Sons of Iraq

The CLCs--Concerned Local Citizens--are no longer. Just a
week ago, people could keep the acronym off their lips.
Everything revolved around the CLCs--using them to continue to build on the
improved security in much of Iraq; getting them to work with the police;
getting some of them on the police force; making sure they weren't
bringing heavy weapons to their checkpoint sites; synching up
their goals to that of the government of Iraq. But now, no one is
mentioning the CLCs. With the amazing speed of an acronym-
happy military, I've found out that the new, hot-off-the-presses
Iraqi-approved term is "Sons of Iraq." SOI for short. Seems that
"Concerned Local Citizen" didn't translate into Arabic so well, and
the Iraqis didn't like it. So now, when you mention armed groups
of civilians manning checkpoints and doing the work that the Iraqi
Police and Army either will not or can not do, be sure to call them the
"Sons of Iraq."