVED THEIR USEFULLNESS TO THE PETRO-FASCISTS !!!
[Jim — You’re going to have a stroke if you don’t calm down. – ed.]
I imagine that now we’ve given birth to “Al Qaeda in Iraq” thanks to our misbegotten Middle Eastern policy, they’ll be hunting us.
Maybe as a final favor to the Chimperor-in-Chief and President Cheney/ Rove, they’ll stage some kind of terrorist attack here. That would be a big bonus for the Repugs in November.
Working, not working, whatever. Iraq isn’t a “country”. It was arbitrarily designated. The different groups (tribes, religious sects, ethnicities) don’t want to live peaceably together.
Only brute force and murder held it together. Eventually, another strongman will emerge to force it together or it will be civil war then a splintering. All the while we lost our check and counter balance to Iran.
Stupid decision to remove Saddam
#9 – I’ll wipe your tears. I never figured you for a lib but, hard to tell online.
Its amazing how niave we are in the intelligent west . Afghanistan was pacified – but at the cost of piecing off local chieftans.
What is worse – the Taliban – or the waves of opium and heroin now on the world market. In addition both Afghanistan and Albania now have advanced sophisticate transport , air traffic control and communications systems – all better for these exports all at our cost.
The end result is that these cultures are very different than what we take for granted . It is not a question of what is good for the major populace and the culture or country – but rather for your family or tribal group.
If you do a deal with the devil – be prepared to pay the cost – both in the short and long terms.
#8 – Paddy-O
>>Stupid decision to remove Saddam
I’m going to have to agree with you on this one.
According to
http://tinyurl.com/yv48rs
it looks like Dumbya’s trophy war is costing us about $2500 per second, 24/7. Pretty soon, the cost is going to exceed the total cost the US paid for WWII.
Of course, FDR was no Dumbya, and we mobilized over 16,000,000 troops to fight the war, and won.
The chances of that happening in Iraq in the next 100 years approaches zero.
#9 – James Hill – …losers who can’t hang in the real debates come to cry.
Nah, we’re here to study you crying. Seems to have been a lot of that lately.
Those that say that the ‘surge’ has been effective have absolutely no knowledge or perspective about the true situation on the ground in Iraq. They are just repeating unfounded talking points postulated by those that led us into this quagmire in the first place, ignoring the history and realities of the Iraq civil war.
First, let’s stop using the word ‘surge’.. that is just rah-rah double talk… let’s call it what it really is… an escalation.
Second, by the time the escalation started, things in Baghdad were cooling off on their own. The escalation has little to do with the current conditions on the ground. There was a civil war going on that was partitioning people into distinct Sunni-Shia neighborhoods… that was just about accomplished when the escalation stated. Killings dropped because they separated themselves into distinct areas. Today, is a Shia steps into a Sunni area, or viceversa, he will die, just like last year those that were caught living in the wrong area would die. NOTHING has changed aside from the fact that they are separated by walls.
Al-Quaida in Iraq was a virtually inexistent entity at the start of the Iraq war. Al-Quaida as a group itself was a VERY small number of people, numbering probably less than 1500 worldwide. Now it is measured in the tens of thousands. The Taliban were not Al-Quaida, but now most of them are of that persuasion, and they are greatly increasing in strength (and power) in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
How can anyone believe what politicians are telling us about the conditions on the ground are like in Iraq, when we get outrageous and blatant lies like McCain’s “You can stroll through a market with no problem”. That statement in itself throws out ANY semblance of credibility that the ‘surge’ supporters may have.
If the ‘surge’ has worked so well, and things are soooo much better, why have we not started to reduce the number of troops? Simple… nothing has changed since the start of the escalation.
Training MORE people, as we trained Bin laden..
only to drop them by the side of the road..
Cursing our names..
#14–Awake==while I agree with everything you say–how do you know? Secret sources? Some guy?
Crystal Ball?
I have come to view the Main Stream Media as not much more than part of our government. Alternative Media much more erratic with most of it being even more irrelevant than MSM with the saving grace that every once in a while they get something right, as does the MSM–so its another source of info.
In the end, I agree with what you said by recognizing a few basic “facts” and then applying my own filters and prejudices. So again–how do you know?
Bobbo –
Anyone that uses the term “Main Stream Media” (sic – it should be Mainstream Media) is already brainwashed, since there is no such thing… believers in MSM are already brainwashed by conspiracy theorists, when in reality the press is all over the place. The left says that the so-called MSM is dominated by the right, and the right says it is dominated by the left. So the whole theory cancels it out.
