Al-Qaeda in Iraq: a true story

One of my co-workers, M, used to be a captain in the Iraqi Army. He had enlisted as a young man, gone to officers' school, received highly specialized training and served loyally for more than 20 years (well, he tried to run away once -- he made it as far as Fort Bragg, N.C. -- but that's tangential to this particular story). He was commanding several hundred guys when the Americans invaded in 2003. M was thrilled -- he hated Saddam, as did most of the officers he worked with.

Then Paul Bremer announced the entire Iraqi Army was being disbanded for fears they would be loyal to Saddam. Two million soldiers and officers, most of whom were eager to fight against any Baath party loyalists and patrol the borders, suddenly found themselves out of a job. There was no chance to audition to get their jobs back; if they had served under Saddam, they could never serve again.

Since then, M has received several offers from al-Qaeda in Iraq (which may or may not be connected to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, depending on who you listen to) to help train their fighters. Most recently, an old Army buddy proposed that he devote two hours a day to train insurgents how to fire mortars and RPGs in exchange for $500 a day. That's more than $180,000 a year. AQI has nearly unlimited financial resources, they know where to find the best people and they're willing to do what it takes to get those people on board. M said no; he had a good job already, and though it doesn't pay nearly that well he is making enough to feed his family. But dozens, maybe hundreds, of the guys he worked with in the Army took AQI up on the offer. Good jobs are very difficult to find in war-torn Iraq, and for many men the opportunity to make that kind of money was irresistible.

I say this because I believe that portraying this war as a purely ideological conflict (freedom vs. terrorism, democracy vs. tyranny, secularism vs. fundamentalism, etc.) is overly simplistic and historically inaccurate. I initially found M's story totally incredible, until I realized how common it is. I would wager that most of al-Qaeda in Iraq's members are people like M -- people whose steady wages from the Army were abruptly withdrawn in 2003 and who needed to replace them. Their old Army buddies came around presenting a new opportunity, and without even questioning the political or ideological platform they jumped at the chance. This is not to say that al-Qaeda's leaders do not have a fundamentalist ideology (driving out the U.S. military, establishing a caliphate, fighting Israel, etc.), but it's naive to think belief in that ideology is the only reason people join.