Paying Insurgents Not to Fight
It is impossible to keep up with all the Bush regime's lies. There are simply too many. Among the recent crop, one of the biggest is that the "surge" is working.
Launched last year, the "surge" was the extra 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops sent to Iraq. These few extra troops, Americans were told, would finally supply the necessary forces to pacify Iraq.
This claim never made any sense. The extra troops didn't raise the total number of U.S. soldiers to more than one-third the number every expert has said is necessary in order to successfully occupy Iraq.
The real purpose of the "surge" was to hide another deception. The Bush regime is paying Sunni insurgents $800,000 a day not to attack U.S. forces. That's right, 80,000 members of an "Awakening group," the "Sons of Iraq," a newly formed "U.S.-allied security force" consisting of Sunni insurgents, are being paid $10 a day each not to attack U.S. troops. Allegedly, the Sons of Iraq are now at work fighting al-Qaida.
This is a much cheaper way to fight a war. We can only wonder why Bush didn't figure it out sooner.
The "surge" was also timed to take account of the near completion of neighborhood cleansing. Most of the violence in Iraq during the past five years has resulted from Sunnis and Shiites driving each other out of mixed neighborhoods. Had the two groups been capable of uniting against the U.S. troops, the United States would have been driven out of Iraq long ago. Instead, the Iraqis slaughtered each other and fought the Americans in their spare time.
In other words, the "surge" has had nothing to do with any decline in violence.
With the Sunni insurgents now on Uncle Sam's payroll, with neighborhoods segregated and with al Sadr's militia standing down, it is unclear who is still responsible for ongoing violence other than U.S. troops themselves. Somebody must still be fighting, however, because the United States is still conducting air strikes and is still unable to tell friend from foe.
On Feb. 16, the Los Angeles Times reported that a U.S. air strike managed to kill nine Iraqi civilians and three Sons of Iraq.
The Sunnis are abandoning their posts in protest, demanding an end to "errant" U.S. air strikes. Obviously, the Sunnis see an opportunity to increase their daily pay for not attacking Americans. Soon, they will have consultants advising them how much they can demand in bribes before it pays the Americans to begin fighting the war under the old terms.
If Sunnis are smart, they will split the gains. Currently, the Sunnis are getting shafted. They are only collecting $800,000 of the $275 million it costs the United States to fight the war for one day. That's only about three-tenths of one percent, too much of a one-sided deal for the Americans.
If the Sunnis negotiate their cut to between one-quarter and one-half of the daily cost to the United States of the war, the Sunnis won't need to share in the oil revenues, thus helping the three factions to get back together as a country. Even 20 percent of the daily cost of the war would be a good deal for the Sunnis.
A long-term contract in this range would be expensive for Uncle Sam, but a great deal cheaper than John McCain's commitment to a 100-year Iraqi war.
If Bush's war turns out to be as big a boon for the Sunnis as it has for Tony Blair, we might have a modern-day version of "The Mouse That Roared"—a movie about an impoverished country that attacked the United States in order to be defeated and receive foreign aid—only this time the money comes as a payoff for not fighting the occupiers.
As the world now knows, Blair's "dodgy dossier" about the threat allegedly posed by Iraq was a contrivance that allowed Blair to put British troops at the service of Bush's aggression in the Middle East. Now that Blair is out of his prime minister job, he has been rewarded with millions of dollars in sinecures from financial firms such as JP Morgan and millions more in speaking engagements. As part of the payoff, the Bush Republicans have even put Mrs. Blair on the lucrative lecture circuit.
Ask yourself, do you really think Blair knows enough high finance to be of any value as an advisor to JP Morgan, or enough about climate change to advise Zurich Financial on the subject? Do you really believe that after hearing all the vacuous speeches Blair has delivered in those many years in office anyone now wants to pay him huge fees to hear him give a speech? Even when it was free, people were sick of it.
Blair is simply collecting his payoff for selling out his country and sending British troops to die for American hegemony.
The Sunnis seem inclined to do the same thing if Bush will pay them enough.
Is the next phase of the Iraq war going to be a U.S.-Sunni alliance against the Shiites?
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"Is the next phase of the Iraq war going to be a U.S.-Sunni alliance against the Shiites?" P.C.R.
The more things change the more they remain the same.
Saddam Hussein was our man - Uncle Sam's man in Iraq, a Sunni himself - he and the Sunnis ruled, and kept Shiite Iraq/Iran counter-balanced. But Saddam loathed what the Jews were doing to the Palestinians more than he hated the Shiites. He incurred the wrath of Israel and its (all powerful) lobby A.I.P.A.C. in the U.S.
