Pay them not to kill us

The United States is funding and in many cases arming the three ethnic factions in Iraq-the Kurds, the Shiites and the Sunni Arabs. These factions rule over partitioned patches of Iraqi territory and brutally purge rival ethnic groups from their midst. Iraq no longer exists as a unified state. It is a series of heavily armed fiefdoms run by thugs, gangs, militias, radical Islamists and warlords who are often paid wages of $300 a month by the U.S. military. Iraq is Yugoslavia before the storm. It is a caldron of weapons, lawlessness, hate and criminality that is destined to implode. And the current U.S. policy, born of desperation and defeat, means that when Iraq goes up, the U.S. military will have to scurry like rats for cover.

The U.S. is currently spending hundreds of millions of dollars to pay the monthly salaries of some 600,000 armed fighters in the three rival ethnic camps in Iraq. These fighters-Shiite, Kurd and Sunni Arab-are not only antagonistic but deeply unreliable allies. The Sunni Arab militias have replaced central government officials, including police, and taken over local administration and security in the pockets of Iraq under their control. They have no loyalty outside of their own ethnic community. Once the money runs out, or once they feel strong enough to make a thrust for power, the civil war in Iraq will accelerate with deadly speed. The tactic of money-for-peace failed in Afghanistan. The U.S. doled out funds and weapons to tribal groups in Afghanistan to buy their loyalty, but when the payments and weapons shipments ceased, the tribal groups headed back into the embrace of the Taliban.

- The Calm Before the Conflagration by Chris Hedges

Blogger Wage Laborer says all is going according to plan:

Think about it. If the Iraqis had not fought back, what reason could the US give for staying there and establishing permanent beachheads? Once the weapons were not found, the US should have gotten out.

But, the provocations to the Iraqi people, coupled with the arming of the Iraqi people, ensured that a resistance would develop, and it did. Of course, at first, the Iraqis were united against the US occupation. That changed when John Negroponte, veteran of the dirty wars in Central America in the 1980s, became ambassador, along with his partner in crime, James Steele. The US openly discussed the "Salvadorean Option".

All of a sudden, there were death squads and sectarian violence. Now we're told that we entered a civil war, and must stay to supervise it.

Everything is always about money with these folks. Bounties of one sort or another to achieve all aims.

Off topic and on the bright side for farmers, wheat is up to $25 a bushel. For years they got around $3 and subsidies. Now we dupes cannot afford gas or food and have this huge military debt to pay. Just great!