How to Finance an Insurgency

A local Democratic volunteer called the other day to vent about George W. Bush. While we were talking about Iraq he came up with a thought provoking statement. He asked me if I'd heard if the State Department was going to pay the $25 million reward that Bush had placed on Zarqwari's head. Since he was turned in, supposedly, by fellow Sunnis, this policy could be manipulated by a smart insurgent leader to finance their resistance to the American occupation.

Imagine this scenario: you're the real leader of the insurgency in Iraq. The U.S. keeps putting a multi-million dollar reward on the head of your organization. Therefore you appoint a suicide bomber to be the designated "leader" and he is taken out by a 500 pound bomb. Maybe you made sure American forces knew where'd he be...

Then you collect a nice bundle of greenbacks to finance your military effort and designate another jihadist as the next leader to be sacrificed. Nice little method of getting your enemy to finance your insurgency against them isn't it?

Why would we think these people are so stupid as not to have thought of this? Zarqwari was probably becoming more of a burden to the insurgents than an asset. His brutal methods and cutthroat (literally) techniques turned many Muslims against Al Qaeda in Iraq. So what to do? Turn him in, collect the 25 mill and put someone else forward.