jazzbebop, you should look into the specifics of Ginopi's assertions (you could start with looking into the Project for a New American Century) before you start throwing around insults...otherwise YOU are the one who looks like an idiot. I remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the lies that took MY generation to war unnecessarily, and with horrendous results (50,000 of my fellow servicemen killed, hundreds of thousands crippled for life, a quarter million or more Vietnamese and others dead, MILLIONS crippled, all for nothing; our opponents won the damn war, and NOW we are doing business with Vietnam..what was it for?). After the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and Viet Nam, I have no difficulty at all believing that officials in our own government lied to us (again) and took us to war on the basis of those lies (again). Semper fi.
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Targets of Terror
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CLC members are not all driven by patriotism or even antipathy toward Al Qaeda. Indeed, some of them have relatives who are members of the network. "Almost every family has a few guys in Al Qaeda," explains a senior CLC member. "I mean, after the war, CLCs must return to their families." For a significant number, being in a CLC brings a degree of self-importance—typically with a uniform and weapon to go with it—along with power and money. The United States pays accredited CLC members $300 a month, at a time when most Iraqi men are unemployed.
Regardless of motivation, the concerned citizens have helped clean up Muqdadiyah and an area that encompasses the towns of Shakarat, Walush, Hembis and other flashpoints. The group members, generally men ranging in age from their 20s to 50s, set up and maintain checkpoints in houses or along roads and also work with local residents delivering heaters, blankets and other goods. They are armed with AK-47 rifles—against an enemy equipped with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. "Muqdadiyah has gone from constant firefights to almost walking around without being shot at," says Batty. "That's due in large part to the CLCs. They've taken back their city."
The cost of belonging to a CLC, however, is rising. Basil Diab Muhammad, who lives in Walush, was seized by gunmen when he refused to let them use his house to fire on CLCs. "Three men. They were kids 18 to 20, not from around here," he says. The men detained him for six days and interrogated him about his connections with CLCs and the Iraqi Army. He was lucky: he got away. Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq typically kill CLCs. In the last two weeks 10 severed heads have been found in the Muqdadiyah area, some by the U.S. military, some by residents and others by CLC members themselves. In a show of defiance, the killers even left a couple of heads on a bridge just down the road from K-Wal combat outpost. U.S. Army officials acknowledge that the beheadings could damage the resolve of Iraqis to oppose and fight Al Qaeda. "I definitely don't think this is the end of it," says Batty. "I suspect it will probably get worse before it gets any better."
Local reaction so far has been mixed. Nazem Aziz Habib, a farmer in Shakarat, shrugs off the news of the latest grisly discovery. "I'm not scared," he says. "They already killed two of my brothers, and they stuck one of their heads on the bridge." Samir Gomaha Elwan, on the other hand, is shaken. "Of course I'm scared," he says, "because they can kill my father, my mother, my brother." And for Abd al Sattar Abd al Karim, it depends. "If I had a weapon to protect myself, my family, my neighbors, I can resist. But I don't, so I stay home. I don't get involved."
Some CLC leaders affect an air of unconcern. "People are accustomed to these things: suicide attacks, bombings, torture," says Abu Abdel al Rahman, the charismatic, swaggering boss of the concerned citizens group in Balur who has extended his influence well beyond the town. "This is just another tactic."
© 2008
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