Stiffed for their pay
The U.S. military last year helped organize 80,000 "concerned local citizen" in Iraq's Diyala Province and elsewhere into "Awakening Councils" with the purpose of fighting off extreme Islamists. The U.S. had eager takers because the so-called "al-Qaida" extremists terrorized, brutalized, and murdered many who resisted their program. This more or less worked to drive out these monsters. But the U.S. also had promised pay, $10 per day.
In this video on "surge collapse" produced by Channel 4 & The Guardian (UK), it emerges that the U.S. is reneging on that promise:
Investigation carried out by GuardianFilms for Channel 4, uncovers how thousands of Iraqis employed at $10 a day by the US to take on al-Qaida are threatening to go on strike because they say they have been used by the 'Americans to do their dirty work' and haven't been paid
I'd say great, enlist 'em to clean out extremists willing to use brutal methods. But pay them! And give their country back to them. [h/t Juan Cole]
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