# Why isn't the Iraq army fighting back? Why aren't they defending their own families and country? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 16, 2014, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942 "2014-06-16T22:53:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/1 "2014-06-16T22:53:16Z")
How can a few thousand terrorists take over a country? 😕 I realize the Iraq army isn’t the most highly disciplined or trained anymore. But simply by sheer numbers they can easily defeat these guys. 10,000 can easily defeat 1,000. The US left millions of dollars in equipment over there. Theres got to be some former Republican Guard Generals and other officers that will step up and defend their own country. When you see your people being brutally executed. Anybody with prior officer experience would feel an obligation to defend their own city. Just to save their own family and friends. WTH is wrong with these guys? The Republican Guard was a very highly trained unit. They didn’t directly fight US troops and most of them should still be alive. There has to be some guys with military training that can pull together units that can fight. Thats how the colonial armies formed to fight the British. Men like Washington and Daniel Morgan had military training and knew how to fight. I can not understand not defending your country. I know the current government there sucks and is probably corrupt. Raise an army and kick the terrorist’s asses. Then demand a change in government. By force if absolutely necessary. Take back your own country. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/2 "2014-06-16T23:09:06Z")
Your idea of a bunch of guys getting together to defend their country is exactly what the guys in ISIS believe they are doing. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/3 "2014-06-16T23:23:31Z")
It’s a shame they are crazy, radical Islamists that want to enslave everyone under radicalized Sharia law. I hate to admit it but what Iraq needs is a another ruthless power hungry dictator. Somebody that is driven strictly by a desire for power. At least a guy like that isn’t blinded by crazy religious zeal. Saddam actually gave more freedom to women than the crazy Islamists ever will. Women held jobs in Iraq. They socialized in public. Saddam didn’t execute women for appearing in public with their hair uncovered. He killed plenty of people but usually it was to suppress uprisings. Saddam understood how important it is to take out these radical Islamists before they got too powerful. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/4 "2014-06-16T23:27:17Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I can not understand not defending your country. I know the current government there sucks and is probably corrupt. Raise an army and kick the terrorist’s asses. Then demand a change in government. By force if absolutely necessary. Take back your own country. Why is no one willing to stand up and shout “Go Wolverines!”? What kind of people are they? ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/5 "2014-06-16T23:29:30Z")
There’s an old saying about people getting the kind of government they deserve. If the Iraqi people are prepared to tolerate a “military” that will turn tail and run, despite outnumbering the opposition 30,000-1,000, then maybe they deserve to be governed by thugs. Self-determination is a double edged sword. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/6 "2014-06-16T23:34:36Z")
:rolleyes: You know I wasn’t referring to a bunch of untrained teenagers. Saddam had the largest army in the entire Middle East for over three decades. They fought the Iranian Guard too a stand still for several years. There are trained, former officers in Iraq that know how to lead men into battle. They know tactics. If you have a special skill set wouldn’t you feel an obligation to use it to save your families? Remember, the Iraqi army didn’t stand and fight against the US invasion. It would have been suicidal. We had over whelming Air and land forces. They wisely shed their uniforms and melted back into the population. Those former officers are still alive and could reform an army. > [@Acsenray](#): > > Why is no one willing to stand up and shout “Go Wolverines!”? What kind of people are they? ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/7 "2014-06-16T23:52:11Z")
I agree. Its just crazy these men won’t defend their own cities and homes. Thats the most basic reason to have a militia. There are times Citizens have to take up arms and defend themselves and their families. Use the advantage in sheer numbers to defeat a much smaller force. If these men want to act like like a bunch of scared sheep then fuck them. They deserve whatever oppressive government they get. > [@Oakminster](#): > > There’s an old saying about people getting the kind of government they deserve. If the Iraqi people are prepared to tolerate a “military” that will turn tail and run, despite outnumbering the opposition 30,000-1,000, then maybe they deserve to be governed by thugs. Self-determination is a double edged sword. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/8 "2014-06-17T00:02:20Z")
Put simply, the ISIS-led Sunni insurgency has been able to steamroll through predominantly Sunni-inhabited areas because those areas and their people have been disaffected and disenfranchised by the predominantly Shiite government. It’s not that they don’t want to defend their country, it’s that they’re not particularly motivated to defend its _current government_, since it’s treated them like shit. This is particularly egregious from their point of view, since it used to be the other way around when Sunnis ran things. And from their point of view, it might be that they see that their inaction IS defending their country from the likes of the quite profound Iranian influence and control over the current predominantly Shiite government. It’s a very dynamic situation, as these sort of sectarian and tribal things always are, but ISIS won’t have nearly the same sort of sweeping success in Shiite or Kurdish dominated areas. What you’re seeing is the further Balkanization of Iraq in progress - that sort of thing is seldom neat and pretty, and NEVER simple. (So I’m sure I’m guilty of oversimplifying.) But if you want an idea of what it’s likely to look like, you don’t need to look much further than Syria. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/9 "2014-06-17T00:07:38Z")
