Claims

This is a really fascinating account of newly surfaced paperwork about Iraqi civilians' claims against the US military and how those claims were handled. For example, "in 2005, an American soldier in a dangerous Sunni Arab area south of Baghdad killed a boy after mistaking his book bag for a bomb satchel. The Army paid the boy’s uncle $500." A total of $32 million has been paid out to Iraqi and Afghan civilians, though the process for determining who gets what seems highly arbitrary. And, of course, getting $500 because some foreigners decided to shoot and kill your nephew for the crime of carrying a book bag seems about as likely to prompt you to give money to the insurgency as it is to convince you that the Americans are your friends.