The New York Times reported that that Iraqi government, dominated as it is by al-Maliki and the Shiites factions, are balking at the American reliance on arming and fortifying Sunni tribesmen as security forces.
Who would have thought that the Iraqis would be sketchy about that plan? It isn't like Saddam Hussein, the brutal thug that oppressed the Shiites for two decades and change was a Sunni tribesman, or anything like that...
Oh...Wait...
From McClatchy we learned that the State Department is (finally!) taking a closer look at First Kuwaiti and their future at the lucrative embassy-construction trough is in doubt. I am glad to see the State Department at least pretending to take this issue as seriously as I have been for ages. (See here, here, here, & here).
The Washington Post ran a gut-check feature that should make even the most cold-blooded war supporter at least feel a moments hesitation about continuing this clusterfuck.
"When we first got here, all the shops were open. There were women and children walking out on the street," Alarcon said this week. "The women were in Western clothing. It was our favorite street to go down because of all the hot chicks."
That was 14 long months ago, when the soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, arrived in southwestern Baghdad. It was before their partners in the Iraqi National Police became their enemies and before Shiite militiamen, aligned with the police, attempted to exterminate a neighborhood of middle-class Sunni families.
Next month, the U.S. soldiers will complete their tour in Iraq. Their experience in Sadiyah has left many of them deeply discouraged, by both the unabated hatred between rival sectarian fighters and the questionable will of the Iraqi government to work toward peaceful solutions.
Asked if the American endeavor here was worth their sacrifice -- 20 soldiers from the battalion have been killed in Baghdad -- Alarcon said no: "I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life."
Read the whole thing. Just be warned, it's tough reading and may take you a while to get through. I have to wonder tho - will Rush Limbaugh weigh in and condemn them as "phony soldiers" because they see the futility of this fiasco?
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