Death Squads

The Washington Post today reports that 22 men have been arrested and are being investigated as members of an Iraqi police death squad that is targeting Sunni Arabs. Sunni officials estimate that 1,600 people have been killed since Iraq was invaded with the incidence of violence increasing since the middle of last year.

We have always said that men in police and Interior Ministry commando uniforms use Interior Ministry vehicles, raid our houses and arrest our sons," said Adnan Dulaimi, a leader in a coalition of Sunni parties. "After a short time, we find some of them tortured or killed and thrown either on a sidewalk or in the river. We have warned all the officials and the American forces, but they did not respond to our calls until the American forces found this group.

The Bush Administration treats the Iraq Sunni insurgency as made up of terrorists, who in the President’s often repeated phrase ‘hate our freedoms.” It apparently is a bit more complicated if the above story is true. The Sunnis obviously do not like losing power in the new Iraq and may not be enthusiastically looking forward to their weakened status. But if they are being tortured and murdered by the existing Shiite leadership, they may be fighting back in the only way they can.

What this demonstrates again is the failure of the Administration to understand what motivates our enemy, which makes the perilous situation we are involved in, even more difficult to resolve. I have to believe there are some people in the Administration who are capable of a sophisticated understanding of what motivates people in the Middle East. But why isn’t that complexity communicated to the American People? It denotes either an Administration ignorant of the facts or a cynical disdain that telling the truth is unnecessary. The Republican base rarely criticizes Bush and the opposition lets the simplification remain unchallenged. And we continue with the same meaningless words and incomplete strategies that don’t address the real problem.