There are some sources that can be outright discounted as a valid source of information, starting with the White House press secretary, anything from the Pentagon, almost everything on Fox News. They are proven liars. Any publication or Blog with an explicit and acknowledged political leaning (Little Green Footballs, Crooks and Liars, Thousandreasons.org) are probably not showing you the whole picture either, each in their own heavily biased way.
So you read stuff in the center (The Economist, the Guardian, New York Times, etc) add some ‘alternate’ views (Al-Jazeera, Xinhua, some newspapers in Latin America) and boil it down to a comprehensive picture from various sources. It’s really not all that hard.
But the dumbest thing you can do is take ANYTHING said by the White House or the Pentagon as being true in ANY way.
#17–Awake==so its diversified publicly available news sources and filters and prejudices? Good. I would just back off on the pomposity a bit, the difference between a well founded opinion vs certain knowledge?
To that end, the centrist or unbiased, or less biased news sources you cite are labeled by the left and right and how can you say the NYT is not MSM? NYT leads and the rest follow?
So, we are down to challenge everything you hear and see, and filters and prejudice. A good foundation.
Well someone had to train and fund the next generation of organized terrorists, just doing our part!
Does this mean that if they decide once we’ve stopped paying them to be on our side and start working against our interests, and everything goes to Hell in a handbasket, hat it will be the fault of whoever is in office in late January?
I suppose that makes sense.
2,
You are sadly right.
#18 – Bobbolina
>>how can you say the NYT is not MSM?
Are you intentionally being obtuse, Bobo? If by “MSM”, you mean anything that isn’t a fringe blog published by whackadoodles or a hate rag like WorldNet Daily, then yeah, sure, the NYT is MSM. However, MSM is a loaded term used by right-wingers like Anal Cyst Limbaugh and Loofah Pad O’Reilly to refer to any publication closer to the center than the John Birch Society.
>>NYT leads and the rest follow?
Pretty much. The NYT, the Washington Post, and others of their ilk are the gold standard for excellence in reporting. Sure, you get the occasional plagiarist, or Administration asslicker like Judith Miller. They get caught though, as the publications are under intense scrutiny 24/7 by the left, the right, and the center.
#22–Mustard==you say NYT is not MSM because wingnuts don’t denounce it as such? But then NYT does set the gold standard, meaning it is in fact the Main Stream Media. (I enjoy the space to emphasize “stream”). So, I am obtuse because I don’t follow right wingers and you are correct because you allow them to define the words we all use? I don’t think so.
NYT and their ILK lead the media. They are the main stream, the others are puddles.
If they are the Leaders, what responsibility do they share ((with us)) for where we have wound up?
I don’t read the NYT much, so I will just guess: “some.”
NYT is the MSM, everyone else just copies from them.
Brilliant. Undoubtedly true. I well remember when people like dvorak were warning Americans that they were training Black Power advocates in the US Army in Vietnam, and as they said back then: “Who do you think they will hunt?”
And now we are doing the same thing again. A few sane voices like dvorak cannot stop another horror like the Black Power horror of the 1970s.
I figure the surge is a success since the mainstream media isn’t talking about Iraq as much. If there were deaths, then we’d see some front page stories about another example of how Bush’s War is failing.
#23 – Bobbo
>>you say NYT is not MSM because wingnuts
>>don’t denounce it as such?
I hate to say it again, but “Bobbo, what the fuck are you talking about???”
You’re making no sense whatsoever.
Go back and read what I wrote, and see if you can come up with a comment that makes some sense; any sense at all.
Maybe if you read the NYT more often, your expository writing skills would improve.
Trick or treat!
Mustard, has Obama flip-flopped on Iraq yet?
#29 – Lyin’ Mike
>>Mustard, has Obama flip-flopped on Iraq yet?
Steadfast to the end, Senator Obama is.
Not to worry, my lyin’ friend. If Obie flips or flops, I’ll be sure to tell you.
Will anybody be surprised if Obama gets elected and we stay in Iraq for quite a while?
Embassy will need protecting.
Need to balance the threat of Iran.
Need to help Israel as the only “other” democracy.
Kurds will need help.
Oil Fields will need protecting for our energy needs.
Death count will be way down–just like Germany, Japan, etc.
Yep, the only thing that won’t be talked about is the sacrifice to the American Deficit in the continuing off budget financing of the war===except I can see the Repugs forcing it onto the budget just to embarass Obama as a sign of fiscal responsibility to regain the White House in 2012! HAW!!!!!!
Meet the new boss……………..