Redstate

Where did all those people go? You remember them. They insisted that "some people" simply did not want to live free under representative government. They said that "some people" were not cut out for the western way of life.

I don't know where they went, but I am glad those people have gone.

-Ben

This is the kind of stuff we all need to hear. Dirty Harry won't want to hear it, but it's all good.

The HinzSight Report
Managing Editor

A wonderful testament to the success of our COIN strategy in Iraq, a great accounting of true Iraqi patriots who are trying to save their country from the jihadis.

Thank you, Jeff.

like this so fast. I was determined to support the war to its finish, but who would have thought it would turn around within a year?

"There isn't a man alive who hasn't wanted to boot an infant." - W.C. Fields

By the looks of some of the stuff around here, I do believe that you will be able to tie this to what's happening here in America. Is it just me, or are things starting to look up for the (R)?

This is great reporting. This sounds like an extension of the tribal nature of Iraq that I've heard quite a bit about. Did we go wrong because we focused on national government and not the local/tribal governments? Are we now leveraging these local sheiks where perhaps we weren't before?

I think it's helpful to understand in detail where we went wrong in the past years so we can contrast with what we're doing right, thus crediting our recent success with a new approach and not just chance.

"I can say - not as a patriotic bromide...that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and...the only moral country in the history of the world. - Ayn Rand

Another friend of mine arrived in country last week. His first two observations?

1- Local citizens groups are helping enormously to restore and build Iraq. One picture he sent was of some armed locals, et al passing their vehicle (below) as they helped provide security for local families in their AOO.

2- To my first point, people are coming back from places like Syria and Jordan in big numbers. Places that were previously sparsely occupied due to AQ, et al have growing populations.

Somebody please tell the Democrats there is a "new direction" in Iraq. I am getting tired of hearing myself talk.

Hope you don't mind the inserted picture Jeff..

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Contributor to The Minority Report

At least according to the Democrats, the Treason Press (notably the NY Treason Times), certainly all the Democrat candidates for president.

************************

I have to tell you, Jeff, I am MIGHTILY impressed by these folk. Far from the scripted version of Iraq, the truth is that these people are not dragging their feet waiting for the Americans to do everything for them. On the contrary, by standing up now against terrorism and tyranny, the citizens are taking on great risk.

If the Democrats win the 2008 elections in the United States, the occupation and rebuilding of Iraq will end (probably not all at once, since the Democrats lack even the courage of their own convictions), but it will end long before it should. If that happens, the forces for tyranny and terrorism will eventually rule there. Once that happens, the retribution against those who once dared to taste and embrace freedom will be a bloodbath on an epic scale.

These people know the American presence is tenuous and far from guaranteed -- and yet they gamble their lives for the taste of freedom. These are MEN and I admire and respect them.

Stare decisis is fo' suckas -- Feddie

You said:
"If there's a term for this besides "unimaginable success," then I don't know what it is."

Just ask almost any Congressional Democrat. They'll tell you the term is any of the following:

"abject failure"
"catastrophic failure"
"the War is lost"
"failure to plan"
"failure to anticipate an insurgency"
"weakened our military readiness"
"sapped our resources"
"undermined the fight against al Qaeda"
"jeopardized our national security"
"policing a Civil War"

Each has been said over and over in the last year.

Up is down, black is white and success is failure. Sometimes I don't know how the Democrats can function - having to drive backwards where ever they go.

But, this is neither surprising nor giving me much hope. the "concerned local Citizens" are disliked immensely by the Maliki government. here is a blurb:

"U.S. commanders say they are trying to enlarge this wedge between Sunni insurgents and AQ-I by giving funds to and sharing information with the Sunni insurgents — a strategy that is controversial because of the potential of the Sunni
Iraqis to later resume fighting U.S. forces and Iraqi Shiites. U.S. officials say no weapons have been given to these groups. The strategy is reported to have led to increased tensions between Maliki and the lead U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David
Petraeus, and the entire UIA bloc publicly demanded an end to this U.S. strategy on October 2, 2007, claiming the United States is “embracing ... terrorist elements.” A Washington Post report of November 12, 2007 says Shiite political resistance has caused the government to stall U.S. plans to integrate up to 70,000 Sunni former militants (“Concerned Local Citizens”) into the ISF; in some cases ISF commanders
have confined the Sunni fighters to their homes or headquarters. About 37,000 such fighters are being paid about $300 per month by contracts funded by DoD."

CRS report to Congress, Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security, Nov 13, 2007, sorry no link- i have the pdf from a staffer friend of mine.

i don't think anyone is doubting that AQ-I is getting its butt kicked, or that the Sunni's are tired of them. But just because they are fighting AQ-I doesn't mean that they are making common cause with the government. I believe the US is still on borrowed time in Iraq, we have until April and then the troop surge will end, not to mention the expiration of al- Sadr's truce. This is merely the coalescing of like-minded forces against a more hated enemy. Also some of those "men" were planting IED's against US convoys not to long ago.

