In America if a large group of citizens starts arming themselves with military grade equipment and practicing military and law enforcement tactics, law enforcement and other government agencies typically take notice of it and do some research into their motivations. This is done because there really isn’t a good reason for citizens to arm themselves and form militias that have the capability to overwhelm and outgun law enforcement agencies. I’m aware of conspiracy theorists that live in a paranoid world with perpetual fears of the government, eventually stripping all of us of all of our rights through military force. I guess you could say I have a slightly less paranoid view given the government’s inability to effectively accomplish the simplest of tasks let alone creating a nationwide police state. I do agree with our second amendment rights, and I do own a couple of guns but it’s not because I feel like I’ll need them to protect myself from a hostile government takeover or an invasion by the Russians. It’s because I like them. Since I feel that way I would also have to agree that others should be allowed guns so long as they are competent in how to safely use them and meet other legal criteria such as not being violent criminals, mentally unstable, or felons.

Given how I feel about this I can’t help but wonder what in the hell our government is thinking with its current practice of picking and choosing different tribes, militias, groups, and random citizens in places like Iraq and Syria. As I described above with our own government refraining from arming, training, and funding its citizens in military tactics, that is exactly what we are doing in those areas. Areas mind you that have an extensive history of violence towards each other. It’s about the most predictable cycle of violence as one could think up. Two groups fight each other, one wins, the other holds a grudge and retaliates when they have the means to do so. However, once in a while a common enemy comes along which temporarily unites these different factions. In 2003-2007 or 8 it was Al Quaida, since then it has been ISIS. Right now all of these different tribes and factions are loosely working together along with the Iraqi Army and Police to fight the greater evil that is ISIS, whom, if history repeats itself will eventually be defeated after much more killing and human atrocities. But what happens when that day finally comes? America declares victory over ISIS, and in the meantime all of these different militias and tribes and groups that we have armed and trained, and have hated each other for centuries are left with nothing to do but think about how they were mistreated by another group, and how nice it would be to have more control in Iraq. So what the hell, let’s go sneak attack another group to increase our own power.

One thing that sickened me when I was deployed was on my first day in the city of Baqubah. We were very aggressively ambushed and resulted in 1 American KIA, and 12 soldiers, including myself, being medically evacuated, and we lost 2 vehicles that were destroyed. Also as a result of this first day of fighting an elementary school was destroyed by IED’s planted by bad guys, and several other children being very grievously wounded. We spent the next week in very close quarters combat in palm grove jungles. About a month later, as a result of trying to unite Iraqi militia’s against ISIS we were assigned with the task of training and going on joint operations with the group that ambushed us our first day there because they claimed they wanted to join the fight against ISIS. My theory is that they figured out real quick that they couldn’t independently fight and win against ISIS and they certainly couldn’t independently win a sustained fight against us, so they ran to us for help. We were supposed to be working together, but we never went anywhere or entered a situation without a plan to eliminate any one or all of them should their allegiances suddenly shift once again.

And that is exactly what we are doing…again. We’re taking different tribes and groups and religious groups that historically hate each other, don’t trust each other, and are always looking for a reason and a way to eliminate the others and trying to make them work together. It’s like we’re playing a game of Risk against ourselves and we’re trying to make the Ottoman Empire cooperate with Western Europe and any Risk player knows that never works. That’s the most creative way I can think of to say that it is a hopeless situation that we keep injecting ourselves deeper and deeper into.