I was a little shocked that we talked the Iraqis into having something labeled Border Patrol, Berm Patrol might have been better.  I suppose we can't help trying to recreate images of ourselves.  And Iraq had Shia administering "Border Patrol" to Sunnis who have never considered the berm a border, at this point what could go wrong?

Recent conversations here at TalkLeft about American military patches, the Iraqi Border Patrol and I will guess military too has "Americanized" patches.  My husband brought home a military uniform from Saddams military, no patch insignia at all.

They Velcro'd the back of their patches too as did we about 18 months into Iraq.  Before my husband left in 2003 his command allowed him to affix Velcro to the back of all his patches and a Velcro bed to his uniforms.  I spent hours doing that, good thing I sew well.  That was specifically allowed though in case he was shotdown or captured, he could ditch all of his military insignia quickly and offer very little information.  It makes moving around in the military easier too, it's just a Velcro patch now when you get reassigned but they are slowly going back to wanting insignia sewn on again.  It was just very strange hearing that the captured men had ripped their patches off when they fled.  Does everybody need that capability in the Sunni Triangle?  Just weird familiarity.

IS fighters in the video are very confident, doesn't seem like they've met much opposition they couldn't handle in Iraq.  As for the prisoners, they are dead.  I don't know where they killed them, but IS has too few fighters it seems to me to look after prisoners, and when that happens people are killed simply to remove their potential in the conflict.  IS is very strategic if nothing else.