I posted this to BNN...sorry if it's not clear.

I try to explain that this "insurgency" is not a monolith as the press usually portrays it to be, and that a lot of people have another life than politics and will settle down, just like the confederates did in 1866 or the Huks did in the late 1950's...

Militias, Insurgents, and Criminal Gangs

Last week, Instapundit has a “headsup” that the Iraqi Army was going to take on the criminal gangs of the Mahdi Army in Basra, and that there would be fighting.

I’ve been perusing the MSM headlines, and as early as Saturday one London paper had declared victory for Sadr, it’s leader, saying the government had lost and all it’s men were deserting.

As background, the Washington Post had a pure propaganda piece by a reporter “embedded” with Mahdi group in Bagdad.

 None of the news stories were very helpful, since like most reporting they see an “bad US” versus “freedom fighters” and don’t see nuances.

I have lived in countries with “freedom fighters” and insurgencies, so tend to see these things differently, so let me explain.

You have organized groups. You have those who help these organized groups. You have to fund these organized groups, so you have outside countries helping. You have to fund the groups, so those not getting outside help make a living by robbery, kidnapping, and drug running.

What you do NOT have is one big solid obedient Army.

Some of the Shiites eventually organized under Sadr, the son of a real hero but one who is not qualified as a religious leader (although western reporters don’t recognize that) and a person who is mentally unstable. He has close ties with Iran.

Like all such groups, they are not uniform. The Sadr and Badr shiite militias often fight each other. The Sunni Baathists and Alqaeda and tribal Sunni are different culturally.

But in all insurgencies, you have the good guys, who could easily merge with the Iraqi government policeforce.

You have the guys who learn to like power and pushing people around: Think crips and bloods, or Wyatt Earp versus the cowboys.

You have criminals: think Jesse James.

And you have ordinary boys who are bored and join for fun but would find a job if one was available. Some of them become Billy the Kid, killing out of revenge, others just settle down, marry and are lost to history.

Sadr wants to take over the government, but doesn’t quite have the power. He is getting a lot of help from Iran. Despite this, he helped the Alqaeda and Sunni “insurgents” –which is why McCain talked about Iran helping AlQaeda…it wasn’t a gaffe, it was referring to this help.

But most of the various Madhi militias were merely policing the streets, so the US and Brits allowed them to do it.

Up to the point that AlQaeda decided to destroy the golden mosque. At this point, chaos ensued, and they turned against the Sunnis.

From AlJezeerah:

The Mahdi Army had in the past concentrated on fighting US troops, and on two occasions sent aid to Sunni fighters in Fallujah during military offensives led by US forces.

But that support dried up in February 2005, when the Askari shrine, a holy site for Shia Muslims in Samarra, was bombed. Within hours of the bombing, young people were riding around the capital on the back of pick-up trucks, parading guns and vowing revenge.

Their revenge was going around kidnapping innocent Sunnis and beheading them. As a result, a lot of the Sunni professional class ran off to Syria and Jordan. But Iraq needs this professional class.

That is what the Anbar agreement was about.

Sadr was smart enough to realize that if he wanted power, he couldn’t do it with his army alone, so he called a cease fire, and the Sunnis tried to make peace.

Both groups will go at it again the moment American troops leave, which is why they are biding their time: They figure a President Obama will take out the US troops, and they will win the fight, with help from nearby governments (Syria and Saudi for the Sunni, Iran for the Shiites). The result will be massacres and ethnic cleansing, but never mind. Obama can blame Bush.

But what is new is the Iraqi army is starting to become a real force. Anyone can make an Army; making a professional fighting force takes time. And it is the Iraqi Army who is doing most of the fighting this time, to the delight of US soldiers who are merely helping them do it.

The next step is carrot and stick: Offer those who make peace amnesty and jobs, encourage the true believers to go into politics, and wipe out or marginalize the crimnals.

This was done in the Philippines, where the war against the  Huks was won by land reform, but the war against the hardcore NPA in other areas has been going on for 50 years. Similarly, the MNLF was pacified, the MILF is talking peace, but the Abu Sayyaf is still busy with bombs and kidnapping.

You can usually pacify most of those fighting, leaving a hard core, which can later splinter, with most being pacified, leaving a hard core…etc.

