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Here's a very interesting story from inside "The Awakening," our government-sponsored work program in Iraq that has been bribing former Sunni insurgents to be our friends:

Mr Ahmed and his buddies work for about $230 a month guarding one of several dozen checkpoints in his hometown. Fluorescent yellow sashes identify them as SOIs -- 'Sons of Iraq' -- the name given by the US military to the largely Sunni militia they created to help drive out al Qa'eda.

There are more than 90,000 SOIs -- a force of untrained, armed, minimally employed young men which the United States cannot disband and the Iraqi government is reluctant to embrace.

The movement started as the Sahwa -- the Awakening -- in al Anbar, in western Iraq, when tribal leaders facing increased challenges from al Qa'eda two years ago turned against the people they had been harboring.

As US and Iraqi troops surged in and around Baghdad last year, other Sunni leaders threatened by extremists realized that aligning themselves with coalition forces could give them back some of the power they had lost.

Some military strategists believe US forces could not have stabilised Iraq without the help of tens of thousands of Sunnis unexpectedly turning against al Qa'eda.

...through the bribes we've been paying them, for sure...

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