Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Iraq: Awoken to a New Danger
BAGHDAD - The newly formed 'Awakening' forces set up by the U.S. military are bringing new conflict among people.
For months now the U.S. military has been actively building what it calls 'Awakening' forces and "concerned local citizens" in an effort to reduce attacks on occupation forces.
Members of the forces, which comprise primarily former resistance fighters and tribal groups, are paid 300 dollars monthly. There are at present about 80,000 recruits to these groups. The U.S. military plans to cap the number at 85,000.
According to the U.S. military, 82 percent of the members are Sunni.
The forces, which are opposed by the Iraqi government led by U.S.-appointed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, are also being strongly criticised by Sunni residents in Baghdad and other cities.
"The armed groups called 'Awakening' are now the only powerful players in many Sunni areas in Baghdad, and so they show their power the way others did," Qussay al-Tai'i, a lawyer from Saydiya town southwest of Baghdad told IPS. "It seems that violence has become routine procedure for American soldiers, Iraqi security men and now the so-called Awakening fighters."
Witnesses from the area who have recently fled to Baghdad told IPS that more than 200 residents have been arrested by Awakening fighters supported by the al-Muthanna battalion of the Iraqi army.
"They came and arrested my 14 and 17-year-old sons," said Hajja Um Ahmed. "I told them my sons are only schoolboys who did nothing wrong, but they pushed me away."
Saydiya residents are worried that some of the detainees will be executed as others were in Fallujah and other areas where 'Awakening' fighters have taken over.
"They will kill them in cold blood and throw their bodies in garbage dumps," the terrified father of a 35-year-old detainee, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "They told my son when they took him that they would cut off his head, and it seems that they meant it."
"They have spread their spies all over the area and threatened us with arrest if we ever talk about this to the press," a merchant who did not give his name told IPS. "You too must be careful because they really hate journalists."
The Sunni religious group, The Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), has condemned the detentions, and says the occupation forces and the current government are responsible for the safety of the detained.
"We draw the world's attention to the new wave of detentions and executions by this new toy of the occupation," Sheikh Hatam Ali of the AMS told IPS in Baghdad. "Thousands of Iraqis are being detained, tortured and executed while the U.S. occupation and its illegitimate so-called Iraqi government tell the world lies about reconciliation and justice among Iraqis." U.S. military units apparently did not interfere with raids conducted by the Iraqi army and the 'Awakening' fighters in Saydiya. The raids have added to the large numbers of people detained.
In November 2007, the International Committee of the Red Cross announced that around 60,000 people were currently detained in Iraq. "They are still waiting for their problem to be solved, and the Iraqi government does not seem willing to solve it," Luqman Mohammad, a journalist and human rights activist in Baghdad told IPS. "This country needs a comprehensive solution by the whole international community."
'Awakening' forces have been widely criticised for corruption and for brutal tactics. Many speak of them as "gangs", "criminals", "dogs of the Americans", and "thieves." But the Bush administration, and many media outlets in the west, credit the 'Awakening' forces with bringing stability to volatile areas.
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
© 2008 Inter Press Service
16 Comments so far
Show AllAnd the saga continues . . .
More private armies with your tax dollars.
Today Iraq . . . Tomorrow the Middle East and then what do you think will happen when we begin to seriously challenge China and Russia . . . .
Peace Through Superior Firepower . . .
Just another 'counter terrorist' terrorist group, financed and armed by your tax dollars.
Truly amazing. It would be unbelievable __ if it weren't happening.
The way the empire keeps the "order" !!! A sample of corporate fascism with a global scope.
Olmert's lapdog Bush is on his Big Middle Eastern Adventure telling everyone that (largely Shia) Iran is a menace-- while arming the Sunnis (in Iraq and elsewhere) to the teeth. Can you say El Salvador-ization? My disgust knows no bounds.
Awakening forces or death squads.
Are they awakened or reawakened death squa...I mean forces?
The essence of a state is its monopoly on violence.
No one likes to say it -- but it's true.
If each of us is left to settle our own scores, violence spreads uncontrollably. But if we delegate law enforcement to a (hopefully) neutral third party, then we live in relative peace.
The problem in Iraq (and every other occupied nation with a puppet government) is that the puppet government is not considered legitimate by the people (duh!) so various insurgent groups arise to challenge it. Thus the puppet govt never acquires the monopoly on violence necessary to rule.
And that's why EVERY attempt to occupy a nation & create a puppet government ultimately fails -- the governed never accept its monopoly on violence.
qed
You did a heckuva job Bushie!
Isn't interesting that wherever the US has recently intervened: Somalia, Ethiopia, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, the plutocrats have left behind or promoted fragmented, ethnically-based societies.
