The U.S. military’s new ‘strategy’ in Iraq is to arm and pay ‘neighborhood watch’ groups in mainly Sunni areas. The Iraqi government does not want these groups and denies them any legitimacy.
One wonders what the U.S. really wants to achieve here. This is either utter stupidity or a well grounded plan of fomenting the next stage of a civil war and more massacres. Which is it?
From today’s Post article: U.S. Widens Push to Use Armed Iraqi Residents:
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.
[…]
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.
[…]
"They will clear the neighborhood of anyone who belongs to al-Qaeda or JAM [a Shiite militia] or even carries a bullet," the [local Sunni leader] said. "We want you, sir, to give us the green light. They are ready.""You have the green light," Gibbs answered. "But they have to follow the rules. You can’t just shoot anybody. No vengeance . . . But the bad guys — I don’t care. Go get them."
Well – who are the ‘bad guys’? I guess that is in the eye of the beholder and the neighborhood guard leader certainly has a somewhat different definition in mind than Col. Ricky D. Gibbs.
The U.S. is preparing lists with the names of its new local ‘little Blackwater’ mercinary troops and wants the Iraqi government to hire them as police forces. The government says ‘no’ of course but I am sure the will come to love these lists …
When the legitmate police (as far as there is any legitimate police) uses these lists to ‘collect’ people off the street, which side will the U.S. military fight along?
Petraeus is clearly living in a 1984 world when he claims to achieve ‘national reconciliation’ by arming the local Sunni thieves. The ‘sovereign’ Iraqi government, or what is left of it anyway, is protesting and Maliki is demanding Gen. Petraeus resignation – so far without success. I wonder if, coming September, his government will still exist at all.
A week ago Michael Gordon stenographed some truthiness that shows the utter incompetence of the U.S. military and its lack of any strategy:
“We are going to try a dozen different things,” said one senior officer. “Maybe one of them will flatline. One of them will do this much. One of them will do this much more. After a while, we believe there is chance you will head into success. I am not saying that we are absolutely headed for success.”
The anonymous officer is not contemplating one important fallacy in this. Any of the ‘dozen different things’ he wants to try can make the situation worse.
He wants to open the closed door to ‘success’ first with a chainsaw, then with a hammer, then with grenades and then, maybe, he will try to use the keys. But after having been abused, by then the door’s lock will be damaged and no key will ever be able to unlock it.
The officer reminds me of a quote attributed to Winston Churchill:
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.
Is that part of the national character?