That is true. The US foolishly supported the formation of a Shiite government. All the former Baathists (mostly Sunni) have been disenfranchised. It’s embarrassing how badly Iraq was mishandled. The only bright part of this mess has been the creation of Kurdistan. They have been quite successful in governing themselves and living autonomously within Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/10 "2014-06-17T00:12:08Z")
I was going to post something similar. It was my understanding that when push comes to shove, most people in the middle east don’t want to live under a theocracy. In elections they (usually) don’t do that well. Plus the government and I assume most of the soldiers are shia. Why wouldn’t they fight against a sunni militia? Do they think the shia taking over the country is going to make their life better? I don’t get it. If people who wanted to form an oppressive, abusive theocratic government where I was going to be persecuted were attacking, I’d fight back. Reading Voltaire’s post, these seem to be mistreated sunni soldiers who are running. If so, that answers my question. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/11 "2014-06-17T00:24:29Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > It’s a shame they are crazy, radical Islamists that want to enslave everyone under radicalized Sharia law. > > I hate to admit it but what Iraq needs is a another ruthless power hungry dictator. Somebody that is driven strictly by a desire for power. At least a guy like that isn’t blinded by crazy religious zeal. Saddam actually gave more freedom to women than the crazy Islamists ever will. Women held jobs in Iraq. They socialized in public. Saddam didn’t execute women for appearing in public with their hair uncovered. He killed plenty of people but usually it was to suppress uprisings. Saddam understood how important it is to take out these radical Islamists before they got too powerful. I don’t know a ton about Saddam, but yeah at first he wasn’t terrible in some ways. He even won some awards from the UN due to improvements in health care and education. However he led the country into incessant war and was a kleptocrat who didn’t seem to care about the economy or improving the country in any meaningful way after he was in power for a while. In ‘the dictator’s handbook’ Bruce Bueno De Mesquita claims that politicians rule based on who they have to keep happy in order for them to stay in power (and rich, and well connected, and famous, and loved, etc). Saddam only had to keep his bodyguards, secret police and elite military units happy. Everyone else could be kept in line by these groups. The fact that his son made Ted Bundy seem like a nice person didn’t help. If you could find a pro-social authoritarian leader then maybe what you say would work. But what are the odds of that? Aren’t most dictators by nature too selfish and incompetent (not to mention abusive) to govern well? ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/12 "2014-06-17T00:29:18Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > That is true. The US foolishly supported the formation of a Shiite government. All the former Baathists (mostly Sunni) have been disenfranchised. > > It’s embarrassing how badly Iraq was mishandled. It’s not as simple as that. Any real democracy in Iraq _had to be_ majority Shiite, short of some quite extensive preliminary ethnic cleansing. The creation of the government that the US supported _tried to be_ as inclusive as possible, but with a Shiite majority, and de facto Iranian control over Shiite politics, religion and militias, an inclusive government was probably destined to be an exercise in futility. It was less than 24 hours after the US troops finished pulling out that Iraq’s Shiite PM Maliki had the Sunni Vice-President arrested. And it was all downhill from there, with Maliki grabbing power and acting more and more like the typical sectarian dictator. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/13 "2014-06-17T00:36:33Z")
I rather live under a dictator than a crazy radical religious government. A religious government wants to force people to live according to their beliefs. They get much more deeply into the daily lives of people. You have to live exactly like they want you to live. A dictator usually doesn’t make individual demands of most people. Someone that works a regular job, pays their taxes, and avoids politics probably won’t be harassed. Keep your head down and your mouth shut. The people that speak out are the ones that get arrested and tortured. Its an oppressive society but someone that follows the rules can survive and have somewhat of a normal life. I’m very thankful to live in a democracy. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/14 "2014-06-17T00:42:11Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > WTH is wrong with these guys? The Republican Guard was a very highly trained unit. They didn’t directly fight US troops and most of them should still be alive The Republican Guard were [overwhelmingly Sunni.](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/25/military.iraq) The insurgents are Sunni. The government is Shiite. Any more questions? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/15 "2014-06-17T00:48:04Z")
