Interesting read, MR2. That brings back some things I found peculiar when my team was at COP Nimr in Sinjar. The Peshmerga general was always inviting us, with great enthusiasm, to conduct joint patrols with them in the area. Looking at the map, the towns they wanted to patrol were all very much Arab or Yazidi.
My first thought was "Those not-so-clever little f*ckers want to put an American face or backing on their attempt to dominate/control those villages. The response was always, "Thanks, but no thanks. Maybe next time."
The mayor of Sinjar, a slimy prick named Sarbast (sp) was always trying to collect on us. We were scheduled to meet with him on one occasion and he had one of our terps (who we found out was being blackmailed or threatened) to convince us to show up a couple hours earlier. The reason for that was he had staged a rather elaborate propaganda ceremony where the 12 of us would be sitting up on a stage in front of many video cameras. Mind you, we weren't too keen on this.
When we arrived at the agreed time, they were just removing the 12 chairs from said stage and taking down all the recording equipment. Once inside his office, he had us sit down and then a film crew, along with some shady looking suits came walking in and prepared to record the whole event. I responded with, "Oh, cool. We're all recording this." And proceeded to pull out my mini video camera and turned it on. At that point, the film crew and shady suits made a rather hasty exit.
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"It is a brave act of valor to condemn death, but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valor to dare to live." -Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)
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