March 13th, 2007 is a day that has some extra meaning to me. It’s the day I was on the receiving end of an IED that destroyed the Stryker fighting vehicle I was in and left me with some permanent physical maladies that cause me problems today, and will only progress and get worse as I get older. As a result of it, I’ll be dealing with degenerative disc disease, arthritis, scar tissue, and spinal stenosis in my lower back. I’ve got a burn scar on my leg from scalding hot hydraulic oil, brain damage from a severe concussion, a ringing in my ears that contributes to my inability to maintain healthy sleeping patterns, and a number of smaller scars from shrapnel wounds. The group of people that were responsible for that IED attack on me, and another one that same day that killed one American soldier and wounded twelve more including myself later became “allies” of ours.

It’s something that’s been done numerous times before by our military. They train, fund, and arm civilians of a country during a time of conflict. There have been numerous examples of this in the past, and it would be a fair argument that this rarely, if ever, ends up being a good idea. In my particular case, I couldn’t have thought of a worse group of people to do this with since prior to arming and training them, we had numerous firefights with them resulting in a number of American deaths. They called themselves the 1920’s Revolutionary Brigade. They were a Sunni militia that was made up partly of soldiers from Saddam’s disbanded Iraqi Army, and partly from people who were able and willing to fight for control of Iraq against Al Quada fighters and the new Iraqi Government and other coalition forces. After arriving in the city of Baqubah we had a good many very intense and costly fights with the 1920’s Revolution Brigade. They got the best of us on that first day of fighting, but after that we began inflicting some pretty significant damage to them.

After they suffered a lot of losses fighting both us and Al Quada fighters they reached the conclusion that they could no longer sustain the number of losses they were taking. Their solution was to send a message to the American leadership that they wanted to stop fighting and join forces to fight against Al Quada. After that they were no longer referred to as enemy combatants. We were told they were now a group of individuals that were to be called “Concerned Local Citizens”, and we were told that we would be working WITH them. One day we are killing each other, and the next day we’re expected to go into combat with them and trust them. It is safe to say that it wasn’t a very good relationship. They were very happy they got to walk around and work with us, and we spent our time wondering if one of them was going to blow himself up or turn his AK-47 on us when we weren’t paying attention. They were supposed to help in the stabilization of Iraq and show people how many groups are all working together. In my experience, I wouldn’t trust them any farther than I could throw them, and I would be a bit hesitant to suggest Iraq as a vacation spot despite their presence there.

This has some relevance today because of some people’s desires to send American soldiers to Syria to help overthrow the government there. This is not a new issue or concept at all. Funding, training, and weapons were provided to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan when they were fighting the Soviets. This group became the Taliban which has now been locked in war with America and pro-American countries and organizations for over a dozen years and cost thousands of lives. The “Concerned Local Citizens” that we became friends with have now expanded their operations to involve bombing and slaughtering of non-Sunni Muslims and Christians during religious celebrations.

We’re once again faced with the decision of whether to fund or send troops to a volatile region of the world in the interest of positioning ourselves with an unstable group that has its own self interests in mind. It doesn’t take a political mastermind to figure out what is going to happen. As has happened many times before, when they get what they want, they will want more. It won’t be good enough to get rid of their immediate threat, because as soon as the Syrian government is gone they’ll continue to use American provided weapons and training to attempt to assume total control over the country, most likely resulting in the violent deaths of many more innocent people.

drfarwell@hotmail.com