So American soldiers are now policemen on Iraqi streets handing out money

[Bandit]

to all comers if they promise not to fight. Soldiers walking around with backpacks filled with tax payer money and just handing it out to those that just last year were considered enemies. Paying them Money which they can use to buy more armament with. Unaccountable money just being thrown around willy nilly. No wonder we are spending over four hundred million dollars a day on Iraq.

[Buzz Clik]

1. I wish our local cops handed out bags of money.

:party: :toast: :think: :wow:

[TheCowsCameHome]

7. Instead of the opposite................

[Stuart G]

2. It is like some kind of weired dream, (nt)

[BlueJac]

3. BushWorld

[Breeze54]

4. Do you have a link to that story?

:shrug:

[Winterblues]

9. I don't know if the poster has a link or not but I saw on the Daily Show last night

A corespondent from US News told about his time there and his time with US Soldiers that did just that. Wearing backpacks filled with money...

[Breeze54]

10. 'U.S. troops distribute microgrants to help Iraqis rebuild their businesses'

Money Day in Baghdad

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/iraq/2008/02/19/money-day-in-baghdad-.html

U.S. troops distribute microgrants to help Iraqis rebuild their businesses
By Alex Kingsbury
Posted February 19, 2008

BAGHDAD—

Around 10 a.m. on a Friday morning, a small group of American soldiers driving armored humvees
pulled into Joint Security Station Casino in the Ghazaliya. Capt. Garrett Hooper and his team
were understandably mum about their mission—slung over Hooper's left shoulder was an ordinary
looking backpack with more than $110,000 in neatly bound packets of greenbacks.

With equal innocuousness, local merchants began lining up outside Casino—at the back gate—having
received a phone call in recent days setting up the appointment. Months ago, they had each completed an application for a microgrant of up to $2,500, funds that were now being distributed. The recipients were interviewed and had their fingerprints and eyes digitally scanned and entered into a database. Then they signed on the line and accepted a packet of bills.

In the past, soldiers distributing the money would arrive at the various small butcher shops, vegetable stands, and pharmacies in the local markets. They drew lots of attention—even attracting large groups of children who would follow the soldiers from shop to shop. The next day, invariably, those who had received the money complained that local toughs had robbed them or, worse, threatened them for "collaboration with the army of occupation."

Military officials hope that having grant recipients come to the combat outpost will reduce those tensions, though word spread quickly that Monday was payday, and grant recipients were concerned about walking home with a packet of hundred-dollar bills tucked in their tunics. "I will, God willing, make it home OK and hide the money until I can use it," said Saab, a Sunni auto mechanic who said he'd use the funds to reopen his repair shop. He worked with his sons and said the money would be used for salaries and parts.

The Americans hope so.

Video at Link of the Iraqi's signing the 'papers' or agreements for the micro-grants

More....

[Jim__]

5. Surreal

"Well, you see Willard... In this war, things get confused
out there, power, ideals, the old morality, and practical
military necessity. Out there with these natives it must be
a temptation to be god. Because there's a conflict in
every human heart between the rational and the irrational,
between good and evil. The good does not always triumph.
Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called
the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a
breaking point. You and I have. Walter Kurtz has reached his.
And very obviously, he has gone insane." - from Apocalypse Now.

[BadgerLaw2010]

6. Tried and true method for dealing with warring factions in the Middle East.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. Basically. I read that it's about $300 a month to each 'insurgent'.

[Solly Mack]

11. ...

the US was paying people in Iraq back in 2003...and they set up pay-lines or the CO paid the city (tribal) leader..and the tribal leader dispersed it...or not.

and though never promoted as please don't attack us money (at the time)...that's pretty much what it was