I came across this article today and I wanted to share it wit you and get your openions on the government
Iraq leaders shun Sunni ex-insurgents By Leila Fadel McClatchy Newspapers BAGHDAD — A key pillar of the U.S. strategy to pacify Iraq is in danger of collapsing because the Iraqi government is failing to absorb tens of thousands of former Sunni Muslim insurgents who'd joined U.S.-allied militia groups into the country's security forces. American officials have credited the militias, known as the Sons of Iraq or Awakening Councils, with undercutting support for the group al-Qaida in Iraq and bringing peace to large swaths of the country, including Anbar province and parts of Baghdad. Under the program, the United States pays each militia member a stipend of about $300 a month and promised that they'd get jobs with the Iraqi government. But the Iraqi government, which is led by Shiite Muslims, has brought only a relative handful of the more than 100,000 militia members into the security forces. Now officials are making it clear that they don't intend to include most of the rest. "We cannot stand them, and we detained many of them recently," said one senior Iraqi commander in Baghdad, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue. "Many of them were part of al-Qaida despite the fact that many of them are helping us to fight al-Qaida." He said the army was considering setting a Nov. 1 deadline for those militia members who hadn't been absorbed into the security forces or given civilian jobs to give up their weapons. After that, they'd be arrested, he said. Some militia members say such a move would force them into open warfare with the government again. "If they disband us now, I will tell you that history will show we will go back to zero," said Mullah Shahab al-Aafi, a former emir, or leader, of insurgents in Diyala province who's the acting commander of 24,000 Sons of Iraq there, 11,000 of whom are on the U.S. payroll. "I will not give up my weapons. I will never give them up, and I will carry my weapon again. If it is useless to talk to the government, I will be forced to carry my weapons and my pistol." After initially embracing the idea of bringing the militia members into the security forces, however, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki hasn't followed through. A committee that al-Maliki formed to organize the militias' transition to full-fledged government security troops fell apart and was reconstituted only recently. U.S. officials acknowledge that the hiring of the Sunnis has slowed to a crawl. U.S. and Iraqi officials agree that the al-Maliki government never agreed to hire more than 20 percent of the militia members. An al-Maliki ally said it was unreasonable to expect otherwise. "All the Americans are doing is paying them just to be quiet," said Haider al-Abadi, a leading member of al-Maliki's Dawa political party and the head of the economic and investment committee in the parliament. The Iraqi government, he said, can't "justify paying monthly salaries to people on the grounds that they are ex-insurgents." The best that most of them could expect is to be placed in vocational training for trades such as bricklaying and plumbing, along with a slew of other unemployed people. The government has allocated $150 million for such training. So far this year, the U.S. military has spent $303 million on Sons of Iraq salaries
What hypocrisy from the government. It is OK for them to have armed militia wings who force people - including my relatives not to vote, and even kidnapped one of them. They get paid monthly and helped with equipment simply because of one reason - they are totally for, and part of Maliki's government.
A lot of Sunnis are not too happy with his government, and he sees the legalisation of those people as a threat to his unrivalled influence and loyalty within the armed forces. Calling them Al Qaeda despite them fighting against them is pretty pathetic too.
My opinions on this is that it is yet again a case of US puppets Vs. Iran puppets. Those Sunni militias are US puppets, and are generally against Iran (they are Sunni and Arabs), while Maliki's government and there militias are Pro-Iran (as they are generally Shia, though Iran is just using Shia as a cover, to have something in common with it's Arab puppets. I advise people to check Iranian websites and see what the real Iranians think of Islam and Arabs). The US is simply trying to get more influence withing the Iraqi people after the Shia Coalition betrayed it and went with Iran. America has learnt from Iran, they are copying it by using their own militias to get influence over the anarchy that is Iraq.
I believe BOTH the Sunni and Shia militias should be made illegal, as their loyalties are not with Iraq, but are puppets willing to kill their own Iraqi brothers for Iran or the US. I am very angered by the Iraqi government's double-standards - "Shia militias are OK, but Sunni militias are evil". I am very interested to see the US's response to this. If they don't respond, it is a sign they are loosing, and Iran is winning in Iraq.
By the way, thanks for posting this great topic. I was wondering about doing a topic like this, but I was too lazy.
< Message edited by NeoBabylonian -- 8/22/2008 1:47:08 PM >
The shia goverment will go after the sunna in the governmen and elsewhere, eliminate their best people slowly to make sure that the government remain in control and dominated by shia. In Saddam's days he relied on both shia sunna and christians and he has no distinction between the but this new flavor of govenment went a step further by making sure that it will not only follow saddam's footsteps but also becme racist in that it will maintain one race/sect in government over the other and they are not shy about it.
Very true brother, but they are not doing that in the name of Shia Islam which is a peacefull religion like every other, but for the Iranians to have influence. They are also going a step further still bro - recently, they have even been going against anti-Iran or Arabist Shia, or Secular Shia in government and elesewhere, to stop them even from going into power.
I agree that despite Saddam being evil, and a sadistic psychopath, Iraq under him was better than now. I was a child in Iraq in Saddam's time, and it was, despite being a bad place with the UN sanctions and no political freedoms, it was very safe. Never would anyone fear carbombs, or terrorist kidnapping or gunbattles. As long as you don't say bad about Saddam, you can live quitely whether you are Shia, Sunni, Christian or Sooba (Mandeans). Now, when i went in 2005, you can't say anything bad about Saddam 2 - Maliki - or his militias would kidnap you and torture you before killing you, just like the old Amin. Or the police arrest you and call you a 'terrorist' even though you did nothing wrong - just like Saddam's time. But also, like you said my friend, there are Al Qaeda car-bombs everywhere, militias and armed wings walking around with the police with no shyness - carrying Klashnikovs and RPG's, and skirmishes and gunbattles can be heard almost non-stop in Baghdad.
I hate Saddam, and his evil nature and pyschotic actions, but then, 50 Iraqis are not known killed everyday - and there are more which the media does not know about. Shia, Sunni and Christian were also living next to each other like brothers - you are just not allowed to say anything against Saddam.
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