Awakening to More Trouble
Posted by Ilan Goldenberg
I haven't written much lately about the dangerously deteriorating situation of Sahwa movement. But here is just another case and point in how unsteady the situation remains.
The success of the US "surge" strategy in Iraq may be under threat as Sunni militia employed by the US to fight al-Qaida are warning of a national strike because they are not being paid regularly.
Leading members of the 80,000-strong Sahwa, or awakening, councils have said they will stop fighting unless payment of their $10 a day (£5) wage is resumed. The fighters are accusing the US military of using them to clear al-Qaida militants from dangerous areas and then abandoning them.
A telephone survey by GuardianFilms for Channel 4 News reveals that out of 49 Sahwa councils four with more than 1,400 men have already quit, 38 are threatening to go on strike and two already have...
But dozens of phone calls to Sahwa leaders reveal bitterness and anger. "We know the Americans are using us to do their dirty work and kill off the resistance for them and then we get nothing for it," said Abu Abdul-Aziz, the head of the council in Abu Ghraib, where 500 men have already quit.
"The Americans got what they wanted. We purged al-Qaida for them and now people are saying why should we have any more deaths for the Americans. They have given us nothing."
In Dora, a southern suburb of Baghdad, the leaders of a Sahwa group of 2,400 men said they were considering strike action because none of the 2,000 applicants they had put forward for jobs with the police and military had been accepted.
The Shia-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki has found jobs for only a handful of the Sahwa fighters.
You gotta pay them. You gotta bring them in or this is going to fall apart very quickly.
$10 per day x 80,000 members = $800,000 per day. Is that right? x 365 that's $292,000,000. Of course, it's all off-budget, but that's some serious change.
Posted by: gregorbkny | March 21, 2008 at 02:49 PM
$10 per day x 80,000 members = $800,000 per day. Is that right? x 365 that's $292,000,000. Of course, it's all off-budget, but that's some serious change.
Posted by: gregorbkny | March 21, 2008 at 02:50 PM
The cost of these guys per year is less than the total war costs per day, so I say support the awakened Sunnis. Not only that, but extend the program to Afghanistan and pay the Taliban not to shoot us. Then, why not, make it a global policy. We'll sell them weapons and then pay them not to use them on us. The world will be ours! Reminds me of the pediatrician who said he loved his job because he had so many guys working for him.
Posted by: Don Bacon | March 21, 2008 at 05:33 PM
The other alternative, to save money, is to put them in concentration camps. We've already got 24,000 Iraqis, mostly Sunnis, behind barbed wire, not charged with anything. What's 80,000 more? Serves them right for belly-aching. They're interfering with US imperial policy. They forget that we've got the boards, we've got the water, and we've got a born-again president that knows how to use them.
Posted by: Don Bacon | March 22, 2008 at 12:00 AM
The world will be ours! Reminds me of the pediatrician who said he loved his job because he had so many guys working for him.
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