"Members of the 11th Armored Cavalry - which plays the “opposing force’’ in the training exercises - traded in their Soviet-style uniforms for tunics and head scarves, stopped shaving, and started studying bomb-making techniques.... one of the last stops for US military brigades headed to Iraq."
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Prop 201 tutorial
And I thought we were LEAVING!?
"Getting ready for the real Iraq; Calif. Army base uses role-playing to train troops" by Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times | September 2, 2009
FORT IRWIN, Calif. - .... For two decades before US-led forces invaded Iraq in 2003, Fort Irwin’s wide-open spaces were used to stage major tank battles, preparing troops for conventional warfare. But in Iraq, US troops found themselves fighting insurgents who struck stealthily, then melted back into the population. And US troops, unfamiliar with local languages and culture, alienated Iraqi communities.
That's odd. I was told by my newspapers it was a liberation and a success.
One of the Army’s solutions was to re-create a 1,000-square-kilometer stretch of Iraq at Fort Irwin. Members of the 11th Armored Cavalry - which plays the “opposing force’’ in the training exercises - traded in their Soviet-style uniforms for tunics and head scarves, stopped shaving, and started studying bomb-making techniques....
At the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, in the vastness of the Mojave Desert, fiction has a way of blurring into reality. When the Muslim call to prayer sounds across the sandy wilderness, villages fill with sights and sounds of distant lands. Robed men congregate in coffee shops. Vendors weave through narrow alleys, hawking fruit, flowers, and cups of sugary tea. And helicopters streak across a pale sky.
This is one of the last stops for US military brigades headed to Iraq. During two weeks of intensive role-playing, they practice dealing with bomb blasts, gunfights, angry demonstrations, corrupt officials, and sectarian rifts. All of them fake.
The soldiers who run the huge Hollywood-style production compare it to a reality TV show or a multimillion-dollar game of laser tag.
Yeah, UNTIL YOU GET THERE, soldier! Then it is ALL TOO REAL!!!!!
And now, for the REALLY DISGUSTING PART!
But for about 250 Iraqi immigrants, hired by the Army to play elected officials, security officers, and traditional leaders, it is something more: a piece of home....
Do I have your permission to puke, readers?
Kalasho.... would have defended Saddam Hussein for protecting Iraq’s minority Christians....
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Yeah, good thing he's gone, pfft!
Btw, he DIDN'T HAVE ANY WMD!
--more--"
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Occupation Iraq: Israeli-Trained Death Squads
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Prop 101: Al-CIA-Duh's Greatest Hits
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Al-CIA-Duh
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FRU
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How much more evidence do you need?
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