General Petraeus is making the point that, contrary to some press reports (including commentary on this blog), the US Army isn't "arming" any Sunni insurgents in al-Anbar province or elsewhere. If he says so, I'll take him at his word. Still, we are giving them money. And since you can use money to buy weapons -- especially if the US military is smiling on your efforts to do so -- I'm not sure I really see the difference here. Moreover, Petraeus and Crocker are both bragging about Anbar Sunnis joining the local police force and presumably we are arming the local police force and given that Shiite militias in Shiite areas find it easy to infiltrate the local police there, it seems like the new, Sunnified Iraqi local police in Sunni areas are just going to be Sunni insurgent groups, but this time with uniforms.
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Bucks Not Bullets
10 Sep 2007 03:37 pm
Comments (8)
"Fred Kagan actually researched this issue before opining on it."
I know the "actually" here is intended to suggest a contrast with Matt's post, not a contrast with Kagan's own M.O., but I still chuckled when I read that.
I wonder if Fred or any of his fellow Kagans has actually researched the black market hobby of filing the serial numbers off of weapons. Or the fact that money, once paid to a member of the police force, can be distributed to additional people and used to purchase additional weaponry.
So let me see if I have this straight. For a long time, our troops were trapped in a bloody, losing battle against our enemies in Anbar. Suddenly last fall, the Anbar tribes turn against AQI. But they don't receive any arms from us and just a pittance of money. Meanwhile, violence in Anbar collapses to nothing, markets are thriving and it's safe to walk the streets.
Hmm, sounds like that AQI thing wasn't such a big scary monster after all.
Now tell me why we still have troops in Anbar?
Shouldn't the title of this post be:
Bucks Not Wizards
"Fred Kagan actually researched this issue before opining on it: "All recruits into the ISF and even into “concerned citizens groups” have to provide U.S. forces with biometric data, including fingerprints and retina scans, and with the serial numbers of their weapons [they bring their own and are not, as you suggest, armed by the US]. All of this information strips them of their anonymity — a key asset for insurgents and terrorists."
Posted by Béziers | September 10, 2007 3:57 PM"
Considering the Kagan clan wrote the surge and have been among its primary propagandists, saying they "actually researched this issue" is like saying "Lenin and Trotsky actually researched the militarization of labor."
As long as we're splitting hairs, the US never did supply Saddam Hussein with weapons. Rather, the US facilitated the procurement of weapons with the understanding that Saddam use them against the evil Iranians. Whom the US actually did sell weapons -- back when they were nice. And also more recently, but by accident.
"All recruits into the ISF and even into “concerned citizens groups” have to provide U.S. forces with biometric data, including fingerprints and retina scans, and with the serial numbers of their weapons [they bring their own and are not, as you suggest, armed by the US]. All of this information strips them of their anonymity — a key asset for insurgents and terrorists."
Posted by Béziers
I happen to know a bit about biometrics over here (I'm in Iraq) and I can tell you with absolute certainty that this is not the case, although we are now moving in that direction.
As for the U.S. "not arming" any militant Sunni groups, what about the 1920 Revolution Brigades in Baquba? We may not have armed them, but we gave them uniforms and a free pass to roam the streets armed. Petraeus is splitting hairs.
Yeah, I commented earlier about this claim that these "security forces" aren't being armed.
So how do they "fight Al Qaeda" with no weapons?
Like I said, they must be DAMN GOOD martial artists!
7.5 on the Norris bad-ass scale!
They give their fingerprints? So what? Do we fingerprint every insurgent attack location? They blow up a truck, kill 100 people - and we go in and dust the whole area for fingerprints? Really?
What the hell do fingerprints and retinal patterns have to do with any of this?
Are they saying that if they find a gun on a dead insurgent, they'll arrest the guy who originally owned the gun? What if he's dead because the insurgent killed him and took the gun (not that insurgents NEED to do that because EVERYBODY in Iraq owns an AK-47)?
And considering the US LOST 190,000 weapons - many under Petraeus's leadership - which this is obviously what this is about, if anything - I can't see that whether they're "being armed" is even relevant.
This is just plain, outright lying.
Comments closed September 24, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Fred Kagan actually researched this issue before opining on it: "All recruits into the ISF and even into “concerned citizens groups” have to provide U.S. forces with biometric data, including fingerprints and retina scans, and with the serial numbers of their weapons [they bring their own and are not, as you suggest, armed by the US]. All of this information strips them of their anonymity — a key asset for insurgents and terrorists."
Posted by Béziers | September 10, 2007 3:57 PM