Yesterday I was watching the network (NBC)
news, something I don't do a lot, but they had
a feature piece about the Iraqi police complete
with an animated reconstruction of how the
incident early yesterday occurred. It buttressed
what I had been saying for months about not
knowing, really, who is on what side in Iraq.

Here we have people trained by the US,
outfitted by the US, attempting to kill US
soldiers in a pretty elaborate ambush - the
Iraqi police. The story claimed that these
would-be killers of US personnel were militia
infiltrators. I recall writing some months back
that the police weren't reliable, and suggesting
that both the militias and the insurgents
"owned" x number of them. The ambush
yesterday would seem to verify that idea.

Apparently, the interim report that Bush
revealed a couple of days ago suggested
that this was *one* of the weaknesses of
the al-Maliki government - their inability to rein
in the militias. It would also appear that here,
too, is another parallel to Vietnam, although
I know those who disagree continue to
disparage such comparisons. In that
conflict, the Viet Cong often infiltrated
South Vietnamese units *and* local village
leadership. The US forces on the ground
often had no idea if that willing cooperator
by day was the same person attacking or
betraying our forces at night - a lot of
villages were destroyed because of that.

In Iraq, especially in Baghdad, this issue
becomes even more problematical, as these
police are often guarding key facilities or
key individuals. How, without a much deeper
vetting process (hopefully that doesn't
include torture) does the US know who is
reliable, and who is wearing two coats?

One has to suggest, that *no one*, including
,ebers of both the police and military, and
perhaps even members of Parliament or
various agencies of government, can be
considered "reliable." Clearly, there are
several agendas operating in Iraq today -
Sunni vs. Shiite, Kurd vs. both, insurgents
vs. both the government and the US,
militias (primarily Shiite) against the US,
the government *and* Sunnis, plus Iranian
and Syrian support for one or more of these
groups, if not all of them.

If it is reasonably clear that the US has only
the barest idea of who *really* is friend or
foe, how is a "win" possible when so much
chaos lies just beneath the surface, or in
this case, overtly attacks us?

I've gotten completely mystified by the
President's stance, which I think David Brooks
delineated succinctly last night on the Lehrer
New Hour - if General Petraeus wants more
troops in September, he'll get them; if he wants
less, we'll begin to draw down - and equally
puzzled by the chaos in both parties and both
houses of Congress about what to do. It seems
as though all 535 members of Congress are
running in 500 different directions, and nobody
has a clue what actions to take about almost
any facet of the war from funding to timetables
to troop withdrawals.

We are in a dilemma. I read this morning that the
Midwest, up to now stalwartly supporting the
President's position on the war, is beginning to
falter in the wake of more and more bodies
coming home to the small towns of that region.
The President's recent statements about Iraq
make it clear, to me at least, that he is *not*
wavering, even if some military folks are having
doubts, even if Congress is "70% opposed" to the
war, and apparently a sizable majority of the
electorate is also opposed to the war. George
Bush is not going to walk away from Iraq, and
there isn't 2/3 of Congress willing to override a
veto if they send him a bill for funding with a
timetable, which he has said repeatedly he'll
veto - which he did before and I believe he'll do
again. As I've been saying for two years, the
United States will still be in Iraq, sadly for both
Iraqis and US and British personnel, on 20 January,
2009. There's *no* evidence that any other course
will be embraced despite the opposition in a
variety of directions.

The police treachery is but the tip of the iceberg.
Who else that the US *thinks* is our "friend" is
not, and what kind of damage might they do in
the long term? VMS

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Note: Written Sat, 14 Jul 2007 10:23:12

Minorly edited as of 29 July, 2007