Pushback Against U.S. from al Anbar Tribes
BY Herschel Smith
18 years, 2 months ago
The New York Times covered the fact that some of the tribes in the al Anbar Province are joining forces to fight the insurgents. But not all tribal leaders are going along with this plan. We also find out that the police believe that the U.S. pressure to fight the insurgents is beyond the scope of what they should be asked to do:
In Fallujah, police say residents have turned against them because of the collective-punishment tactics used by US forces. “The Americans started pushing us to fight the resistance, despite our contracts that clearly assigned us the duties of civil protection against normal crimes such as theft and tribal quarrels,” a police lieutenant said. “Now, 90% of the force has decided to quit rather than kill our brothers or get killed by them for the wishes of the Americans.”
This sounds remarkably similar to ideas expressed in the Afghanistan war by fighters who were allegedly there to kill Taliban fighters. Quoting from my post Afghanistan’s Lessons for Iraq: What Strategy?
Awol Gul was calm and relaxed as B-52s pummeled a mountain behind him and Al Qaeda sniper fire rang out in the distance. “They’ve been under quite a bit of pressure inside there,” he said. “It is likely that they have made a tactical withdrawal farther south. They have good roads, safe passage, and Mr. bin Laden has plenty of friends.
“We are not interested in killing the Arabs,” Mr. Gul went on to say. “They are our Muslim brothers.”
As I have pointed out, heavy reliance on proxy fighters to accomplish U.S. mission objectives can have unintended consequences, one of which is, in some cases, failure to achieve mission objectives.
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