And in this case, Sadr blinked; he hopes to win at the ballot box.

Strategy Page has a good summary of the fight and who is whom HERE.

The AlJezeerah report is HERE.

Al-Sadr’s nine-point plan, agreed with the Iraqi government, was issued by his headquarters in the city of Najaf and broadcast through loudspeakers on Shia mosques.

James Bays, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Baghdad, said: “The main elements are that Muqtada al-Sadr’s fighters should leave the streets … in return, apparently, they will not be pursued, the Iraqi government will not arrest any of them unless they have arrest warrants for them.

“The big question now is whether the Mahdi army fighters will obey this command because there are all sorts of factions and splinter groups in existence.” 

So when you read of more reports about Mahdi Army fighters, think Jesse James or the Confederates who fought the establishment years after the civil war ended.

——–

To experts: Yes, I know I have glossed over some nuances. But when the MSM reports a few shells lobbed into the Green Zone as proof the US is losing, someone has to point out that this is as absurd as saying a mall bombing in Manila means that Abu Sayyaf is winning here.
————————

Professor in LATimes laments: ARE THE TIBETANS doomed to go the way of the American Indians? Will they be reduced to being little more than a tourist attraction, peddling cheap mementos of what was once a great culture?

You mean, should Tibetans start Casinos and ski resorts, and get rich?
Sounds good to me...
----------------------------
... watching it with the sound off, they spent three minutes reporting McCain's speech warning if the US leaves Iraq prematurely, there will be civil war and genocide, and then they spent five minutes talking about something while the caption read: McCain's teleprompter problem"...

Yup. Genocide versus blooper. Blooper wins.
Which is why in the US I often turned on CSPAN: To hear the speech, not the pundit's spin session.
Luckily, PajamasMedia has coverage of the speech HERE.
------------------------------
Trying to figure out the Pope...he talks paragraphs, not soundbites.

-------
The problem with corruption is when people who donate to campaign funds, or pay for trips, get a pro quid pro back for their covert donation.  This is part of Asian culture, and one of the major problems here.
But it also occurs in the US, but less overtly...
And it's not just big business who get the perks...
sometimes if it's Saddam paying for a soundbite or FARC trying to get Congress to stop helping Colombia...

Obama dismissed the anti American hate speech of Reverend Wright as "sixties rhetoric"

But some of us remember the victims.

So today, the California prisons release Mrs. Olson for the killing of a middle aged housewife during a robbery. My long history of this incident here.

The irony is that if these murders had been done  by a black gang, they probably would have gotten life.

So Obama is right about racial prejudice: If you are white upper class and belong the the radical left, you can get a free pass...

Ironically Olson and her friends would have gotten off if tried earlier (one was indeed left free in an earlier trial, which is why it took so long to charge Olson).

cross post on BNN

I love the headlines in the Chicago Tribune:

Obama blames ’60s for pastor’s comments

And the report goes on saying how Obama defends his pastor:

Both Wright, who is 66, and Ferraro, who is 72, were products of the often violent and racially divisive ’60s and were stuck in a time warp, Obama explained.

Ah, the sixties. well, I lived then, but like a lot of people not in the “in”crowd, I was too busy in medical school and internship to have the experience of “the sixties”, except for treating drug overdoses, botched abortions and the STD’s of our local love children.

Bruce Springsteen has a story song “Glory days”.

Wright, and indeed much of the aging anti war movement, is about reliving their “glory days”. Some of the sixties was good: racial equality, rejecting materialism and volunteering to help people. But without the balance of emphasizing personal responsibility for one’s own life and actions, the sixties deteriorated into the hedonism and drug taking of the seventies, and the destruction of the family by a sexual ethic that no longer recognized the idea of responsibility and duty.

I am not impressed with the “megachurch” phenomenum. Too often this means glorifying the minister instead of God. We are told Rev. Wright’s church has 8000 members but that it also has lots of social ministries:

Trinity United Church of Christ’s ministry is inclusive and global. The following ministries have been developed under Dr. Wright’s ministerial tutelage for social justice: assisted living facilities for senior citizens, day care for children, pastoral care and counseling, health care, ministries for persons living with HIV/AIDS, hospice training, prison ministry, scholarships for thousands of students to attend historically black colleges, youth ministries, tutorial and computer programs, a church library, domestic violence programs and scholarships and fellowships for women and men attending seminary.

