More from Iraq on draining the swamp

Iraq being the country. The general swamp area being the insurgency. The swamp water being motivation for the insurgency.

An NPR story further detailing US efforts to provide job training to Iraqi's who are released from prison.

I know I've commented before on this, but it really is an awesome idea. Targeting those that are, by the fact they are in prison, the most vulnerable in the population to joining the insurgency. Providing them with some tangible benefit that isn't putting them in the category of Concerned Local Citizen, giving them a gun and paying them.

This could be the other side of a dilemma I have pointed out before. Security is needed for economic development. But economic is needed for security. The insurgency seems to be more about economics then ideology, placing it firmly into the 'opportunity' camp of civil conflict. This means security for oil and gasoline facilities must be tightened and development projects must be accelerated. Now that death squads are not running around and murdering everyone not their sect (for whatever reason, the surge or ethnic cleansing, take your pick) the real reasons behind the insurgency can be tackled. Obviously ethnic cleansing was a terrible thing that will have ramifications much further into the future. But that's another issue for another time.

So the Sahwa movements being a subsidized job corps/security apparatus provide one solution, and the individuals being released from prison act as another reinforcing the first. If the ex-prisoners (no fancy name for them) create businesses that then can employ Sahwa members it will somewhat solve, or at least decrease, the problem of not having anything to do except sit around with an AK-47 and man check points if they do not get absorbed into the ISF.