Sorry for the long post, hopefully it will add to the debate.

... about the CLC program is that the bureaucracy almost killed it. MNC-I and MNF-I tried various ways to implement a program last spring, and were thwarted by their lawyers numerous times. Some arcane provision of contract law prohibited salaried payments in that manner, believe it or not. It took direct and personal intervention from GEN Petraeus to the SECDEF to make CLC happen.

Even now they are somewhat toothless. Political concerns about how it would "look" led OSD to prohibit the provision of arms to the CLCs. The Pentagon, not unfairly, was concerned about the inevitable Congressional outcry that we were arming another sectarian militia. So the CLCs arm themselves.

"If all men were just, there would be no need of valor."
- Agesilaus

Thanks Jeff Emanuel for just the facts. There is hope on the horizon. I don't know if you read today's Washington Times column by Sen. John Cornyn:
Arbitrary politics
By John Cornyn
December 14, 2007
For months, we have been waiting for progress, negotiations and political reconciliation and bringing the parties together and ending the divisiveness that has virtually halted accomplishing anything in the government.

It may sound like I'm talking about Iraq, but I'm referring to the U.S. Congress. Ironically, the same people who failed to deliver on their promises of reconciliation —the same people who have only finished one of 12 appropriations bills — have the effrontery to criticize the Iraqi government's lack of results.
Critics are changing their tune, however, following clear evidence that the surge is working. Rep. John Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, one of the loudest voices decrying the strategy and calling for a U.S. withdrawal, recently returned from Iraq and said, "the surge is working." It is encouraging to see more members of the majority party acknowledging our real military progress. More should follow suit.

Many Iraq critics have said they like Gen. David Petraeus, but that his surge strategy would not work. Then they said they don't believe him, and that the surge is not working. Now, in the face of undeniable military progress, their message has shifted to lack of political reconciliation.

But a congressman who accompanied Mr. Murtha, Rep. Norm Dicks, Washington Democrat, said: "I felt kinda embarrassed telling the Iraqis they had to get their act together and pass legislation when we can't do it back here."

We need to allow the Iraqi people time to establish their government and work out legitimate differences. I am a firm believer in accountability, but our own members of Congress are trying to hold others to a standard they have proven unable to meet themselves. Here at home, in our fully functioning democracy, the Democratic leadership in Congress has failed to meet the benchmarks they set in the run-up to last November's election.
Our own country's history has notable parallels to the situation in Iraq. After we declared independence from Great Britain, it took 11 years to implement the U.S. Constitution. Then, following the Civil War, we underwent the process of national reconciliation. That took us more than a decade. Building a democracy is not an overnight task, particularly in an area fraught with danger, including suicide bombings, sectarian murders and political assassinations.

Through the surge — an innovative counterinsurgency strategy developed by Gen. Petraeus — American troops have achieved results widely considered unattainable in early 2007. Our troops have made Iraq a safer place and brought new hope to its people. They have accomplished this in the face of intense congressional opposition.
Never bet against the men and women of the American armed forces. This is a lesson al Qaeda and other enemies of freedom in Iraq have learned the hard way recently. U.S. troops have turned the corner in Iraq and continue to build momentum.

But if the majority party does not fully fund and support their mission, these security gains will deteriorate and the tireless efforts of our troops will have been wasted.
The latest effort to hamper the mission in Iraq is the majority party's refusal to pass a clean funding bill for ongoing military operations overseas. They insist on attaching immediate withdrawal conditions.
Congress has a moral obligation not to leave our troops in a combat zone without the tools to do their job.

There are numerous signs of increased stability throughout Iraq, creating the necessary conditions for a partial drawdown of forces. By next summer, the U.S. plans to reduce troop levels by some 30,000 soldiers. The 1st Cavalry Division's "Grey Wolf" Brigade is already bringing its troops back home to Fort Hood, Texas. This is based not on a congressionally mandated timetable, but on objective determinations by our military commanders.
Abandoning the Iraqi people now, through a forced early withdrawal of American troops, would likely result in renewed sectarian violence, further dividing their nation and making reconciliation nearly impossible in the short-term. It would also make Americans less safe. Congress must not let the progress achieved thus far slip away by refusing to fund our troops in harm's way and imposing arbitrary timelines for withdrawal.
Many in Congress are fixated on immediate withdrawal from Iraq for political expediency and continue to move the goalposts on our troops and the Iraqi people. Doing so is unwise and insulting to our men and women in uniform making great sacrifices to stabilize Iraq.

Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, is vice chairman of the Senate Republican Conference and a member of the Armed Services Committee.

