Peculiarities of the Iraqi Jihad

It seems that the strategy of contemporary wars has seriously changed as soldiers of a defeated army demand wages from the winner
Attention of the whole of the world is still focused on the events in Iraq, although the country draws already less interest when the war is over. From time to time, information revealing crimes of the previous regime is published here or there. Iraqi Shi'ites still organize protest actions, that are highly likely instigated by the neighbor, Iran. But some things happening in Iraq are actually very absurd.
Yesterday Iraqi soldiers came out in front of the presidential palace in Baghdad. "The homeland defenders" went into the street with the only objective to demand their wages from Americans.

There is a good old saying by Napoleon that if a nation that doesn't want to support its army it will have to support an alien one. This is the gospel truth, and its correctness is beyond any doubt. The situation in the Iraqi army is very particular, that is why the saying of Napoleon requires some amendments in this case. It seems that the strategy of contemporary wars has seriously changed as soldiers of a defeated army demand wages from the winner. In fact, the soldiers are not prisoners of war and ask that payments must be done not in dinars, but in dollars.

France Presse reports that participants of the protest action, 300 in number, even voiced their threats in the address of Americans. "They understand only the language of force. We cannot wait for long until we are paid. We are ready to deliver a response attack." The soldiers also criticized Saddam. They said, if Saddam had treated the army as good as the guards, Americans would have never crossed the Iraqi border. Iraqi soldiers still have weapons and they threaten they may use them. 

Indeed, it sounds astonishing. Now it turns out that if Saddam paid dollars to his soldiers, he would have avoided such an inglorious defeat. They say, if the wages were higher, the more courageous the soldiers would be. Such are peculiarities of the local mentality.

The Iraqi army consisted of 400,000 soldiers; it's quite a big sum to pay monthly wages to all of them. Will America pay former soldiers of Saddam Hussein? This has become just another problem for the occupation administration in Iraq. On the other hand, it could have been foreseen that governing the liberated Iraqis would be a hard task.