Article

2007-07-28 Iraq

U.S. Widens Push to Use Armed Iraqi Residents

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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2007-07-28 09:28|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top
File under: Iraqi Insurgency

#1 I;ve been arguing for this for years. Its a tribal society, Use the tribes!

Problem is, that wasn't the "Big Army" way, and it took a hell of a lot more troops than were committed, and it involved going after the Shia (which some in State and CIA prevented).

The other component is closing the borders HARD - something they still have not done.

Posted by OldSpook 2007-07-28 12:08|| 2007-07-28 12:08|| Front Page Top

#2 I think starting neighborhood militias would have fixed most of the problems we had back in 2003. When I told people this they said it would start a civil war, it would be tribe against tribe...

Well, just because we didn't make neighborhood-based militias to hold things together didn't stop Al Qaeda, and Moqtada al-Sadr, from making the same sorts of institutions but with the goal of tearing Iraq apart.

Posted by Abdominal Snowman 2007-07-28 12:46|| 2007-07-28 12:46|| Front Page Top

#3 You think it would have been simple to have recruited Sunni troops to guard the eastern border an Shi'a troops to guard the western one...

Posted by Abdominal Snowman 2007-07-28 12:48|| 2007-07-28 12:48|| Front Page Top

#4 Considering all the conniptions our masters have about letting Americans have minimal arms...

Posted by Gary and the Samoyeds">Gary and the Samoyeds 2007-07-28 12:49|| http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2007-07-28 12:49|| Front Page Top

#5 I have long been puzzled at the seeming absence of pistols in Iraq. AK-47s are combat weapons, much better for offense than defense. But pistols are small, easy to conceal, easy to use in restricted areas, and very effective as defensive weapons.

It would be much harder for terrorists to intimidate a population armed with pistols, by dint of their not knowing who was armed and willing to resist. How can you control a group of people when one or two might be able to gun you down if you are not paying attention to them?

Over and over again I read of bus loads of Iraqis hijacked and murdered. With a profusion of pistols, a lot of those massacres wouldn't have happened, or would have had a lot lower death rate.

And as the number of pistols go up, their value as an offensive weapon goes *down*. A man runs into a crowded bank waving his pistol around and yelling orders, two or three armed people could lay him out quickly.

A lot of pistols mean decisions are made by group consensus, not by loners.

So a change of one policy, in trouble areas: each family can have one or two pistols instead of an AK-47. Thereafter anybody walking around with an AK-47 is a dead man.

We should have imported millions of smaller caliber pistols at the very beginning.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-07-28 14:26|| 2007-07-28 14:26|| Front Page Top

#6 Thanks for kicking us up a notch in GoogleKook.

Posted by HalfEmpty 2007-07-28 18:39|| 2007-07-28 18:39|| Front Page Top

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