Inside a brightly lit room, the walls adorned with memorials to 23 dead American soldiers, Lt. Col. Robert Balcavage stared at the three Sunni tribal leaders he wanted to recruit.
Their fighters had battled U.S. troops. Balcavage suspected they might have attacked some of his own men. The trio accused another sheik of having links to the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. That sheik, four days earlier, had promised the U.S. military to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq and protect a strategic road.
"Who do you trust? Who do you not trust?" said Balcavage, commander of the 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, his voice dipping out of earshot.
An hour later, he signed up some of America's newest allies.
Now I ask you, after reading the above post do you see how this is going to turn out? Or is it just me that cannot help but see that these Iraqi fighters are using the Americans vilification of al-Qaeda to get more weapons, more freedom, and the upper hand over their enemies, including the American enemies?
I would bet my house that these guys are going to turn out to be a major American headache at some time in the very near future. And the military will be resistant to do anything to reign them in for fear of losing their "trust" until they do something that the American troops can no longer ignore. At which time they will cut their ties with our military and go back underground, with more money, weapons, and training under their robes.
This war is being run by near sighted morons. We just need to get our guys the hell out of there as soon as possible.
We need to get our guys and gals the fark outta there.
ReplyDeleteI won't take that bet btw..