Remember all those insurgents that the US used to fight, back when were were running around Iraq fighting insurgents? The guys that had the balls and gumption to form militias to defend their homeland that you’re so surprised Iraq doesn’t have? Didn’t we try our damnedest to kill all those guys for ten years? ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/16 "2014-06-17T00:49:26Z")
\ I can understand the Sunni wanting to take back power. But why did they organize under these crazy radical Islamists? Once these Islamists started this Sharia law crap and started mass executions. The Sunnis should have turned on them. I suspect the the majority of Sunni aren’t radical Muslims. They’re just regular guys fed up with the Shiite gov. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/17 "2014-06-17T00:50:01Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > WTH is wrong with these guys? The Republican Guard was a very highly trained unit. They didn’t directly fight US troops and most of them should still be alive. I’m not sure how reliable the source is, but if [this article is correct](http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/time-challenge-us-assumptions-about-terrorism-security-iraq-10657), former Republican Guard members are indeed involving themselves in this crisis…on the side of ISIS: > [@](#): > > Residents of both Mosul and Tikrit report veterans of Saddam’s Republican Guard walking hand-in-hand with ISIS. ---
**Author:** ![Crawlspace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Crawlspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crawlspace)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/18 "2014-06-17T00:51:06Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Reading Voltaire’s post, these seem to be mistreated sunni soldiers who are running. If so, that answers my question. I think you misunderstood. The former military, The Republican Guard for example, was predominantly Sunni. After the invasion they were told their services were no longer needed and the new Shiite government filled the ranks of the army with Shiites. It’s these Shiite soldiers who are currently running scared from ISIS in the majority Sunni regions of Mosul and Tikrit. In all probability, now that I’m thinking of it, their decision to tuck tail and run from a few hundred militants is likely and specifically because they are afraid that all those former Sunni soldiers who were disaffected by the new government will see this as a rallying call and opportunity to take back what’s theirs. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/19 "2014-06-17T01:02:27Z")
I highly recommend reading [this article](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/04/28/140428fa_fact_filkins?currentPage=all), which I went looking for after having mentioned the arrest of the Sunni VP immediately after the US troop pullout, which is where I originally read about it. It’s long, and to support the point I was trying to make I’m about to quote a few largish sections (but still, a small percentage of the whole) as a teaser, but it’s really worth reading the whole thing. > [@](#): > > Less than twenty-four hours after the last convoy of American fighters left, Maliki’s government ordered the arrest of Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi, the highest-ranking Sunni Arab. Prosecutors accused Hashemi of having run a death squad that assassinated police officers and government officials. The practice was not uncommon at the time. “During the civil war, many political leaders in Iraq had death squads,” a former Western diplomat said. “Maliki started using the security forces to go after his rivals.” In moving against Hashemi, Maliki was signalling that he intended to depose his sectarian rivals. Hashemi flew to the Kurdish region, in northern Iraq, where officials offered to protect him. Seven of his bodyguards were arrested, the first of sixty. Only a few days earlier, in a press conference at the White House to mark the end of the American war, President Obama had praised Maliki as “the elected leader of a sovereign, self-reliant, and democratic Iraq.” When Hashemi fled, American officials did not publicly protest. Three months later, he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to death; he remains in exile. > > ``` > With the expulsion of Hashemi, Maliki began an aggressive campaign to crack down on dissent—especially Sunni dissent—and to centralize authority in his office. In the following months, he forced out a number of senior officials, notably Sinan al-Shabibi, the governor of the Central Bank, who had tried to stop him from diverting Iraq’s foreign reserves into the government’s operating budget. After the inconclusive 2010 election, the chairman of the Independent Election Commission was arrested. When the Integrity Commission uncovered a network in Maliki’s cabinet that was issuing government contracts to fake companies, he blocked the prosecutions; soon afterward, the commission’s director was replaced with a Maliki ally. In addition, Maliki created the Office of the Commander-in-Chief, which gave him personal control over the country’s million-man Army and police force, often requiring local commanders to report directly to him. > > As Maliki gathered power, he set out to banish every trace of Sunni influence from the bureaucracy. One of the places he began was the Iraqi National Intelligence Service. The director was an imposing former general named Mohammed Shawani, a Sunni whose three sons had been tortured to death by Saddam’s men. In August, 2009, Shawani told me, he went to Maliki with an intelligence report that detailed insurgents’ plans for attacks on several government offices. The Prime Minister brushed off his warnings, he said. (Maliki denied this, saying, “It is impossible to believe Shawani.”) Two days later, a wave of car bombs struck the Finance Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, and other