Iraq: ‘Awakening’ Forces Arouse New Conflicts
FALLUJAH - The controversial move of the U.S. military to back Sunni “Awakening” forces has created another wedge between Sunni and Shia political groups.
Following disputes between the tribal groups assembled into Awakening forces and the Iraqi government, the creation of these forces has become also a political issue.
U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who heads a Shia political bloc, has adamantly opposed the U.S.-military policy of backing tribal groups and former resistance fighters.
To date, the U.S. military has paid more than 17 million dollars to these fighters, whose groups it calls “Concerned Local Citizens” and “Awakening Forces.” Each member receives around 300 dollars monthly. Many are former resistance fighters who used to attack occupation forces.
These new forces now have a strength of more than 76,000. According to the U.S. military, at least 82 percent are Sunni. It hopes to add another 10,000.
The groups have been credited with chasing foreign fighters out of cities in al-Anbar province to the west of Baghdad, and also from parts of Baghdad. But members of these groups are often accused of extortion, corruption, and brutal tactics.
The Shia-led government has opposed creation of groups who might rival its own security forces, which comprise many members of former Shia militias.
“We completely, absolutely reject the Awakening becoming a third military organisation,” Iraqi defence minister Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi said at a news conference Dec. 23. He said the groups would not be allowed any infrastructure like a headquarters building which could give them longer term legitimacy.
Some Sunni groups also reject these forces. Offices of the Awakening forces have been closed down in Fallujah and Najaf despite warnings from Awakening leader Sheikh Ahmad Abu Risha.
“Fallujah city is not under the Awakening influence and never will be,” Ihsan Ahmad, a follower of the Islamic Party in Fallujah told IPS. “Those tribal leaders want to control everything everywhere, but they are not qualified for leadership. They are just a group of ignorant tribal men.”
Fear of a new conflict between tribes and political parties has arisen in many parts of the country.
“The same story of overthrowing Saddam Hussein is being repeated,” Issra Yasseen, a teacher in Fallujah, told IPS. “They say they finished the influence of al-Qaeda and so they want to take over everything for themselves. We are afraid of the possibility that they will then fight each other and naturally, our lives will be the price.”
Many Awakening leaders and members of these groups in al-Anbar and Baghdad say they have been betrayed by Islamic Party leaders and by the Iraqi government.
“The government was using us to protect its interests, and now it ignores our legitimate demands,” Sheikh Hassan al-Alwani from the outskirts of Fallujah told IPS. “Only those enlisted with the Islamic Party are getting jobs and contracts, while we who fought only get the lowest ranks and the worst jobs.”
“We were evicted from Fallujah twice by the Americans and Iraqi government troops, and our houses were destroyed under the flag of liberating us,” Salim Mahmood, a former army officer who now works as a barber in Ramadi told IPS. “Those so-called sheikhs and politicians were all hiding in Amman while we were being brutally butchered by their army and allying Americans.”
Tensions between politicians in the government and local tribes affiliated with the Awakening are evident all over Fallujah. Many people say they fear a new phase of fighting, this time local.
“This was the American plan from the beginning,” Sammy Hussein, a poet from Fallujah told IPS. “We knew that after creating a Sunni-Shia fight, they would start a Sunni-Sunni fight and a Shia-Shia fight so that they ensure control of our country. The only thing they have not calculated well is that people are still armed, and that the fighting spirit is still alive in Iraq.”
Residents who do not belong to either side are feeling lost, and living with the consequences of the lack of any responsible rule.
Many shops are open in Fallujah, but they have little to sell. “People do not have money, and business is very slow,” a 30-year-old merchant who gave his name only as Marwan told IPS.
“We are living the worst days since the November 2004 siege of Fallujah. Unemployment is killing us slowly, and we have no real government to care for us. Only those who work with the Americans can afford to buy food, while over 90 percent of residents are very poor. People are always the biggest losers.”
An Oxfam International report released in July estimated that 45 percent of Iraqis live in abject poverty, on less than a dollar a day.
Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East
© 2007 The Inter Press Service
Ok, so, we armed saddam in the 80’s. Now, we’ve armed the shia’s, now we’re arming the sunni’s. Any bets as to which group will turn our own guns against us first?
Glad to see our moronic foreign policy experts have never cracked open a history book.
And the Turks are pissing off the Kurds. The fun has just begun folks. Stay tuned for details at 10.
Yeah, glad to hear that we- the US- gave turkey the green light to bomb Iraq. Who gets to beat up Iraq next? Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait? Lichtenstein?
The next muhajedeen.
wait till iran is attacked - then the fun will begin…………
More weapons for more peace, I’m don’t see the logic.
