The Iraqi officer leading a U.S.-financed anti-jihadist group is in no mood for small talk -- either the military gives him more money or he will pack his bags and rejoin the ranks of al-Qaeda.
"I'll go back to al-Qaeda if you stop backing the Sahwa (Awakening) groups," Col. Satar tells U.S. Lt. Matthew McKernon, as he tries to secure more funding for his men to help battle the anti-U.S. insurgents.
Most members of the Awakening groups are Sunni Arab former insurgents who themselves fought American troops under the al-Qaeda banner after the fall of the regime of executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Some, like Satar, had served in Saddam's army before joining Al-Qaeda. Others were members of criminal gangs before deciding to fight the insurgents, with the backing of the U.S. military.
They earn around 300 dollars a month and their presence at checkpoints and on patrol has become an essential component of the U.S.-led coalition's strategy to restore order in the war-wracked country.
"I like my work," said Satar, who is in charge of security south of Baquba in Iraq's eastern Diyala province.
According to McKernon Satar has a contract with the U.S. military to employ 230 men "but he has more than 300" under his command, which is why he wants more money to keep them happy.
It's difficult to imagine how bribery can possibly constitute a long-term strategy, but then, long-term strategy isn't exactly the Bush/McCain strength, now, is it. For all that these guys are the baby boomers who have for decades excoriated their own generation for an "if it feels good, do it" mentality, holding themselves up as Very Serious Men, it seems that what feels good to these guys is massive military force directed at anyone who disses their manhood, and hang the consequences. It's the same kind of thinking that often keeps corporations from thinking long-term because of the need to get through the quarter in good enough shape to keep James Cramer from shrieking about them.
Juan Cole, in a post that's required for anyone who wants to separate the facts from the Bush/McCain/Corporate Media spin, credits "ethnic cleansing" by Shi'ites for the reduction in violence in Baghdad -- hardly something to crow about:
For the first six months of the troop escalation, high rates of violence continued unabated. That is suspicious. What exactly were US troops doing differently last September than they were doing in May, such that there was such a big change? The answer to that question is simply not clear. Note that the troop escalation only brought US force strength up to what it had been in late 2005. In a country of 27 million, 30,000 extra US troops are highly unlikely to have had a really major impact, when they had not before.
As best I can piece it together, what actually seems to have happened was that the escalation troops began by disarming the Sunni Arabs in Baghdad. Once these Sunnis were left helpless, the Shiite militias came in at night and ethnically cleansed them. Shaab district near Adhamiya had been a mixed neighborhood. It ended up with almost no Sunnis. Baghdad in the course of 2007 went from 65% Shiite to at least 75% Shiite and maybe more. My thesis would be that the US inadvertently allowed the chasing of hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs out of Baghdad (and many of them had to go all the way to Syria for refuge). Rates of violence declined once the ethnic cleansing was far advanced, just because there were fewer mixed neighborhoods.
If the violence in Iraq is primarily sectarian, and the surge chased the Sunni out of Baghdad, then of course Baghdad is going to be quieter. The question is whether we needed more American force to do it, and whether aiding and abetting small-scale genocide is the role we want our military to play.
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