Quote Originally Posted by T. Jefferson View Post
I believe that this type of program has been used successfully in the past as part of COIN efforts. The basic idea is to allow a community to protect itself, not to create a deployable military/police force....
Unfortunately, this type of program has more often been implemented and failed abjectly, with varying degrees of negative impact, from local and short-term to regional-and-national mid-to-long term problems. For a good look at a bad program, you need only look a bit north and review the implemenation and results of Turkey's village guard progam during the height of their war against the PKK in the '90s.

However, with a society in Iraq that is already fragmented beyond simple sectarian down to tribal, clan and family lines, this poses a more serious danger of further rupturing national politics into decentralized local militia rule. (or rather speeding up and entrenching the process; it is already occurring) Like much else that has occurred over the past few years, I smell short-term expediency trumping long-term effectiveness, along with any real hope of achieving sustainable stability. To me, this move smacks of desperation, as our efforts to stand up Iraqi police, military and other security elements still fails to meet the fundamental security needs of the population.