I was in Iraq when this OP was first made, in 2007.
Umm.... Neither side had a legitimate Marquis movement, save some very rare Iraqi Army era holdouts. The idea they were fighting for liberty or against a occupation isn't true. Am I biased in saying this? I honestly wish I was. I'm not, I went to Iraq with a general background understanding of Marxist and Anarchist concepts (wasn't either, just a generic somewhat intellectual occasional reading of them). I didn't see any of that. We're guys proudly patriotic? No. They did a fantastic job hiding it at least, we hardly would of discouraged that. We would if stuck a Iraqi flag in their hands and set them up as a village police chief somewhere, stuck some money in their pockets with a single caveat..... keep this place clean and quiet till we pull out of Iraq, and we will never bother you save for a half hour check up ever now and again. You know what.... a handful of villages figured this out. Most didn't. This is the Iskandariya area, either side of the river.
What were they fighting over? Shiites were fighting for Clerics, or Iran, but usually just boredom. I'm not exaggerating on the boredom. We have in the US two groups, The Elks and The Moose. They are geriatric farms posing as masonic lodges. People join up because they are bored. The initiation and association is exciting to them. You get to be someone, and belong. I think most of the Shia Madhi Militia guys joined for this reason, plus it made them look cool to the girls. You could move up fast in the organization if everyone above you were captured or killed. Sometimes I wonder the reasons as to who was tipping us off. After a while, it just becomes a focus on nabbing the top guys, ignoring the bottom guys. They then become the top guys. We're these the same guys associating with the weapons smuggling of AK-47s from Iran? Sometimes I'm sure. I don't know how much I would trust them if I was a smuggler. Did they shoot off missles at bases? I believe so, as their aim was horrible, and usually malfunctioned. Hot and disappointing. That's the Shia Militias, how I will remember them. No amazing hidden story here. They undoubtedly had secrets, we undoubtedly will be unimpressed someday when we finally do fine out.
The Sunni, for the most part equally lame. I remember one sniper team surviving from the Saddam era pretty elite, Jurf as Sukhar. Can't really point to anyone in particular. People from both sides pissed off the Iraqi Police and Iraqi Army. They were very nasty, immature police forces, did some third world stuff to detainees we wouldn't tolerate, but there was a theory they were soverign, and had their ways common to the middle East. I hated this, others accepted it. Mixed opinion. We still haven't resolved this outlook, a SF Sargent in Afghanistan is getting booted for confronting a child rapist police officer.
I never heard of anyone ever getting raped. I never seen anyone get married to a Iraqi, but saw it on TV. How that happens, I don't know. Honestly, I'm scratching my head on that, they certainly were not stationed where I was.
Midway through my tour, the Sunni tribes suddenly allied with us, started attacking the Madhi Militia openly, and wore my yellow reflective PT belt. Someone said something nice to them, as they got very friendly. Until ISIS, and turned into cannibalistic turds.
I can't point to any Marquis save the Kurds. They were the ideologues, the freedom fighters. I've been looking at sites across Iraqi Kurdistan, after Turkey (by Turkey I mean Erdogan) calms down, I want to someday fly to Constantinople, take the Diyabakir bus down to Kurdistan and visit their archeological ruins. They are great people, and seeing how they treat Americans in Kurdish Syria, and how they built up the Kurdish North, makes them feel kindred in a sense. They had a tough situation, and sought to do the right thing. The non Kurdish Sunni Arabs are Hanafi too, but were obsessed with fighting their long time Shiite neighbors. Kurds don't tolerate that kind of thinking.
There was remarkably little interaction between the YS and the Iraqis during this original OP, I think.... one month before the surge? You want to know what the fight was in the triangle of death? Most of the US casualties at FOB Kalsu came from a idiot colonel who didn't station his 120 mortars at his main base, but left them as Iskon. The mortars the Iraqis had were 120s, only time I've heard of them having a superiority of arms over us, and it was from pure incompetency on our colonels part. Most guys died in mortar attacks at night there. My base nearby, quiet. Why? We had too many Motorists, so many they were left doing guard, and all but one from my company were declared insane for not being sent to the main base to help out. Our deaths at our base came from electrocution and drowning, one was friendly fire on a night with no loom.
Too many of the missions were us giving soccer balls to kids. We pointed out no dolls, and we got dolls. I gave a personal toy to a kid who looked sad, a dancing monkey slapping drums singing "I'm in the mood for love, simply because your near me". He was the only kid who seemed contemplative, not jumping over rubble and dead donkies left in the street in puddles. Like I said, some villages cleaned up, some didn't.
