If Iraq’s a civil war, so is Los Angeles

These guys ain’t the Union and the Confederacy.  They’re the Crips and the Bloods (that is, if the Crips were getting IEDs from Iran and the Bloods AK-47s from the Mafia).

J.D. Johannes writes at Outside the Wire[*1] :

The JAM (Shiite Mahdi Army–ed) and AQIZ (Al Queda in Iraq–ed) equally despised your average Dora, Rasheed or Abu Bashir resident and almost seem to work in collusion to profit from  their shake down schemes.  Without AQIZ, there is no need for JAM.  Without JAM there is no need for AQIZ protection from JAM.

I got to meet some of the JAM mid-level management and was not impressed. When confronted with a few soldiers he looked like a deer in the headlights and then started crying.

One minute he was the big tough JAM Boss full of the wasta getting ready to EJK (Extra-Judicial Killing–ed) a guy but when team of soldiers showed up he turned into, well, jelly.

The Baghdad Security Plan is working and can achieve an endstate.  It took the Brits 12 years in Maylaya.  We are following their plan.

The biggest enemy we have is an over active media and spineless Host Nation government which is intimidated by the JAM and has the JAM as key constituent group.

[*1] http://www.outsidethewire.com/blog/outside-the-wire/looking-for-that-civil-war-we-are-bogged-down-in.html