David Kilcullen on the split between Al Qaeda in Iraq and Anbar Province’s Sunni tribes
- Posted by Beth on June 17th, 2007 filed in Blogs, General, Iraq, Islamofascism, Support the Troops, The War
Today’s must-read (and listen to the interview). Austin Bay:
Dr. David Kilcullen serves as General David Petraeus’ chief adviser on counter-insurgency warfare. A former Australian infantry officer thoroughly versed in the cultural and historical contexts that that shape people’s perceptions and influence their opinions, Kilcullen assesses the cultural implications of Coalition “words and deeds” (political and military operations). He’s a genuine soldier-scholar.
Kilcullen appears this week on PajamasMedia.com’s “Blog Week In Review” internet program, which I host.
It’s about tribalism, or as I call it, barbarism. Kilcullen:
And what essentially happened was that the Al Qaeda went and made this argument to tribes, the tribes initially supported them, but tribal identity is not the same thing as religious identity. And there are things in Islam that the tribes don’t support and vice versa.
And there came at a time that Al Qaeda fell out with the tribes. And that’s the reason for what we are seeing in Al Anbar and other places in the country. And it boiled down to a conflict over women, as so many of these things do.
Al Qaeda basically went to their tribal allies and said give us your daughter or give us your sister in marriage.
And in tribal adat, in tribal custom, you don’t allow outsiders from outside the tribe to marry you daughter, I mean not on a regular basis. Sometimes tribes exchange wives in marriage for allies. So this is a bit like Renaissance kings, they are a lot like that in lots of ways, but they just don’t willy nilly give their women away to outsiders. Al Qaeda said, no, you know the Koran says that sort of behavior is ignorant and ungodly. So basically, no, you will us your daughters to marry them.
Go read Austin Bay’s post, and listen to the interview. This is the real thing–not some shallow pontifications from pundits or self-serving politicians, and you won’t get anything like this in the drive-by media.
Note: If you like reading this sort of deeper analysis, you can find more from Kilcullen and others at Small Wars Journal.
Lance
Ft. Hard Knox » links for 2007-06-18 says:
[...] David Kilcullen on the split between Al Qaeda in Iraq and Anbar Province’s Sunni tribes It’s about tribalism, or as I call it, barbarism. (tags: Troops, Blogs, War, Iraq, Islamofascism) [...]