As to racism, it existed, but was pretty mild. We were right on a Shia-Sunni faultline. We were absolutely astounded by the rate of birth defects in the country, as well as midgets. There was even a midget snipper. Most racist thing I recall was a large Swedish guy the CSM would send to chase down to hunt any midget he saw while walking in force. He would run and leap on them, well over six feet, full battle rattle. None of the midgets ever checked out. There was a endless supply of them. The way they dealt with retarded children disgusted us too. Chaining a foot and opposite hand around a tree, or chaining them to a fridge, and encouraging a firefight with their own offspring in the middle! Gut wrenching, sick and disgusting. Preceding to let their wives or daughters die instead of getting treatment. Discovering despite Islamic prohibitions, so many men were openly gay, in a era of military don't ask, don't tell. Everyone drank and smoked foul liqour, rarely prayed. The call of prayers were largely electronic. Forces would literally go out of their way to avoid us in fights so they could engadge their fellow countrymen, muslims.... In combat.
So yeah, it got on us after a while. But I don't think it's got much worst verbally than "Sand Nigger" and giggling like South Park or Beavis and Butthead.
Our detainment center, I can attest to, was 99.9 percent uneventful. Water, blanket, porkless MREs until we got their special Halah and Kosher meals in. Confusion if Kosher was Halah too or not, guys scratching one another's heads on that. We largely avoided giving them Kosher just in case. Some of the detainees brought in didn't appear legit.... it was a 48 hour max holding area to confirm or reject guys for further processing, they could be given over to the Iraqis or set loose.
Actually, yeah.... one nasty racist thing. I remember some school teacher was brought into the detainment center, because his cousin was the Militia leader of somethinf, can't remember the faction. He spent the night sobbing. I tried giving him extra food and water, reassuring him. Some of the guts were indifferent dropping him off, saying Iraqis were family and clanned based. It really made me angry as he couldn't be held responsible for his family, and was clearly educated like we were, and needlessly scared shitless. I asked one of the Lebanese translators to do something, talk to the Lt. Colonel. I gave up my nice dress shoes to the guy I was planning on wearing at the airport on leave. I wanted him to have decent walking shoes for the return back.
What else? They were paying the American equivalent of white trailer trash to place and trigger bombs under their direction, signalling them from a distance. Half US dollars, Half Iraqi. We arrested a bunch of guys who had the IQ of a popato as a result. The Shia if I recall were the ones paying for this.
Al Jazeera played commercials of some old guy looking meek, and then whipping out a AK-47 from under a cloak, shooting in triumph. Then would play a Pittsburgh Penguins hockey match. That country had no ice, and they were watching hockey, from my area.
We debated the chemical weapons issue alot, our base was ground zero for that. Half the junk yard at our langing pad on FOB Iskan, even in the internet pictures, show junk like boilers that could of been used as chemical weapons manufacturing. It's one of the things that stumped me. It was WW1 tech, very simple, industrial chemical. Any sight could have it, yet no site in the six weeks they were there qualified. I guess no obvious, assembled sight. Our base was built around a powerplant, and two of the four powerplant power generators powered Saddam's old WMD plant. They found the plans for building a nuke in a nuclear scientist apartment in Iskandariya prior to my unit even showing up, and there was old Iraqi ordance just along side the roads in our area.... heck, in our base. You have no idea how much was left everywhere. No way they searched effectively, and in the end, no reason we cared. It was 2007, most of the guys joined after the WMD fallout in this era. We all had plenty of reason to be there, but it differed from person to person. Usually WMD wasn't it. I'm absolutely certain though some kid will sooner or later build a play fort on a dirt mound that a occasional dead dig skeleton sits around, dig into it with a plastic shovel and will kick it. The sight literally was the size of Delaware, if they were even buried there.
I came back with a Shiite pray rug. I can identify the Ka'ab, and two sites I dunno. Shrines, Karbala or something?
Oh yeah.... Sunni insurgency.... was trained exclusively in Syria. Nobody ever updated their routes, so they repeated fell for years for the same mass ambushes. Local Sunnis weren't exactly aiding these Syrian trained troops, if they did, they would if told them to change their routes and final locations. If you've seen Groundhog's Day, the Bill Murray movie, you get my drift. It was that obvious to predict at times. Nobody liked the Syrian trained guys, they rods around in full formations, died proudly like fools. Alot like ISIS now, how they move, but their up against a less experienced force. A handful of Americans with basic weapons could rip them to shreds. Now, 10 to 1 Odds on the defense, and the Iraqi Army gets spooked by simple bulldozed blitzkrieg. It's very pathetic. I was hoping those kids I saw growing up had seen the end of war. A entire generation has grown up knowing nothing but it, because of succession issues of early caliphs from a empire long since dead over a thousand years ago. Absolutely absurd.
It wasn't a war against American Occupation, but a shaking off of American interference in their mutual butchering.
Feel free to ask me anything, within reason. War is over, but I won't give away anything I view actually secret or sensitive. Basic stuff like this I can tell you. I Love the Kurds. Best people in the world outside of Americans. I wish we can do a population swap of them with Mexico, much rather them as neighbors. Would never have issues.