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2008-04-11 Home Front: WoT

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Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-04-11 07:03|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 I suggest something even better. Iraq has a whole bunch of young men and boys who have seen the US military way of doing things and like it a lot.

So why not create a bunch of (temporarily) US-run military training academies, *parallel* to those who train the Iraqi military, but whose purpose is to create an Iraqi "force projection military" as well.

That is, there are demands all over the world for well-trained light infantry personnel for all kinds of important missions, such as peacekeeping, disaster response, disarmaments, etc. Especially in Muslim countries that have a serious problem with non-Muslim foreign troops.

The Iraqis have both Shiites and Sunnis, so they would be perfect for such duties. The jobs would be well paying, often with UN command, and would have something akin to lateral duty transfer with the Iraqi military. That is, it would be led by Iraqi officers, and directed by the Iraqi government, but would be oriented to conducting operations *outside* of Iraq, instead of defending Iraq.

This has tons of advantages. First of all, the appeal would be of Iraqis helping other, mostly Muslim, nations, which would be a major ego boost to not just Iraqis, but Arabs as a whole.

Second would be that they would be doing it the "American-International" way, to high quality standards of professionalism and performance.

Third, it would be good employment in respectable jobs, a way for an ambitious young man to climb the social ladder.

And for some of their missions, Iraq might be paid handsomely for their use as well. Right now, several small countries rent out their military to the UN, strictly for the money. But these are just small handfuls of soldiers. Iraq could provide brigades or even a division of more soldiers at premium prices.

The US is pushing Iraq to have 300,000 men in uniform as soldiers and police. Upping that number by another 10-20,000 would be relatively easy.

The big advantage to the US is that even we could pay these Iraqis to do jobs that we would otherwise have to do ourselves, but the Iraqis would cost only a fraction of the amount, and with a lot less acrimony if it was in a Muslim area. So everybody wins.

Posted by Anonymoose 2008-04-11 13:52|| 2008-04-11 13:52|| Front Page Top

#2 Not a bad idea. I remember the ROK Marines as having an excellent record in Vietnam. Sometimes folks really close to a problem can avoid being blinded by teh propoganda and nonsense that blinds others.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-04-11 17:48|| 2008-04-11 17:48|| Front Page Top

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