In light of the recent most deadly suicide bombing in Iraq, I have to wonder why there aren't more pro-Iraq vigilantes. Maybe there are private vigilante groups that hunt down terrorists, but if so I haven't heard of them. Remember when that rebel shi'ite cleric al-Sadr was running amok? There were several groups of Iraqis who self-organized to help bring him down. If suicide bombings were a daily threat in America, I'd like to think that civilians would be eager to band together to take out the murderers, if the government proved unable to. I'm sure I don't have a full understanding of the situation on the ground in Iraq, but it takes significant infrastructure to pull off these bombings, so there must be plenty of people who know the whos and wheres.
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Those guys are out there but they're a separate danger. The definition of a state, at least as old as 1648 , is that it has a monopoly on violence. All non-state violent organizations, whether pro or contra the current government have to be eliminated.
TML: In an ideal situation, sure, but Iraq is hardly ideal yet.
Militia-type groups have been operating since the invasion. Many of them have been disbanded for the reasons that TM Lutas notes, but there is another wave cropping up and many seem to think that at least some of them should be allowed to operate. I agree with that idea, though I know it isn't risk-free.
I wrote about it most recently at http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/002024.html