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Ear to the Ground

Awakening on the Wrong Side of the Bed

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Posted on Mar 30, 2009
U.S. Marine Corps / Lance Cpl. Sarah Furrer

Shiite and Sunni members of the Joint Security Committee attend a 2007 gathering in honor of Sheik Ahmed Abu Reesha’s appointment as head of the Anbar Awakening Council.

The Awakening movement isn’t very happy these days. The U.S. has been paying Sunni militants to turn their guns from American soldiers to al-Qaida foreign fighters, a program that has been celebrated for reducing violence in Iraq and is now falling apart. In the words of one Sunni leader who spoke to NPR, “The Americans completely abandoned us.”

NPR:

Iraq’s government promised to keep paying the men until they can find them jobs in Iraq’s security forces or ministries. So far, only 5 percent of the Sunni paramilitary forces have been incorporated into the police and army. And many of the paramilitaries say they have not been paid in months.

Mustafa Kamel, the Sons of Iraq leader in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, says the government has not kept its word.

“Honestly, we’re worried about the future. If the government doesn’t pay us and incorporate us into the security services, I swear, bad things will start happening here a month from now,” he says. “We won’t attack them, but the situation will deteriorate again.”

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By msgmi, March 31, 2009 at 4:59 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

The power struggle between the Sunni and the Shiite is an ongoing process irrespective of our military presence. It is their future that moves them, not the outside forces.

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By mmadden, March 31, 2009 at 10:13 am Link to this comment

I guess the US has decided to no longer give out $300 a month to each Sunni militant. Too bad that our troops are still in harms way. We need to pull out before it gets too hard to withdraw.

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By dihey, March 31, 2009 at 6:11 am Link to this comment

“The Americans have completely abandoned us”.
Translation: “they are no longer paying us to kill El Qaeda persons”. “How are we going to feed our families”?

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By lester333, March 31, 2009 at 5:04 am Link to this comment

The Bush presidency is absolutely the worst failure in history.  How come the media never reported the truth about ““The Surge”.  Progressives have always known through web sites like this one and “CounterPunch.Org” and many others, that the McCain/Bush farce was simply a pay off?  Pitiful and pathetic.  Thank goodness we now have a president that is, at least, a little on the moral and rational side.

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