Very impressive. Of course, a lot of megachurches do the same, and even the average Chicago Catholic parish sponsors most of these things, either in the parish or in cooperation with the diocese, so it’s not like he is alone.

And I wonder about a scandal driven media who take a few phrases out of context (?) to villify a good pastor without praising the fruits of the good reverend’s life.

But I do have a problem with Obama’s pastor.One problem of being stuck in the sixties is that one sees reality through the glasses of a rigid ideology.

For example, one of the political actions of the church was to encourage the city council to stop Walmart.

Rich people hate Walmart, which pays lousy wages and undercuts a lot of small shops.

But, for poor rural people, the opportunity to go to a Walmart and buy cheap and good quality goods nearby at one stop is a blessing.

In the city, yes, there are local shops. But the prices are higher, and the choices are limited. The sidewalks are icy, and your purse might be stolen if you were old or looked like you wouldn’t fight back. So my neighbors would spend five dollars to take a taxi to the bulk grocery store to buy goods. Wouldn’t they also benefit from a Walmart, where they could buy other goods they need (clothing, school supplies) at lower prices?

So, do you as a pastor encourage stores so your people can afford to buy the goods they need, or do you follow the left wing ideology that says bad big business?

Let’s not let reality get in the way of our ideology.

Similarly, it’s nice that one has an HIV outreach.

But this week, a report tells us that fifty percent of Black girls have STD’s.

Now, anyone who works with battered women know that many of these girls were sexually abused as very young teenagers. In the sixties, sexuality of early teenagers was celebrated as “freedom”, not statuatory rape.

Yet many of these girls pay the price for the men’s sexual pleasures in teenaged pregnancy, serial abortions, infertility, chronic pelvic pain, and cancer. Ah, you might argue, but these girls enjoy it too. Oh, really? Actually, a lot of them are just educated by the media and their peers that they are supposed to have sex, and so they do…but how many get pleasure from the “slam bam thank you mam” lovemaking of the average teenaged boy?

Similarly, it’s nice to have an HIV mininistries, but when 60% of the newly diagnosed HIV cases are in black women, isn’t it time to start preaching something more than condom use? And one is happy that all sexual orientations are welcome, but did you ever preach about the sin of cruising, or the importance of conjugal faithfulness to one’s partner in life?

My question to the pastor is more ethical than theological: If there is a god, isn’t she interested in what we do in our daily lives? Do we see God as the father of the prodigal son, who welcomes home the repentant sinner, or do we see him as an enabler of bad behavior, welcoming back the son and giving him more money to waste on parties and drugs?

I have no problem with the social gospel. All churches should encourage their members to volunteer their time. Yet the reason that liturgical churches have a schedule on what part of the bible to teach each week is so that we get reminded of all the different aspects of the relationship of the deity of our daily lives.

So as a doc, I have been lucky enough to serve the poor in many different areas. But when this part of life becomes the only “important” part of life judged by God, it means one could justify sleeping with one’s patients, overbilling, and neglecting one’s family.

Yet what about those who “only serve and wait”? Don’t they too serve the Lord?

One of the holiest priests I knew served for years with the poor in one midwestern town. He came to our church and preached about helping with the local foodbank, working with abused women and pregnant teenagers at the shelter, and helping to build homes with Jimmy Carter’s groups.

But the parish he was preaching included many poor people, who “fed the poor” by taking in their grandchildren whose parents were drug addicts. They would take in nieces or even friends who were abused or pregnant with no place to go, and they didn’t need to work with a famous charity to shovel snow off a neighbor’s roof or fix a leak in their neighbor’s house for free.

Social action is fine, and is quite rewarding (been there, done that).

But charity begins at home.

Churches that preach social action without mentioning personal ethical reform deteriorate into cults of feel good sociopaths who can ignore or abort or exploit those nearest to them while insisting they are saintly for their good deeds.

In the news, a small story talks about the Chinese stopping an airplane hijacking.
There  are reports that the Chinese are worried about more attacks during the Oympics

Wang said the group had been trained by and was following the orders of a Uighur separatist group based in Pakistan and Afghanistan called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM. The group has been labeled a terrorist organization by both the United Nations and the United States. East Turkestan is another name for Xinjiang.

A 2002 report shows that the Chinese have cracked down and executed many there, but by putting the crackdown into those against Christians and Falung Gong, who are not associated with terrorism let alone outside terrorism, the report is not putting the problem into context.

After 9/11, China started linking the seperatist group with Al qaeda; since some had trained in Afghanistan at the terrorist training camps, the link is not exactly made up. Their crackdown goes back at least to the 1990's.

. In March 1997, a bus explosion killed two people and injured 30 on the heels of several bus explosions that took place in Urumqi, the region's capital. An Uighur spokesman, in exile in Turkey, claimed responsibility for the attack, and announced that more Uighurs living in Kazakhstan were prepared to execute additional attacks. Attacks in the form of arsons, explosions, assassinations and kidnappings continued throughout 1998. In 1999, the Chinese government arrested hundreds of activists from dozens of various separatist organizations, a period that saw a significant decline in ETIM's activity. Since then, there have been several armed clashes between the Uighurs and Chinese security forces. In June 2000, a group of Uighurs ambushed a Chinese delegation to Xinjiang, killing one representative and seriously injuring two others.

To understand much of this, one needs to know Chinese history: the expansion of the Han ethnic group at the expense of other ethnic groups. Many ethnic groups end up assimilating one way or another (the huge number of Chinese Tibetan intermarriages after the Han resettled there is a modern example of the policy).

Similar policies are changing the population of western China:

China has also encouraged the migration of ethnic Han Chinese into Xinjiang. Although there is no irrefutable evidence of a deliberate attempt to dilute Xinjiang's potentially restive Muslim population with this influx, this is precisely what has happened in many urban areas. Once forming the vast majority of the region's population, Xinjiang's minorities had slipped to a rough parity with the Han even before the "Go west" policy began.

But with the religious difference, there is less intermarriage.

So are these separatists part of Alqaeda?

In some ways this reminds me of the Moro rebellions in the Philippines: Long standing rebellions by insular traditional people who see foreigners moving in, and making money while they remain stuck in the past. Instead of beating the outsiders at their own game, they turn inward, embrace their religion, and decide to have a holy war.

The bad news is that with all that Muslim oil money being funded via charities to such organizations so they can start a war.

The ultimate answer is the "Carrot and stick": offer war against the worst and amnesty with development aid (and "gifts" to their leaders) to make peace.

This worked in Luzon and is slowly working in Mindanao.

Whether or not the Chinese will do it, who knows. In the past, genocides were easy to hide.

 Now a different way will have to be figured out, and China is a pragmatic country by culture.

You see, China needs energy for their growing economy.

But if they want their pipeline, they will have to make peace one way or another.

The Spratlys deal is going to cause trouble for President Arroyo.

Ricky Carandang follows the money....to China...and they were talking about it on TV last Friday, discussing if what the president did was illegal.

Today ABSCBN has more:

Fajardo also clarified that the agreement forged with China has no connection with the scrapped national broadband network deal between the Philippine government and China’s ZTE Corp. She said only critics of the Arroyo administration have tied the Spratlys deal with the NBN-ZTE deal.

Administration officials including Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo and Cabinet Secretary Ricardo Saludo have defended the Spratlys deal saying it was not a "sell out" of the country’s claim to the Kalayaan Group of Islands (KGI).

Spratly’s project put on hold – source
The "Spratlys deal" refers to the Tripartite Agreement for Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking in the Agreement Area in the South China Sea (JMSU) signed March 14, 2005 by the national oil companies of the Philippines, China, and Vietnam.

The 3-year JMSU provides for "joint acquisition of seismic data in order to assess the petroleum resource potential" of the area covered in the study, according to a press statement on the Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC)-Exploration Corp. website.

Manuel QuezonIII has more HERE.

Far Eastern Economic review HERE.

Global Security has background HERE.

More from IHTribune...:

Summary: there is oil/gas off the coast of Viet Nam in the Spratlys...and everyone nearby wants it...so did the Philippines exchange their claims (and help push out the Vietnamese) for development loans badly needed by the Philippines?

...Not my area of expertise so I hope I got that right...