US puts Iraqi insurgents on the payroll

[karlos]

What an incredible turnaround. The US is now actively recruiting Iraqi resistence. It is an incredulous move handing weapons and money to the very people fighting US troops but this is the only way the US knows.
Buy up the oposition.
This wont work ofcourse because every Iraqi wants freedom and whether they are fighting using US made weapons or not they will continue the struggle.

JURF AS-SAKHR, Iraq (Reuters) - Under a tree by a battlefield road in Iraq's "Triangle of Death", Lieutenant- Colonel Robert Balcavage meets his new recruits.

The men are Iraqi Sunni Arabs who are about to join the U.S. military's payroll as a local militia. They want guns.

"I am not giving out guns and ammo," the U.S. commander says. The men listen carefully as the interpreter translates.

"I've been shot at up here enough times to know that there's plenty of guns and ammo. Me personally. Some of you guys have probably taken some pretty good shots at me."

Slowly but deliberately, U.S. forces are enlisting groups of armed men -- many probably former insurgents -- and paying cash, a strategy they say has dramatically reduced violence in some of Iraq's most dangerous areas in just weeks.

It is a rare piece of good news in four years of war, and successes like this are likely to play a prominent part when U.S. commander General David Petraeus makes an eagerly anticipated report to congress in mid-September.

"People say: 'But you're paying the enemy'. I say: 'You got a better idea?'," says Balcavage. "It's a lot easier to recruit them than to detain or kill them."

But U.S. forces also say the militia -- dubbed the Concerned Citizens Programme, or CCP, -- is only a temporary measure. If the comparative peace is to hold, the mainly Shi'ite government must offer the fighters real jobs in its army and police force.
continued
http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKCOL24827420070822?pageNumber =1

[Cruise4]

I know there are surface reasons for these various conflicts the US and UK troops are involved with... but does anyone think its also being used to deliberately reduce the effectiveness of the armies, by either killing soldiers or reducing overall morale? DU (Depleted Uranium), I would imagine will kill an awful lot more in the years to come. Is this also part of their longer term Eugenics program?

[Rowan Berkeley]

DU is just the Ultimate *. This is the end of a fine article by Mark Gaffney on the subject:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18242.htm

... White House spokespersons and national security advisers have repeatedly warned that Islamic terrorists could strike cities in the US with radiological weapons.[77] In recent days we've heard these same warnings repeated, again, this time in especially shrill tones. Based on the above evidence, however, it’s clear that America’s leaders have already done what we’ve accused terrorists of only planning to do. Worse, our leaders have done it on a greater scale. America’s use of DU weapons has already caused the deaths of hundreds of times more Iraqi
and Afghani civilians, including women and children, than died in the 9/11
attack. Moreover, it is likely that the DU particles already released into the environment, given their insidious effects and 4.5 billion year half-life, will go on killing innocent people for a very long time, indeed, perhaps for the rest of human history, essentially for all of time. In short, our leaders have permanently fouled our nest, surely the ultimate atrocity. They cannot plead ignorance. As I have shown, the toxic effects of DU were understood even at the time of the Manhattan Project. Our leaders knew the facts, but used the weapons anyway, probably because they just didn’t care–––a breach of trust with the American people so odious it can only be compared with an earlier US government policy of utilizing American GIs as guinea pigs during the period of atmospheric testing. We know that at least 300,000 American soldiers were willfully exposed
to high levels of radiation during dozens of nuclear tests; not to mention the millions of American civilians who were also exposed to the fallout.[78]
In short, our leaders are guilty of not merely incompetence, nor even
malfeasance, but of outright terrorism. Indeed, if the use of DU weapons is not terrorism, the word has no meaning. No doubt, for this reason, in June 2007, at a conference in Vancouver, BC, a gathering of 9/11 scholars and peace activists called for the creation of an international tribunal to hold America’s leaders accountable for crimes against humanity and the environment. Their brave initiative deserves our support, because it is absurd to think the US government will police itself. Thus far, the US Congress has shown no sign of providing the
necessary leadership. What is clear is that if we fail to end the use of these weapons and bring the guilty to justice, the people of the world will hold all Americans collectively responsible; and rightly so. Our leaders’ reckless and immoral use of DU weapons in the name of freedom has seriously undermined not only America’s standing in the world, but also her security. Far from enhancing our security, DU weapons have made us much more vulnerable. When the peoples of the earth learn the terrible truth about what we’ve done, they will hate us more than ever; and if they insist on retribution we will be lucky to escape retaliatory strikes against American cities.

With regard to 9/11, a further conclusion also appears inescapable. Given that our leaders knowingly used weapons certain to kill, injure and maim tens of thousands of our own soldiers, is it not likely they are also capable of murdering a smaller number of American civilians on 9/11 for similar reasons, i.e., out of political expedience? Given the naked facts, it would be hard to conclude anything else.

[karlos]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070825/us_nm/iraq_name_dc_2

What's in a name? U.S. rebrands Iraq ex-insurgents

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces have rebranded one of the main insurgent groups in Iraq and now use the term "concerned local nationals" to refer to a group that once claimed responsibility for killing scores of Americans.

The updated vocabulary for referring to the 1920 Revolution Brigade, described by a U.S. commander on Saturday, is a sign of the abrupt change in tactics that has seen U.S. forces cooperate with former Sunni Arab enemies.

The 1920 Revolution Brigade was one of the main anti-American Sunni Arab insurgent groups in Iraq in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and has claimed responsibility for killing scores of U.S. troops in ambushes and bomb attacks.

But for the past several months its members have cooperated with U.S. forces to help drive the strict al Qaeda Islamists out of Sunni Arab areas, part of a new U.S. tactic of cooperating with former Sunni Arab foes against al Qaeda.

Colonel David Sutherland, the U.S. commander in Diyala Province, said his men prefer not to call the group by its name.

"The 1920s as they're called, we call them 'the Baquba Guardians', we call them the 'concerned local nationals'," he said. Baquba is the provincial capital.

"These are patriots who have come forward and have joined the security process. They are working with my soldiers and they are working with the Iraqi security forces," he said.

Sutherland said the 1920 Revolution Brigade name was now being used widely to refer to local pro-government militia and not anti-American insurgents. Some Shi'ite elders were asking if they too could recruit "1920s," he said, a sign the Sunni Arab group's name was no longer seen as sectarian.

"It has become a name, a catch-all phrase for these concerned local nationals throughout the province," he told a news conference by video link to Baghdad.

His forces "do not deal with terrorists, and if we have information on individuals then we will act accordingly," Sutherland said. "The individuals we are working with.... I have confidence in them and I have confidence in their leadership."

[Disco_Destroyer]

Hmm this tactic could be a build for attacks on Shi'ites right? Like Iran?