As we all know like Bill Clinton was our first 'black' president - & W. Bush is our first 'Jewish' President. There is no penalty for what the jewish neo-cons in the U.S. and W. Bush inflict upon us. So, sure - it will go full-circle...and the Jews will have had their revenge against the target they were after - Saddam. Then their t.v. in the U.S. will tell us 'all's well that ends well.' And Bill Kristol's career will be as secure as ever it was. And the U.S. war machine's stocks and dividends will have soared as they have been all along the way.
What's to complain?
We're the nazis now - spelled 'zionists.' Welcome to Israel & to a lesser but siginificant extent - EXXON & the U.S. war machine. Aren't we lovely?! ... & sick.
Mr. Minefield, I think you are dividing our nation and letting George W. off too easily to make this all about "the Jews." I could be counted as one of "the Jews" and am adamantly against Senor Bush's neo-con adventures.
Our paying Muslims in Iraq, sorry to digress, reminds me of Kosovo where we back the KLA and Al Quaida. When you don't know what is going on in a neighborhood, it is best to stay out. But, as with Israel and the Middle East, if you must go in you should know that you are a part of Western civilization, there are sides, and which one you are on. Bush's funding and backing of Muslim's everywhere shows he doesn't know about any of these culturist common sense policy orientations.
Next year we have promised the Kosovo Muslims to raise their foreign aid from 71 million to over 300 million. We have no business running the world overseas. If we do, we should only back our friends such as Israel (only mentioned due to Mr. Minefield). But we have NO BUSINESS sending our tax dollars to fund Islamic factions in any part of the world. Mr. Roberts article sickens and saddens me. I would hope that we would know better. I tremble for our future when I realize that the other side is playing so aggressively and we don't even know we have a side.
http://www.culturism.us
Paying Insurgents Not to Fight
That sounds like pretty could work if you can get it. Hey, I'm not fighting. Where is my check?
I don't think Paul is dividing our nation. It belongs to the powers that be. Not all jewish folk agree with the neo-cons or w. bush but those dominant powers today represent israel's interests or her perceived interests in tandem to some extent with those of America's military industrial complex and big oil yaddah, yaddah. It's not just the gentile goliath (w. bush's) fault. He dances to the tune being played. Paul doesn't divide he illuminates, which is good.
As for some humor - as to sunnis now being paid not to attack us or u.s. troops in Iraq, it does sound like good work if you can get it as Red Phillips suggests. ... Reminds me of the Marx Brothers auditioning to play their music for a high society party. Says Groucho: 'well it will cost you $400 for us to play for the evening or $1,000 if we don't get the job.' (Little did the Hostess know, she should have paid the $1,000 and saved herself a lot of money and heart'ache.) Where are the Marx Brothers when you need them in Iraq? Well, apparently they're on the other side...Figures they're ALL semitic, six of one, half-dozen of another. {Humor - hope I didn't "divide."}
If we can take all those bullets, we can take a joke, can't we? As for w. bush per se - no quarter - he deserves at least the same fate as Saddam. Saddam was (whatever anyone thought of him) at least a true son of his sunni people. Who is w.? Who is bill kristol?
_
An off topic aside: I notice that Paul Gottfried's name is missing from the Chronicles masthead. How come?
Paying the Iraqi Sunni insurgents each $10 a day to not attack American soldiers. My,my.... If that doesn't tell you that the war is lost, you would have to be an utter idiot. You would also have to be an utter idiot to even want to join the American army, unless you want to die for Israel, which is what this war is all about.
What it also shows is that the American army is no imperial army. It doesn't have the stomach for such adventures. It is being kicked around like a football in Iraq and in Afghanistan as well. And the very same thing could happen in Kosovo, if it continues its occupation there.
To Mr Ramus: Re: Paul Gottfried: I notice he has an archive on LewRockwell.com. In the sectarian rightwing subculture we all live in, his association with the heretical LRC perhaps got him expelled from Chronicles? Or maybe there is any number of innocuous reasons. I've always liked his writing.
It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:—
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
From Dane-geld by Rudyard Kipling
True (enough) the above:
Now for the below:
"And him as for a map doth nature store,
To show false art what beauty was of yore." -W.S.
You all good with her, mother Nature...? good (enough)?
You know she can be a bithch when she wants to and inscrutable... horrible round about... can't be found out... not even Her, never mind God? His privacy is intact... so is Her's.
You'all good enough? ......... good, if true enough.
HA-HA-HA-HA... no i just laugh naturally it lowers blood pressure, i don't necessarily disagree... HA-HA... enjoy.
some went to war some never came home... i thought america was a republic? not an empire? WHO made money... ? I WANT it back -