Dabbling in foreign affairs without adequate understanding of local cultures is a dangerous thing. It is proving very dangerous for our troops as detailed in this article by Gareth Porter at Asia Times. Funded by US money and supplied with weapons by the US military has further endangered our troops.
…mainstream Sunni insurgents who have been fighting al-Qaeda appear to have outmaneuvered US strategists by using the councils to pursue their interests in weakening their most immediate enemy, reducing pressures from the US military and establishing new political bases, while continuing to mount attacks on US and Iraqi government forces.
The biggest question surrounding the strategy from the beginning was whether the Awakening Councils – called Sahwa in Arabic – would be a haven for Sunni insurgents.
High-ranking US officers issued public assurances last year that former insurgents would not be allowed to enter the program, but last month, Iraqi government officials, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, began raising the specter of “infiltration” of the Awakening groups by al-Qaeda or “Ba’athists”. Those are terms which have often been used by Shi’ite leaders to refer to the mainstream Sunni insurgents.
We now appear to be aiding and abetting the Sunni insurgency that were part of the ruling Ba’ath party taken down with the fall of Saddam. Really, what was the point? What are our kids dying for and who is supplying the weapons that are killing them? Read the whole article here