Question for keyinside:
Why would “our moronic foreign policy experts” crack open a history book when they are MAKING HISTORY starting World War III. ?
this is no fun and it is not even our game….it is the game of the so-called ‘elite’ it is the game of the ‘deciders’ it is the game that the masters of war play while marching to their “new world order”….it is not my game….it is not your game……it is the game of the ‘global and intergalactical warmers’when it spreads to the heaven.s they will blame the ‘common’little people,once again……and i bet you will all take the blame and the rap for it,just like you have all accepted being blamed for’climate-change’…..what a racket ! such a lie !what hogwash we all swallow….the truth is,climate-change is the fault of (for lack of a better word) the illuminatti…..(meaning the powers-that are)
More guns means more death, not more peace.
Expecting any logic from any nation hopelessly infected by the god myth is asking a bit much.
Same shit, different day. If hiring one part of the people to kill another part of the people doesn’t work, hire another part of the people to kill another part of the people. and then encourage your “allies” to spray gasoline all over the more stable regions you’ve bombed to smithereens, and then hand them a flamethrower.
The hottest pits in the hell are as nothing to what these devils are stirring up here on earth every time they get the opportunity.
You guys have all pegged it: it makes no sense to make peace by creating more soldiers. This is only a plan to sell more guns. Refer again to the shock doctrine: create a problem, then sell the solution.
We’d best be ready for the blowback; rival factions of Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds will start to understand the scam we’re running, and we’ll be assaulted from all sides.
THIS WAS NO WAR ..IT WAS A TROJAN HORSE CARRYING GHOULS AND GENOCIDE,inside the walls…” THE DARK ONE PICKED UP A PILE OF SHIT from OFF THE EARTH AND BREATHED LIFE INTO IT AND(NOW) IT IS -IRAQ.
Hey peeps, look over your shoulders too…Kosovo bent on declaring independence from Serbia in January, Serbia all united in parliament 2224 -4 to deny that move; Russia backing Serbia, US and Europe backing Kosovan indpendence; nice potential scenario there too, eh? Putin been firing off new ICBM’s over Christmas on tests…..well,well, welcome to a noisy 2008!
QUOTE: ” keyinside December 26th, 2007 1:02 pm
Ok, so, we armed saddam in the 80’s. Now, we’ve armed the shia’s, now we’re arming the sunni’s. Any bets as to which group will turn our own guns against us first?
…”
I don’t know the answer to that, except on the order of “the sooner, the better”; that not a single foreign forces member and associate in Iraq ever leave that country alive would not be a crying shame. No, it’d be a celebratory occasion.
QUOTE: “Mendo Chuck December 26th, 2007 1:10 pm
And the Turks are pissing off the Kurds. The fun has just begun folks. Stay tuned for details at 10.”
SURELY NOT all Kurds; only the SCHMUCK ONES. There were plenty of other Kurds who co-existed respectfully, peacefully, … with the other Iraqis, and these Kurds are surely not among the schmucks giving Turkey a hard time with regards to national matters in that country.
I suppose those schmucks are like the ones who chose to fight [with] Iranian forces inside Iraq against Saddam’s forces in 1988 and have since had to gall to claim that his forces killing these schmuck Kurdish militia members constituted genocide, which it did and does not. The lying, conniving, schmuck Kurds these ones evidently are.
And they have been reported by various news media in terms of causing conflict in Turkey.
Oh well, the real ruling elites of the U.S. govt do NOT care if Turkey wipes out these Kurds, for these elites want the oil and geo-strategic power-base, caring about nothing else, anyway.
Maybe the time has come in terms of what I “predicted” a few years ago when the Kurdish govt leaders and militia allied themselves with the U.S.; when I said that surely they’d eventually regret having made that choice, instead of having joined the Iraqi Resistance. They thought they had … respect from the U.S. and its ruling elites, which is an awfully naive way of thinking about doing “business” with the world’s most rogue, demented, and psychopathic gangsters.
Simple commonsense is enough to realise that joining up with gangsters who murder, etc., is a very risky thing to do, for then your life “hangs by a thread”; you are liked and kept only for as long as you’re useful, after which you are disposable, like garbage; although people, even gangsters, don’t treat literal garbage brutally, only throwing it out, disposing of it. Can’t say the same for members slated for disposal though.
The Kurds are of no import to the U.S. ruling elites, except that they likely or surely did want to make use of the so-called allegiance for a while, and only for the purpose of keeping the Iraqi Resistance from further increasing, becoming stronger early on.
It seems like the latter has become less of a concern for the ruling elites now; although, maybe not entirely. But if they manage to retain and build up the allegiances with the ‘Awakening Forces’ and ‘Concerned Local Citizens’, then … what Turkey does to or with the Kurdish militias and govt leaders becomes ever less of a concern. Otoh, the ruling elites evidently aren’t managing this new “relationship” strategically well, either, for they are pay-rolling these forces, but are also not seeing to them having wholly what they want.
Maybe their strategy is to cause an explosion of civil warring in Iraq, instead of really wanting the ‘Awakening Forces’ and ‘Concerned Local Citizens’ to strongly side with the U.S. forces and therefore the game plan of the ruling elites.
