What does our military call the Iraqis who were killing our GI's last month? The Baghdad Patriots

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/world/4875389.html

June 9, 2007, 12:24AM

U.S. soldiers, militias make uneasy allies in Iraq

New strategy has coalition forces accepting aid from almost all sources


BAGHDAD, IRAQ — The worst month of Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl's deployment in western Baghdad was finally drawing to a close. The insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq had unleashed bombings that killed 14 of his soldiers in May, a shocking escalation of violence for a battalion that had lost three soldiers in the previous six months while patrolling the Sunni enclave of Amiriyah.

On top of that, the 41-year-old battalion commander was doubled up with a stomach flu when, late on May 29, he received a cell phone call that would change everything.

"We're going after al-Qaida," a leading local imam said, Kuehl recalled. "What we want you to do is stay out of the way." snip

The American soldiers in Amiriyah have allied themselves with dozens of Sunni militiamen who call themselves the Baghdad Patriots — a group that American soldiers believe includes insurgents who have attacked them in the past — in an attempt to drive out al-Qaida in Iraq. The Americans have granted these gunmen the power of arrest, allowed the Iraqi army to supply them with ammunition and fought alongside them in chaotic street battles. snip

"We have made a deal with the devil," said an intelligence officer in the battalion.

[tabasco]

1. A hopeless quagmire for our troops. Massive profits for the oil barons.

We need to get out of this shithole NOW!

[NNN0LHI]

2. This reminds me of when our government used to fund and arm Osama bin Laden

That worked out real well too.

Don