| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| Under reconstruction |
| 2003-12-20 |
| Quite a good article in the JPost on Iraqi Sunni Arab reaction to Saddams capture. Also some good info on the problems encountered training police. EFL - Go read the whole thing. "It’s tough," says Lockard. "During the regime, when these men would shoot someone, they would aim for the legs. If you kill someone, then his tribe demands blood, and that might start a whole gang war. But on the other hand they shot people often, and there were constant disputes. We are going against thousands of years of custom here." Another problem says the SWAT team’s instructor Sgt. 1st Class Lonnie Bryson is that the men who had been in the Iraqi army (which seemed not to heed tribal warfare) are used to spraying a room full of bullets when they enter. "We are trying to teach them not to blow up the whole room but to just get the bad guy," says Bryson. Then the distribution of the Glocks - whose safety catch is activated solely by pulling the trigger - might not have been the best idea in a society "with an itchy trigger finger." When asked whom in the Academy he trusts, Bryson pokes the American patch on a fellow soldier’s shoulder. The 101ST Airborne Division has churned out almost 2,500 cops in the last seven months. Some are young and enthusiastic, others old, paunchy, and terribly out of shape. More than half of the SWAT team quit 30 minutes into their course when they were asked to do push ups. Others exhibited a bit more grit, enduring physical training, and the shame of being taught how to do their jobs from A to Z. "Before they were used to sitting on the stoop of their station and smoking cigarettes," explains a bemused Bryson - also a West Virginia state trooper - observing his SWAT team’s forced entry. The Sunni denial In Al Dura, south west of Baghdad, celebratory gunfire erupted on Monday night. With great zeal, a few score young men popped off rhythmic bursts of AK-47 fire. Yet it seemed odd that this largely Sunni neighborhood would celebrate with their hero, Saddam Hussein, so recently humiliated and his wrists chaffing under American shackles. When asked the reason for celebration, locals of this mostly Sunni neighborhood said that a CD had appeared on the local market in which "the real Saddam" ordered his faithful not to believe the media reports. "I am safe, continue the resistance" the CD reportedly says. No one had actually seen the CD, and The Jerusalem Post was unable to obtain a copy. "The main part," he says, smiling apologetically, "is that Sunnis control the government. We cannot let the Shi’ites control us, because they have never done it. They are not even incapable of governing themselves. "If we get power here," he said from one of Falluja’s wealthier neighborhoods, "then the resistance will stop." "If the story of his surrender is true, then it is shameful, it brings humiliation. But I don’t believe the real Saddam was caught." Others standing at the Tikrit street corner, just hours after the announcement of Saddam’s capture nodded. The man who would be king among them could not have given up so easily, could not have asked to negotiate. Interesting insight that the resistance is really about keeping the Sunnis on top. I wonder how long its going to take before the realization that it aint gonna work. Lets hope they are quicker on the up-take than the paleos. |
| Posted by:phil_b |
| #2 RC - best laugh of the day, thanks! and the shame of being taught how to do their jobs from A to Z. And, just for good measure: ...their hero, Saddam Hussein, so recently humiliated and his wrists chaffing under American shackles. You assclowns ever consider that, as complete incompetents, this is precisely why you got your asses kicked by us, twice, and why it took you eight years to fight Iran to a draw? Have fun digging all those MIG's out of the sand dunes, ungrateful pinheads... |
| Posted by: Raj 2003-12-20 7:32:04 PM |
| #1 More than half of the SWAT team quit 30 minutes into their course when they were asked to do push ups. I'm sure they would have been thrilled if we had asked them to jump through flaming hoops, though. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-12-20 6:14:52 PM |