government targets, killing a hundred Iraqis and wounding more than five hundred. Shawani fled to the United States. “I knew I had to leave,” he told me. “I thought I was next.” In the following several months, according to Shawani and former American officials, Maliki purged the service of nearly all its Sunni agents and analysts, some five hundred in total. “It’s essentially a Shiite organization now,” Shawani said. > To prevent parliament from passing laws against his interests, Maliki secured a decision from the Iraqi High Court that gave him the exclusive right to draft legislation. Indeed, Maliki has refused to appear before the parliament, or to submit his appointees for approval. “Maliki could have been a historic figure,” Adil Abd al-Mahdi, the former Vice-President, said. “The Shiites supported him; he had the support of the Sunnis and the Kurds. But he needed a real partnership. He needed to give some of his power to others.” Mahdi added, “We have a saying in Arabic: When you want everything, you lose everything.” > > ``` > > **\** > Many of the allegations of corruption center on Ahmed Maliki, the Prime Minister’s son. According to several Iraqis and Americans, Ahmed often demands a percentage of government contracts awarded to private companies. Maliki calls these accusations “fabrications by enemies and opponents.” But he has acknowledged giving Ahmed unusual legal authority. In 2011, Ahmed led raids on U.S. government contractors in the Green Zone, forcing them out of their offices and confiscating property. And, in a television interview last fall, Maliki said that he had dispatched his son, along with a police squad, to arrest an Iraqi construction mogul named Namir al-Akabi, on tax-evasion and embezzlement charges. “When an arrest warrant was issued, everyone was afraid to go near him,” Maliki said, citing Akabi’s connections in the media. “But Ahmed said, ‘Give me the arrest warrant and I will bring him in.’ ” He added, “Ahmed is tough.” Many Iraqis were outraged that the Prime Minister’s son had been given such power, and saw it as a troubling sign that he is being groomed as a dynastic successor. The Iraqi official worried that, if Maliki wins the upcoming elections, “he will pass power to his son.” > **\ (Sound familiar?)** > Maliki has grown steadily more imperious, reacting violently to the slightest criticism. He often claims to have files on his rivals, filled with evidence of corruption and killings. “I swear to God, if the parliament wants to summon me, I will go, but I will turn the world upside down,” he said on Iraqi television last year. “I will take a list of names with me and call them out one by one, and tell everyone what they have been doing.” Maliki has even resurrected a Saddam-era law that makes it a criminal offense to criticize the head of the government. He has filed defamation suits against scores of journalists, judges, and members of parliament, demanding that they spend time in prison and pay damages. “For any political difference, any rivalry, he makes a case,” a senior Iraqi politician told me. > > ``` > Maliki is relatively restrained in his display of wealth—his sole apparent indulgence is a Patek Philippe watch—but he lives in an area in the Green Zone known as Little Venice, for its many fountains and canals. The area once housed Saddam’s family and senior members of his regime; today, black Mercedes sedans purr down its manicured streets. Maliki does not live in Saddam’s Presidential Palace—that’s set aside for state occasions—but in a villa that was once one of his guesthouses. > > Across a square live two notorious Maliki associates. The first is Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Dawa activist convicted of bombing the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait in 1983. Muhandis founded the Party of God Brigade, an Iranian-backed militia that attacked American soldiers during the occupation and has been declared a terrorist organization by the Treasury Department. When American forces were still in Iraq, Ryan Crocker said, “We told Maliki that if Muhandis wanted to stay healthy he needed to stay in Iran.” After they withdrew, according to Iraqi and American officials, Muhandis was given a guesthouse on the property of Falah al-Fayyad, Maliki’s national-security adviser. > > Just down the road lives Qais al-Khazali, the leader of Asa’ib Ah al-Haq, an Iranian-directed militia that launched hundreds of attacks on American forces. U.S. officials say that Khazali was one of the principal plotters in the kidnapping and execution of four American soldiers in Karbala, in 2007, an operation performed at Iran’s behest. The U.S. captured Khazali but turned him over to Iraqi authorities; after the troops left, he was promptly released. > > ``` > > [What We Left Behind | The New Yorker](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/04/28/140428fa_fact_filkins?currentPage=all) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942/20 "2014-06-17T01:04:16Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I rather live under a dictator than a crazy radical religious government. A religious government wants to force people to live according to their beliefs. They get much more deeply into the daily lives of people. You have to live exactly like they want you to live. > > A dictator usually doesn’t make individual demands of most people. Don’t be so quick to categorize and stereotype. It depends on the military dictatorship in question and the theocracy in question. You have to understand the specific circumstances of the people involved and the conditions they’re living under. We created this mess because people like Rumsfeld believed they knew everything and didn’t need to consult experts. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-iraq-army-fighting-back-why-arent-they-defending-their-own-families-and-country/690942.md?page=2)