Anyway, Turkey is member or de facto, whatever, member of NATO; strongly aligned with NATO, anyway. And there’ve been talks about Turkey becoming member of the EU. So I guess it’s realistic to say or think that the Kurds in Iraq are going to be treated as being of little concern in terms of what happens to them. The elites will have that oil one way or the other anyway.
QUOTE: “keyinside December 26th, 2007 1:21 pm
Yeah, glad to hear that we- the US- gave turkey the green light to bomb Iraq. Who gets to beat up Iraq next? Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait? Lichtenstein?”
AS THE SITUATION for Iraqis and Iraq’s environment have been brutally, hellishly made to be so far, I do not think the above question is particularly relevant anymore. Iraq is a like totally destroyed and toxically and fatally poisoned (forever) country, and around a third of the Iraqi population has been killed, really murdered, and made internal and external refugees, while neither of the latter two groups or populations have much we can really speak of in terms of hope. And poverty is major, extreme, unbelievably so, as the IPS article says.
I believe it’s Dahr Jamail who recently enough provided an article from which I above-draw the third of Iraqis … situation(s); amounting to roughly 8 MILLION Iraqis.
QUOTE: “testtubeone December 26th, 2007 5:30 pm
More guns means more death, not more peace.
Expecting any logic from any nation hopelessly infected by the god myth is asking a bit much.”
TRUE FOR THE first paragraph; bogus for the second one. In the latter case, it’s reflective of just another religious view, one of someone who thinks he or she is of Godly Knowledge, like Omniscient, which NO human is. But it’s also dumb, for it is strongly omissive of logical reasoning, illustrating very little reflection and/or the lack of ability to seriously reflect on REALITY. It’s another religious view based on MYTH, AGAIN; myth and empty, and unsupportable hearsay sort of weak reasoning.
Interesting to see how many people “coming from” different points of view, presenting differing and opposing claims, all like to pretend to be God.
QUOTE: ” redjeff December 26th, 2007 10:26 pm
You guys have all pegged it: it makes no sense to make peace by creating more soldiers. This is only a plan to sell more guns. …
…”
COMICAL that is. Sure, they’ll sell more guns, but not to an extent that war would be launched over these comparitively meagre or maigre profits.
TRY THE OIL!
And try out the notion that the U.S. and its ruling elites never had any intention at all of peace, justice, and so on, for Iraq.
TRY OIL and geostrategic power-positioning; and hellishly imposed.
I of course am exaggerating my perspective when saying the following in the above post.
“I don’t know the answer to that, except on the order of “the sooner, the better”; that not a single foreign forces member and associate in Iraq ever leave that country alive would not be a crying shame. No, it’d be a celebratory occasion.”
I don’t really mean that; it’s only to express anger about what’s been HELLishly done to Iraqis and Iraq, and therefore the world.
Anyone remember Sy Hersh’s article from earlier in 2007 about how the US was changing strategy across the mid-east? A general shift into opposing the Shia, which meant supporting the Sunnis. The US wants to create a general anti-iran\anti-shia coalition with the various Sunni nations and groups across the region.
Effectively, what this means in Iraq is that we are attempting to swap out allies and enemies in the midst of a war. Thus the latest wave of creating these Sunni groups.
The admin knows that when they attack Iran, this will create opposition amongst the ruling Shias in Iraq. Thus they are trying to build a new force in Iraq to serve as our puppets and allies.
Of course, since we’ve been bombing and shooting and torturing and killing Sunnis for the last 5 years, getting them to instantly love us might be a small problem. Leaders might sign a new coalition deal. But does that mean the fighters in the streets would pass up an a chance to attack Americans? Especially when the 60% of the population that is Shia goes up in arms when we attack Iran?
Swapping out enemies and friends in the midst of a war seems to be a tad risky? Especially when the ultimate goal of this is appartently to start another war with Iran.
Local jobs for local people.
“Each member receives around 300 dollars monthly. Many are former resistance fighters who used to attack occupation forces.”
That’s a bargain compared to Blackwaters hi-tech mercenary support. All that remains to be asked is will ‘Awakening’ be any more loyal than the corporate troops
“Many are former resistance fighters who used to attack occupation forces.”
Proven experience that’d stand out any merc CV. Not troubling at all.
“But members of these groups are often accused of extortion, corruption, and brutal tactics.”
Their stealth/deniability technique needs a bit of honing but eventually, through integrally provided training on-the-job, they’ll be as effective as the private corps and CIA operatives.
Can anyone say 100 year war??????
Mike Corbeil :
not true that the US govt or Allies dont care about what becomes of the Kurds, they sit on quite a bit of oil, furthermore they’ve been helpful to the US’s efforts to sodomize Iraq. (did i say that out loud? oh god i actually WROTE it? oh well.. a piece of my mind…)
however, Turkey is not out of line with their efforts to discourage more militant Iraqi Kurd’s attempts to rile up Turkish Kurds across the border. that’s why the US govt gave them the green light - it’s a page out of our own book.
does anyone know what has become of the Yezidis in the midst of all this bs?