Cheat Seeking Missiles: Saudi Funds Sunni Insurgency

Another day in Iraq, another bunch of monsters killed by our troops, another allegation against our troops vetted by AP:

Grieving relatives near Ishaqi, 90 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, showed the bodies of five children wrapped in blankets to journalists.

Houses, surrounded by open fields, were flattened in the raid and police said they found the bodies of 17 civilians. ...
Only a handful of complaints involving civilian deaths have led to criminal investigations by the U.S. military.

Of course, our officers planned the raid based on intelligence, not malice, very unlike the people who lived in those houses, who were driven by Islam-fired malice only, planning indiscriminate raids on us and on Shi'ites. Our intelligence was good; this raid was no mistake: Rocket launchers and suicide vests were found in the rubble. AP got around to reporting that in paragraph 11.

It was a fine raid, despite the fact that children died. They may have been innocent, but their parents weren't. Let the murderers know that if they continue their efforts to destabilize Iraq by killing other Muslims in suicide attacks, their own children and wives and sisters will die because of their hatred. I don't care if they hate us more as a result; they will also fear us more.

Meanwhile, we're seeing more and more evidence that weapons like the ones found in the rubble of this attack were purchased with money coming from Saudi Arabia:

Saudi citizens are giving millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq and much of the money is used to buy weapons, including shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles, according to key Iraqi officials and others familiar with the flow of cash.
Saudi government officials deny that any money from their country is being sent to Iraqis fighting the government and the U.S.-led coalition. ...
Several truck drivers interviewed by The Associated Press described carrying boxes of cash from Saudi Arabia into Iraq, money they said was headed for insurgents. ...
Saudi Arabia is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. The Iraq Study Group report noted that its government has assisted the U.S. military with intelligence on Iraq.

But Saudi citizens have close tribal ties with Sunni Arabs in Iraq, and sympathize with their brethren in what they see as a fight for political control — and survival — with Iraq's Shiites. (source)

The Iraq study group said as much in its report . James Baker's ties to the Saudi government probably weren't strained in the least by that. The report places the source of the money not on Saudi officialdom, but on zaqat, private donations.

But it's a thin line. This is a proxy war, with the Saudis, the Iranians, the Syrians and all sorts of others involved. It is, by their behavior, not a war on terror, but a war on Islamism. That may frighten the feint-hearted away from the fight, so let's not leave the fighting or the policy-making to the feint-hearted.