Bill Ardolino of the Long War Journal has never been a friend of this site, but while over in Iraq these days taking pictures, he was hit with one giant cluebat. To the photo above he gives this caption:
Iraqi Police at Joint Security Station Al Tharwa in Sadr City. “This may be a shock to you, but some of the IPs may be affiliated with JAM [the Mahdi Army]. That being said, we are here to support them, but never, never 100 percent trust them,” said one American adviser while briefing his men. Another US adviser described the police officers as “eager to learn” and “friendly.”
I suspect that news was a shock to Ardolino himself, but it should come as no surprise to regular Jihad Watch readers — not, as the caricature of my position goes, because “all Muslims are terrorists” or some such nonsense, but because those who do not subscribe in principle to the idea that Muslims must ultimately make war against and subjugate unbelievers, or those who are indifferent to or ignorant of that idea, have done essentially nothing to distinguish themselves from those who do subscribe to such ideas. So it is no surprise or shock at all that the Iraqi Police force would contain Mahdi Army infiltrators — it would be impossible to screen them out with full reliability by any questioning process imaginable.
That doesn’t mean that such screening shouldn’t even be attempted. As long as American troops are involved in such efforts (whether their being involved in them is the best way to defend ourselves against the global jihad is another question), it should. But it should be undertaken without the politically correct and comforting illusions and delusions that cloud the perceptions of so many about Iraq and the global jihad in general — but which don’t seem to be clouding the vision of the American adviser whom Ardolino heard.
