 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?
>>HAW!!!
You’re stealing my shit, Boboli.
#32–Mustard==it captures the thought just perfectly. Did we both steal it from some editor?
My theory is that the relative peace is because Moqtada al-Sadar is on the USA payroll for a few million. You know, the same way bin Laden was during the Reagan administration.
There can’t possibly be any blow back with that, right?
I think nobody missed the irony that “James Hill” didn’t actually make any point about the issue?
#17
> But the dumbest thing you can do
> is take ANYTHING said by the
> White House or the Pentagon as
> being true in ANY way.
So, we can assume you will maintain this stance if a Democrat gets into the White House.
You consider the NY Times to be “center”?! You have got to be kidding me. First, on the whole, no news source is entirely left or right. It depends greatly on the writers. However, on the whole the NY Times is most definitely not center. The NY Times has on more than one occasion misrepresented positions or outright changed the wording of quotes to benefit their favored candidate.
Here’s an example from a couple of years ago:
Flubbed Joke Makes Kerry a Political Punching Bag, Again
Quote from the article:
Here is what he actually said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3noYSLX1zw
I’m glad to see that the numerous ignoramuses that roam these inflammatory laden stories have yet to relinquish the fallacious arguments that nothing has changed. Moreover, the assertion that the Sons of Iraq, whose military training consists of manning checkpoints, roadblocks, and other static security positions, granted they do go on patrol with much success, are going to take up arms in some grandiose rebellion against the central government is outlandish and only proves how uninformed you really. The goal for the Iraqi government and MNF-I is to ensure that the upcoming provincial elections, yet another tragedy of disenfranchisement of which I’m sure will garner a similarly well thought discussion, enable a foundation for a more federalist system so that the ‘transaction costs’ of integration to aid in employing these courageous volunteers will be lowered. Volunteers who do more than sit behind computers saying how disastrous the situation is, and actually go out and make the country more prosperous for themselves and future generations.
Simply Garbage
#37–soon==same question for you==how do you know? What is your source of information that you trust or synthesize to make such conclusionary statements?
My filter and bias says that our reporting expertise is so thin and so slanted we CAN’T tell what is going on and what might happen in any given circumstances. All firm statements, such as yours, are simply propaganda.
That said, given the crap fest Iraq has been for years, I assume (ie–I don’t know, I just suspect) that currently all sides are being paid not to fight and the peace bought in this way might continue even with the payments stopped as along as some minimal local government forms and the American force of arms remains. aka==a little of something is better than a lot of nothing.
Will peace survive if our money stops and our troops withdraw? I doubt it. Sunni vs Shia, Iran running amok, Kurds seeking independence, all equal no peace for Iraq.
Now, again, I don’t know–I’m just pessimistic==America has never understood its enemies after defeating the Germans.
You may be right, but whats your source of information?
#36 – Tommie
>>The NY Times has on more than one occasion
>>misrepresented positions or outright changed
>>the wording of quotes to benefit their
>>favored candidate.
On the other hand, under the subversive influence of Judith Miller, they supported the ridiculous run-up to Dumbya’s trophy war.
Hey, anybody can get snookered.
The difference between the NYT and the right-wing “news” sources, is that the NYT really DOES make an effort to be fair and balanced. When they err, they’re just as likely to err in favor of the right wing as the left. And if they fuck up, they admit to it and change their stance (I’m sure the Anal Cyst Limbaugh/ Loofah Pad O’Reilly set would call this a “flip-flop”).
And you know where that leaves them? Right in the center.
That’s why they’re one of the most admired publications in the world, and why right-wing outlets of yellow journalism like World Net Daily are not.
The op-ed columnists may lean to the left, but the reporting is generally spot-on. So they’re generally anti-Bush; most people with an IQ over 65 are too.
Same thing for the Wall St. Journal. Their editorial board is pretty much a rubber stamp for the Republican administration, but their reporting is very centrist.
#39
> is that the NYT really
> DOES make an effort
> to be fair and balanced.
> When they err, they’re
> just as likely to err in
> favor of the right wing as
> the left. And if they fuck up,
> they admit to it and change their stance
No MM. You are wrong on both accounts. In the example I gave, the NYT never printed a retraction nor do they care about being fair and balanced. When it comes to politics, the NYT is about as fair and balanced as Fox News. The only difference is their approach. FN is happy, shiny sensationalism whereas the NYT is elite snobbery. Both have an agenda.
The Wall Street Journal is (hopefully still will be) different. I would accept that the WSJ is fair and balanced but certainly not the NYT and the NYT is certainly not “center” at least when it comes to politics.
The ombudsman for the The New York Times has admitted that they are biased left of center.
Thomas, was what you excerpted an actual quote? Because I think that is how Kerry meant the joke.
With the surge, the Iraqis went from passing 8 out of 18 benchmarks, to 15 out of 18 this year.
#40 Tommie
>>I gave, the NYT never printed a retraction
>>nor do they care about being fair and
>>balanced.
Tommie, wtf are you talking about? At the end of the “flubbed joke” link you posted the Times printed (on the day after the original story)”
“Correction: Nov. 3, 2006
A Political Memo article yesterday about the fallout for Senator John Kerry over what he called a “botched joke” referred incompletely to the differences between prepared remarks and what he actually said about the Iraq war to students at Pasadena City College in California on Monday. Mr. Kerry not only dropped the word “us,” but he also rephrased his opening sentence extensively and omitted a reference to President Bush. Mr. Kerry’s aides said that the prepared text read: “Do you know where you end up if you don’t study, if you aren’t smart, if you’re intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush.” What he said: “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
I have NEVER seen the NYT make a mistake that was discovered and not own up to it. They make every effort to be fair and balanced, and not in the Faux Spews sense. Judith Miller, the plagiarism guy, the “flubbed joke” gaffe; they always admit when they’re wrong. Unlike World Net Daily and the right-wing hate rages.
As to the WSJ, we’ll see what becomes of that paper now that Rupie bought them out. I’m sure they’re not going to get better; it’s just a question of how far into the gutter Murdoch can drag the premier financial newspaper in America.
We should have just bombed iraq with bundles of money. it would be cheaper, and the iraqis would be so distracted and busy buying sneakers, iPods, bootleg britney spears CDs and soccer shirts that they wouldn’t have much interest in jihad.