GIVING FIRE WATER TO THE CHIEF

Tribes: Just a word here about reports that the "tribes" in Iraq are going against AlQaeda.

In a country of roughly 2,500 effective tribes one has to deal with 2,500 essentially competing interests. It's always a "what can you do for me?" situation. EVERYTHING in that kind of society is one of tribal leaders "looking good" to the tribe membership. The way to look good is to bring home some bacon; to do "favors" for another tribal leader, favors that must be repaid at some time in the future. All Arab societies are corrupted by "backshish" at every level because of favors being done and favors being repaid a thousand times each day. If a tribal member's son needs a job in a hospital the father goes to the tribal chief who always needs to look good; the tribal chief says "I'll see what I can do for you," and goes to another tribal chief who is connected to the hospital and either gets repayment for a favor done in the past or agrees to do a favor in the future. The deed is done so the Tribal leader can go back to the father of the boy who wants the job and tell him "I done it for you," which means "you now owe me" and life goes on.

That's why tribal societies are uniformly backward. Unless the current tribal leaders are paid off they won't stay anti-AlQaeda. ...UNLESS .....a genuine and effective actual Iraqi government---as opposed to an infidel government---turns up, one which can either grant favors or crush the tribes. We have been ineffective in dealing with tribal interests because we didn't know anything about tribes and the necessity of dealing with them, believing them to be a bunch of primitives. So....3,000 of our guys dead and counting ..... The tribes are pro tribe. Period.