I don’t know how many times I have to say this before the United States military industrial complex and its political benefactors get it. There’s only one way to make a society safe from tyranny/fascism/dictatorial control/whatever: arm the citizens. It worked right here in the good old US or A. It’s still working now. And it would have worked in Iraq — if the post-Saddam government and its American enablers hadn’t decided that disarmament was the dish of the day, back in the day. As one of our previous contest winners so aptly reported. And now, as Reverend Wright famously pronounced to President Obama’s former congregation, the chickens have come home to roost-a. In the wake of the impending Islamic extremist takeover of Iraq . . .
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Tuesday offered weapons and equipment to citizens who volunteer to fight Islamist militants, hours after the government forces lost the northern city of Mosul to the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS).
In a statement broadcast on state television, Maliki said the cabinet has “created a special crisis cell to follow up on the process of volunteering and equipping and arming.” The cabinet “praises the willingness of the citizens and the sons of the tribes to volunteer and carry weapons … to defend the homeland and defeat terrorism,” he said. Maliki said the cabinet also decided to “restructure and reorganize” the security forces, and to ask parliament to “announce a state of emergency.”
Hours after Maliki’s statement ISIS Jhadists also seized several areas in Kirkuk province, a police officer said, according to AFP. ISIS militants overran the Hawijah, Zab, Riyadh and Abbasi areas west of the city of Kirkuk, and Rashad and Yankaja to its south, Colonel Ahmed Taha said.
A lesson learned? If so, too late for Iraq – despite the enormous amounts of American blood and treasure invested in the country’s future. But NOT too late for American “democracy building” exercises to come. Then again, what are the odds we won’t do the disarmament disco again? As Brad Kozak likes to say, slim and none and slim just left town. [h/t Petition for redress]