"If you're not my friend, you're my enemy in this war," the officer told Fahd sternly. "
I am very disappointed in this conversation. I came here today with hope, but now I will treat you, your family and the al-Ghrirs differently."
"I am so sad that you're disappointed," Fahd answered. "But there is nothing that I can do. I don't have your guns and armor, what can I do?"
The officer replied: "I don't want you to fight. I want you to organize the al-Ghrirs and take a stand against the insurgents and your fear."
"Please be sure that I will always be your friend and I will not hesitate to help you if I can. Do you accept my friendship?" asked Fahd.
"No," Brown snapped.
I can't believe this shit!
For the American officer, the objective was to win Fahd's cooperation in the fight against insurgents in Mahmoudiya in an area south of the capital known as "The Triangle of Death."
But for Fahd, a Sunni tribal leader heading a clan of 30,000, the meeting highlighted his double dilemma: He must keep at bay both the insurgents who watch his every move, and the U.S. military that wants his help in persuading militants to lay down their arms.
Brown sought to tempt Fahd with water pumps, jobs and other aid in an area where most farms have lacked irrigation since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. "With the central government, the police and the army all still weak, the tribal system is the only institution that's working in Iraq," he said.
Fahd, a 64-year-old retired police brigadier, appears to have no genuine wish to cooperate with the Americans -- not because he supports the insurgents, but to protect his family and avoid the shame of being labeled a collaborator.
The officer in question is U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ross A. Brown, taking idiocy in Iraq to new lows.
Its doesn't take a genius to figure out why so many in Guerilla held territory are afraid to cooperate. Its literally a death sentence, and the Iraqis have better intelligence then the Americans do when it comes to their fellows.
At the same time, many of these same people are not directly hostile to US troops YET. But if this kind of stupid treatment keeps going on, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to blame them for doing so.
You can see the military intelligence at work here, offer water pumps to people looking for some basic SECURITY. Bribes don't work when the people are more afraid of the enemy then of you. No amount of aid is worth their lives and the lives of their families.
But our frustrated dunce of an officer doesn't seem to get that point.
Many Iraqis have been killed for having suspected links to the Americans -- a fact Fahd knows firsthand: insurgents held him captive for several hours May 21.
"They told me the Americans came to my home eight times, but I told them they came to search it. They did not believe me," he told Brown, a tough-talking West Point graduate from McLean, Va., who recently took command in Mahmoudiya.
One of Fahd's six daughters, Jinan, was killed in November by U.S. Marines under circumstances that have never been clear. Two other relatives lost their lives in violence, and at least 15 clansmen and relatives are in U.S. or Iraqi custody, some for more than a year, he said.
During their meeting in the Green Zone, Brown was sympathetic at first to the clan leader's situation. But he wasn't impressed when Fahd began to speak of his helplessness against the insurgents and his diminishing influence over the clan.
At this point Brown should be getting on his hands and knees and kissing Fahd's feet. The guy has lost THREE relatives to the chaos unleashed by the American invasion and hasn't turned against us.
And the clan leader has a point, when guerillas can hold HIM hostage, he's lost clout. And Brown isn't giving him any good reasons to stick his neck out.
Worse, this MORON of an officer goes and THREATENS a nonhostile non-combatant. As if there aren't enough enemies for his troops to deal with, he wants to give them more?
If this is the base line for how the military 'leaders' in charge are doing things, no wonder they're getting worse.