It is good policy for the arms manufacturers, mercenary contractors, and other military contractors for the American taxpayer and consumer to combine to support almost every side of civil wars and violent factions. In fact it is such a good idea that we will borrow and spend until the debt can't be repaid even with a radically devalued dollar over the next several generations.
Gather round children, grandchildren, great grandchildren etc. of America and sit down for the reading of the will! Listen carefully each of you gets a bill with a total balance due of......(much more than you will ever earn)
This kinda reminds me of how Osama bin started Al-Qaeda. When he was in Afganistan fighting the Soviets in the early 80's funded and trained by the CIA. They were used by the CIA to fight a fight that was never their fight in the first place. They insighted religious zelots to start a Jihad against the "infidels" (Soviets) a practice that had not be instituted on mass since the defence against crusades in the Midle Ages.
In 1990, Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero of jihad, who along with his Arab legion, "had brought down the mighty superpower" of the Soviet Union.
During this time Iraq invaded Kuwait and bin Laden was alarmed that foreign non-Muslim troops would enter the kingdom to fight Iraq. He met the Sultan, and told him not to depend on non-Muslim troops and offered to help defend Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden was rebuffed and publicly denounced Saudi Arabia's dependence on U.S. military.
The US Military started Al-Qaeda.
The US Military's dependence on the business of war armed the "Terorists".
The US Military re-instated Jihad as an old teaching, renewed in the hearts and minds of extreemists. When these extremists returned from the battles, they were heros, and had power. They now had ideology that any non-muslim in a "muslim" nation should be killed, (thanks again US).
Seriously, when is the F*cking United F*cking states going to get their heads out of their assses and start working with the rest of the world, opposed to trying to control the rest of the world.
If they're not careful, they are going to start seeing "terrorist" attacks from more then just Muslims.
Right-wing hit squads; gee, that sounds familiar. And for some reason the name John Negroponte comes up. Criminal thugs in charge -- well, that's proof that we need to build the wall on the Mexican border. Right, Huck?
KEHLER, You don't quite understand it do you? The endless "war on terror" requires endless terror. So, all around the world people have to be made more desperate to be on the side of either the "New World Order" or "the Terrorists" (otherwise known as "related to Al Qaeda" or Hamas or Green Peace or anything that the New World Order decides is on the "list"). This is so much BS, but people are believing it. You are believing it because you have identified "Muslims" as those on the other side. You wrote:
"If they're not careful, they are going to start seeing "terrorist" attacks from more then just Muslims."
You are already considering nearly 1/3 of the world population as potential terrorists just because of their ethnic/religious origins. And if you don't believe to the letter what you are told by "the state" and you think there may be some truth in what I am saying and you repeat it, you will be just another conspiracy theorist, right?
Your 911 and the war on terror, are staged events playing two ends to the middle. Zionists and Fascists and the corporations they own playing all the ends to the middle and their control, and playing you for a sucker.
I mean, who in their right mind would even consider Blair to be suitable for the position as "president" of Europe. You might as well nominate Rumsfeld for the Nobel Peace Prize. Why are the media suggesting this criminal be anywhere other than jail.
See you in the streets friend, when you get your head together! One day we will all have to get together, to take down this elitist Mafia.
I read with interest the comments above. We all know what many are saying is true, those who have watched for years the developing oligarchic plutocracy of the USA. The United States is a right wing fascist country preaching freedoms while using every conceivable method, historically used by all dictatorships regardless of stripe to repress the self-determination of different peoples.
Unless the United States cleans its own house and joins the rest of the world to resolves differences globally there will be no way to deal with the threat of climate change which requires global cooperation.
The United States is looked upon by the rest of the world as the problem and not anywhere close to a solution. All fear the USA, including its own people. This is a recipe for global disaster, which continues unabated by the two party control of congress and exacerbated by the elements of global disunity that occupies the present White House.
As above we see the reflection of people's voices who reflect a large cross section of Americans, those still able to think for themselves without media or corporate brainwashing. It is a sad day for the world that looks toward America for true change, since there is no hope on the immediate horizon and the list of candidates is slim. If we look at those who truly think differently we see - since they ultimately reflect the will of the people- the odds for true change is rather slim. Simply look at the percentages for Kucinich, Ron Paul and Obama, that is when the media allows them to speak.
Obama seems to be the only possibility, if they don't kill him should he be successful. This is why he must reflect some of the thinking of the US military, simply to stay alive. Such is the state of affairs of the United States of America; The land of the once free and the very,very, very, brave.
Lucitanian,
Point taken, I should have said "Muslims". I know there are moderate Muslims and these are prob. the majority. I mean to point out the trouble the US has started for themselves and the rest of the world, and that "Muslims" are not the only threat, though this is often what they would have us believe.
On the streets indeed.