Well, sweetie, I helped ISIS get its start.
My wife called earlier to tell me that she had just heard a segment on NPR that was talking about the origins of ISIS:
Time In A U.S.-Run Detention Center Helped Islamic State Leadership : NPR
Quote:
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Of the 25 members of the Islamic State's military council, 17 were held for months or even years at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. An ISIS leader says discussions there were instrumental to the group.
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A little background: Back in 2003 when the US Army rolled into Iraq, some MPs stopped right after crossing the border and set up a prison camp right outside Umm Qasr. After the war was over (remember that little chestnut?) the main prison operations were moved to Abu Ghraib, but Camp Bucca was kept running and expanded to be used for long term storage of every random bad guy picked up that they didn't need to interrogate, but didn't want running loose.
Due to sloppy invasion planning (We got tanks into Baghdad! Now what?) There was a whole country full of violence but with no front lines. Rear area security is an MP task and there just weren't enough of them. Artillery units move around in dangerous rear areas and there wasn't any need for cannons there, so bunches of artillery units parked their howitzers and went to be MPs for a year. Except the MPs also needed tons of prison guards, so when we weren't doing base or area security or running convoys, we were in the compounds.
We knew most of them hadn't done anything wrong, as such. We'd seen enough times where language and cultural differences mixed with automatic weapons and fear led to misunderstandings, so we didn't bother to judge them: they had their job and we had ours. We didn't stack them naked like the real MPs up north had been doing, but we were still their jailers. We knew that whatever they had been hauled in for, whether or not they had been our enemies before, they sure as hell wouldn't be our friends afterwards. How would you like it if someone invaded your country and decided you needed to go to jail for a while? You can see their position, at the very least.
As it turns out, the whole operation gave bad guys a golden opportunity to recruit and network. At least I get to know that I kept them safe and well fed during their leadership retreat. Our tax dollars hard at work, I guess.