We're Being Played

Larry, Moe and Curly, The Three Stooges

Doctor Robert, you’re a new and better man,
He helps you to understand,
He does everything he can, Doctor Robert.
Well, well, well, you’re feeling fine
--Dr. Robert, The Beatles
________

Like The Beatles' Dr. Robert, I know the press just wants to pick me up, but somehow. . . Perhaps if I had what was in his special cup.

In another MSM feel good piece, we are assured the U.S. military is getting a grip on ''the militants and gunmen outside government control'' (''U.S. Finds Informants Within Iraqi Shiite Militia; split in Mahdi Army helps Americans.'') Ranger must therefore surmise that the gunman and militants inside the wire are good to go.

Ranger further assumes that the government in question is the Iraqi government, because the U.S. government provides 145,000 gunmen outside the control of the Iraqi government.

''The informants also target fighters they claim were trained and armed by Iranians, but offer no further details.'' This needs a little historical analysis.

During RVN, there was a U.S. assassination program aimed at eliminating the VC infrastructure. This program relied upon intelligence provided by the Vietnamese government. Strangely, it seems that the program was corrupted with faulty self-serving intelligence, resulting in the assassinations of innocent Vietnamese. Oops.

Now the same thing is playing out in Iraq. The U.S. military is once again being used as a strike arm of Iraqi interests. I guess you could also call them stooges. What a great way to eliminate rivals--rat them out, and the U.S. will neutralize them for you.

It doesn't matter that the intelligence is unreliable or incorrect, because the U.S. troops are desperate to do anything, even if it is wrong.

Go back to step one--the introduction of democracy.

The foundation of democracy is not a police state with secret informers at its core. What are we trying to achieve in the back alleys of Baghdad working with scum? U.S. forces are not designed for ''purging criminal elements.''

''Rooting out the most violent cells from the Mahdi Army would be an important step for U.S.-led forces and the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.'' The U.S. forces must have an incredible intelligence system to root out ''the most violent.''

This must mean that the normal, everyday violent-type groups and individuals are acceptable in the new Iraq. Only the ''most violent'' need beware, and that's only if they get ratted out.

It is criminal for U.S. leadership to put combat troops in this environment for which they are not trained, nor is it a military duty that should be assumed by unsophisticated, everyday combat troops.