Macgregor's latest shot at the matrix: "Sheikhs For Sale"

[Gian P Gentile]

Here is an oped by Doug Macgregor that is currently running in "Defense News."

January 28, 2008

Sheikhs for Sale - U.S. Cash Diplomacy in Iraq Will Fail in the End

Of the many factors contributing to the reduction of U.S. casualties in Iraq, none has been more critical than the decision by the generals in Baghdad to pay more than 80,000 of Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgents a quarter of a billion dollars a year not to shoot at U.S. forces.

It's not the first time that a foreign army in the Middle East has bought off troublesome Arab sheikhs and their cohorts with cash. The British used gold to sedate tribal enemies from the Khyber Pass to the Nile delta while they extracted billions from their colonies. However, it is the first time in American history that buying off the enemy has been presented to the American people as evidence for progress in a war or good generalship.......