Iraqi police in Basra shed their uniforms, kept their rifles and switched sides

[Barrett808]

Source: Times Online

Iraqi police in Basra shed their uniforms, kept their rifles and switched sides
James Hider in Baghdad

Abu Iman barely flinched when the Iraqi Government ordered his unit of special police to move against al-Mahdi Army fighters in Basra.

His response, while swift, was not what British and US military trainers who have spent the past five years schooling the Iraqi security forces would have hoped for. He and 15 of his comrades took off their uniforms, kept their government-issued rifles and went over to the other side without a second thought.

Such turncoats are the thread that could unravel the British Army’s policy in southern Iraq. The military hoped that local forces would be able to combat extremists and allow the Army to withdraw gradually from the battle-scarred and untamed oil city that has fallen under the sway of Islamic fundamentalists, oil smugglers and petty tribal warlords. But if the British taught the police to shoot straight, they failed to instil a sense of unwavering loyalty to the State.

“We know the outcome of the fighting in advance because we already defeated the British in the streets of Basra and forced them to withdraw to their base,” Abu Iman told The Times.

“If we go back a bit, everyone remembers the fight with the US in Najaf and the damage and defeat we inflicted on them. Do you think the Iraqi Army is better than those armies? We are right and the Government is wrong. <Nouri al> Maliki <the Iraqi Prime Minister> is driving his Government into the ground.”

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3635838.ece

[dkf]

1. That is just great.

Which goes back to the point that this is a civil war and while we hope the Iraqi's can solve it peacefully, they may have other ideas.

[saigon68]

4. More "Ethnic & Religious Cleansing" about to begin

[Javaman]

2. turncoats?

Excuse me mr. Iraqi police man, please go over there and beat in the head of your neighbor and religious leader, okay?

[40ozDonkey]

3. Didn't Biden want to turn Iraq into three countries?

That's the way it may turn out, regardless.

[saigon68]

5. Actually it was at one time

Until the "Nice Lady" in the British mapping office in 1922 got out her ruler and began to draw

Palestine was created a little later


http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2003w08/msg00017.htm

[Kolesar]

6. I think of the modern borders as a "western concept" imposed on a collapsed Islamic world

The locations of the frontiers was less important in the days before western colonialism. The Islamic world was an empire with a common culture that encompassed a number of cities.

[H8fascistcons]

7. So Sad.....

I feel so, so sad about the death and destruction we have brought to the Iraqis. The hate I feel for these criminal Fascist republicans is immeasurable...


*Please never forget the criminal Fascist republicans could not continue to commit these crimes against us and the constitution without the help of the criminal Fascist enablers Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller. These criminal Democrats do not get to pick and choose which crimes against the constitution to ignore, please never forget until they are all voted out of office...

[ladywnch]

8. this is the whole problem with this "strategy". These people will

always side first with their sect or family clan before any military or governmental leadership. I'm not criticizing it, just pointing it out. These sects have been fighting for millennium and will continue to do so as long as religion is the main guide. the same will happen here if the the fundies and religious wackos get heavier into the government.

[ajamo]

9. What you think now Bush

The weapons you gave to those people will be turned on our own military.
Get the hell out of that country now. If everything this administration stupid or what. Contracting out our military work, now contracting out the building of the fly fuel tanker, what next?
By the way did Mexico ever support the United States during it's time in war, including the first and second world wars and all others to follow. Now they are taking over our country and Bush is allowing it.
Why is he trying to destroy our county completely?
He can't control our neighboring country how in the hell does he expect to control the Arab nations? Shit Shit and more Shit coming from him, impeach them now, don't reward them with their pensions.

[Barrett808]

10. Welcome to DU, ajamo!

:hi:

[bahrbearian]

11. Well , thanks to US ,they can shoot straight, Mission never accomplised.

War = $$$

[Lasher]

12. Yet another sign the surge is working as planned.

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[fshrink]

13. The quote is admirable:

"Islamic fundamentalists, oil smugglers and petty tribal warlords." Colonialist discourse post-post-colonialism in a nutshell.

[otherlander]

14. .

:banghead: