Posted on Jul 27, 2015
Do we even know who the 'good guys' are anymore?
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The steady growth of Shiite militias in Iraq is making it increasingly difficult for American forces deployed there to determine exactly which Iraqi forces they are supporting, experts say.
The official line from Defense Department is that the U.S. will support operations involving both the Iraqi army and some militia forces that are operating "under command and control of the Iraqi government."
But the Pentagon wants to avoid providing direct support for anti-Islamic State militia forces loyal to Iran, a longtime enemy, a reflection of the deeply opaque and tumultuous politics of the Middle East.
"I love this line, 'We only want to support the militias under the command and control of the Iraqi government.' You can't really look at it that way. There is a lot of fuzzy gray area in that zone," said Phillip Smyth, an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"It's not some binary situation like people keep trying to make it out to be," Smyth said.
The chain of command in Iraq has frayed since the Islamic State's battlefield victories last year inspired the creation of the so-called Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF, a loose-knit patchwork of mostly Shiite militias with scattered loyalties to leaders in both Iraq and Iran.
The PMF are not part of Iraq's Ministry of Defense, which has close ties to the U.S. military after years of receiving money and training from Americans. Instead, the PMF militias operate — technically — under Iraq's Ministry of Interior, which has direct links to Iran.
The head of the Ministry of Interior, Mohammed Salem Al-Ghabban, is a Shiite who was imprisoned under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime and later lived and attended a university in Tehran, the capital of Iran. He is a member of the Badr Organization, a Shiite political party with close ties to Tehran.
For many factions of the PMF, it appears that their chain of command leads to both the Iraqi and Iranian government.
Read more at ...
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/2015/07/24/shiite-militias-alliles-unclear/30528921/
The official line from Defense Department is that the U.S. will support operations involving both the Iraqi army and some militia forces that are operating "under command and control of the Iraqi government."
But the Pentagon wants to avoid providing direct support for anti-Islamic State militia forces loyal to Iran, a longtime enemy, a reflection of the deeply opaque and tumultuous politics of the Middle East.
"I love this line, 'We only want to support the militias under the command and control of the Iraqi government.' You can't really look at it that way. There is a lot of fuzzy gray area in that zone," said Phillip Smyth, an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"It's not some binary situation like people keep trying to make it out to be," Smyth said.
The chain of command in Iraq has frayed since the Islamic State's battlefield victories last year inspired the creation of the so-called Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF, a loose-knit patchwork of mostly Shiite militias with scattered loyalties to leaders in both Iraq and Iran.
The PMF are not part of Iraq's Ministry of Defense, which has close ties to the U.S. military after years of receiving money and training from Americans. Instead, the PMF militias operate — technically — under Iraq's Ministry of Interior, which has direct links to Iran.
The head of the Ministry of Interior, Mohammed Salem Al-Ghabban, is a Shiite who was imprisoned under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime and later lived and attended a university in Tehran, the capital of Iran. He is a member of the Badr Organization, a Shiite political party with close ties to Tehran.
For many factions of the PMF, it appears that their chain of command leads to both the Iraqi and Iranian government.
Read more at ...
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/2015/07/24/shiite-militias-alliles-unclear/30528921/
Posted in these groups: 
Iraq
War on Terror
Iraq War on Terror
Edited >1 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 7
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No we dont, thats the biggest issue the modern military is facing. We have all seen very soberingly that we have muslim radicals within the Military as well as among our brothers and sisters on patrols/missions. With obama's bad decisions never being questioned it will only get worse, now he is contemplating giving new citizens the liberty to deciding if they want to defend our country or not. He is the worse thing to happen to this country and I am shocked that so many of you stand behind him and his muslim extremist loving ways.
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"There are no good or bad organizations. Just organizations with strong or weak oversight" - Tony Stark.
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