The "Concerned Citizen" Phenomenon Takes Hold should be on the front page of the N.Y. Times and every American newspaper

THANK YOU JEFF EMANUEL
The 'Concerned Local Citizens' Program Grows into a Bona-Fide Phenomenon
by Jeff Emanuel

During the year that General Petraeus and his counterinsurgency force have been on the ground in Iraq, the Concerned Local Citizens program, until recently a tiny, localized “neighborhood watch” equivalent, has grown into a nationwide phenomenon.

Called “basically a thumb in the eye of the Maliki government that won’t get its [act] together” by one American officer, the Concerned Local Citizens program puts ground-level security in the hands of the individual tribes and groups who need it most. Under the program’s coalition-crafted guidelines, members of individual tribes are allowed to arm themselves and to conduct their own security operations and patrols, provided that, among other requirements, they submit to the authority of Coalition and Iraqi Security forces.

The main premise behind the Concerned Local Citizens program is simply the belief that Iraqis as a whole oppose the militias and terrorist groups that have plagued Iraq for the last several years -- and that citizen empowerment, backed by the coalition, will lead to a rejection of the forces that terrorize the civilian population in a given area. The idea was borne out of the ‘Anbar Awakening,’ which saw tribal leaders and citizens rise up and band together to fight against al Qaeda in Iraq.

Fed up with those who offered, in the words of one tribal sheik, “only death,” the leaders of Anbar’s tribes -- despite historical enmities -- joined forces with the coalition and with each other to drive al Qaeda from their territory. Following this uprising, the Awakening blossomed into a grassroots movement to rebuild and reunite Anbar province around a free and independent network of tribes and clans.

When General Petraeus returned to Iraq as commander of Multinational Force-Iraq, one of his goals was to replicate the success of the Anbar Awakening throughout the country. Using the Awakening as an example, coalition units began to meet with tribal leaders in different areas of Iraq, encouraging them to augment the Iraqi security forces and to stand up to the militias and terrorist groups threatening them.

It was expected that there would be some interest in the program, especially among tribes sitting on the wrong side of their areas’ sectarian divides. What was not expected was the phenomenon the CLC program would become -- nor how rapidly it would become so.

In the last six months, what began as a localized occurrence has spread across the entire nation, and CLC groups are established or forming in every one of Iraq’s 18 provinces except for the northernmost and southernmost three. Due to effective Provincial security forces, these six do not currently need such citizen’s groups. Over 72,000 Iraqis are now members of Concerned Local Citizens groups nationwide at this time -- a remarkable development.

When in the small Sunni village of Ja'ara (between Baghdad and Salman Pak) this summer, I had the privilege of sitting in on the very first meeting between an American officer and a tribal leader at which the prospect of establishing a prototype Concerned Citizens group -- the first ever in the region -- was discussed.

“If we can get them going with their own security, and the other tribes around them can see what a good thing they have and decide that they want it too, then we could see a serious improvement in this area,” Captain Rich Thompson, commander of Baker Company 1-15 Infantry, told me just before we departed Combat Outpost Cahill to meet the tribal sheik. “I don’t want [insurgents and terrorists] in my AO (area of operations),” Thompson explained. “I don’t care where they go, as long as they’re not here – and, if everybody takes that attitude, Iraqis and soldiers alike, and works for that goal, then sooner or later there won’t be any place for [the insurgents] to go.”

That was at the end of August. What began then has, in the three months since, grown with greater rapidity that I or anyone else could ever have imagined. As of the beginning of this month, there were over 35,000 Concerned Local Citizens just in Baghdad province. Further, almost half of the 43 CLC groups there are combined Sunni and Shi'a -- a remarkable fact that speaks to the unity that is made possible by a common enemy, which has slowly but surely been driven out of the area.

The most common argument made against the Concerned Local Citizen program is that it encourages vigilante justice and undercuts the Iraqi government and its official security forces. However, despite its initial lack of support for the program, the Iraqi government has grown to embrace the assistance given to its security forces by these volunteers.
According to a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior, all of these “tribal fighters in the different Iraqi provinces will be merged into the police forces” at some point in the future. 10,000 of the original Anbar-based citizen soldiers have been added to the rolls of the Iraqi Security Forces in the last year, and in the past six months 1,800 more from elsewhere in the country have completed police or army training and are now serving their homeland as official representatives of the armed forces.

What began in Anbar a year ago has now spread to the whole of Iraq. I witnessed its beginning in Baghdad Province only months ago; since then, tribe after tribe in that area, and in others around the country, have seen what their neighboring tribes are able to accomplish with their own coalition-sanctioned, self-conducted security forces, and have decided to participate in the effort themselves.

Sometimes it only takes a small event to get the ball rolling. If this continues at a rate near that with which it began this year, it may be possible at some point in the not-too-distant future to see an Iraq in which, to paraphrase Captain Thompson, there simply “isn’t anywhere for the insurgents to go.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Emanuel, a special operations military veteran, is a columnist, a combat journalist, and a director of conservative weblog RedState.com. Additionally, he is a research fellow for health care policy at The Heartland Institute and is managing editor of Health Care News.