Things change and stay the same...

Military.com is reporting that many of the Iraqi forces presently in Baghdad are creating more problems than they are worth with reports of unguarded perimeters, concertina wire removed or nonexistent, the home of wealthier Iraqi’s being burglarized with the prime suspects being the Iraqi troops. One Sgt. Was overheard telling an officer that they need to fire them all and start fresh; the officer replied that was impossible, not allowed.

This brings back so many memories of my war and the same problems we encountered. The news at home was spoon-feeding everyone how the hearts and minds campaign was working and we were training the civilians to protect themselves, when the truth was we would have shot them if we had the chance and when they would attack as the enemy we often did. Times change, but stay the same.

I am reminded of the story a good friend of mine told me after the war and over many beers. He told me he was on a remote firebase and they knew they had enemy within their strike force, but not proven until an attack and half the strike force turned against them. They were far too busy to deal with this problem and fortunately for them they did not have to as the remaining members of the team were loyal and quickly defused the situation solving them problem.

We quickly learned that training their military did not insure they would defend or for that matter even be loyal and that still applies today. It is difficult to create a selection process for a new military when the commanding officers under orders to get one in place as soon as possible. The written test portion quickly goes out the window when a large percentage of the men and women are unable to read or write.

Allegiance is another matter altogether, should it become evident the troops are working with the insurgents they should be dealt with as quickly as possible and with extreme prejudice if needed. This is war, not an outing at the park and we need to instill that thinking within our politicians when they are sending orders down the line to the field.