Hey folks, just keeping it real in the field--out in Baghdad, Iraq, where in the mornings now it's actually pleasant and in the afternoons it's about as hot as it is at home on a hot summer day. In short, It has gotten pretty livable here.
I have been doing a little more reading this week--not reading the report from GEN Petraeus so much as reading some analysis done prior to the delivery of his report. I read another short paper from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (www.csis.org) regarding the effort over here. The title sums up the writer's thesis:
"America's Last Chance in Iraq: Changing US Strategy to Meet Iraq's Real Needs"
It is yet another short, fascinating analysis of the war done by CSIS. The first sentence should be read by every news anchor in the "Liberal News Media" before each story on the war: "America has no good options in Iraq, and the odds of any form of enduring success are even at best." The author, Anthony Cordesman, goes on to add what I think is the seminal point that the conservatives AND the liberals are really missing: that we have a moral obligation to take responsibility for what has happened here. Those who say that the "surge is working" and those who want immediate withdrawal are both failing to acknowledge that this is no longer an experiment in democracy, no political science class practical-exercise. There has been a huge amount of carnage and destruction here on the human side that we as a nation are morally accountable for. I never voted for The Decider, but enough people did that we now have this train wreck on our hands. We all have to come together to solve it.
As a logistician over here, I can tell you he is right on point when he enumerates the challenges of withdrawal. He also points out that we do not control the battlefield--in other words, there may be a time where we are forced out at a time not of our own choosing. In my opinion, when we decide to leave, the items that require the most effort to evacuate out of here are what the Army calls "major-end items;" i.e., trucks, tanks, MRAPs, weapons systems, etc. They obviously need to be some of the last things to leave with any unit that rolls out of here. If we take most of the usable major end items, demilitarize or destroy the ones that we don't want, and sell the remainder to the central government we should be pretty happy. They facilities here are no great shakes, but we need to stop using temporary solutions for them and start building lasting infrastructure that can be turned over to the Iraqis. Our failure to address the needs of the people has so embittered segments of the population towards us that some of this stuff might get destroyed anyway. I've said before that some of the mistakes here just can't be undone. Mr. Cordesman writes that the ideological nightmare of half-formed plans and the incompetence of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in the beginning are two of the crucial early issues that have shaped the present situation.
Another interesting point Cordesman brings up is the situation in the southeastern part of the country. There was no surge there. The surge was mainly in Baghdad, Anbar, and Diyala. The British were the primary force down south until recently; now the Shi'ite militias are in control. 30% of the country's population and 80% of the oil exports are down there. The oil constitutes 90-95% of the entire government revenues, and this asset is in the hands of rival Shi'ite factions. Question: What do you think they are doing with the money? Hmm. Another interesting fact is that numerous factions are being supported by Iran, presumably because they are hedging their bets on who will come out on top. Furthermore, Iran is just as confused as we are about the alliances and loyalties of these groups. They are not controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr, or the government of al-Maliki, or the Iranians for that matter. A lot of the factions are criminal enterprises.
I'm getting worn down by all this. It's like reading bad news every damn day. Is there room for optimism? Always. But realism needs to take hold in Washington, and I think that the question of how well the Iraqis can take over for us is summed up pretty well in Cordesman's report. The Iraqi Army is showing great promise, but we can't push too much onto them too soon or they'll cave. The regional police will end up being sectarian in composition in most places. And the national police "cannot be healed or reformed. They are a symbol of sectarian cleansing and Shi'ite abuse of Sunnis." Not a pretty picture. These NP's are infiltrated by the Shi'ite militias and just are useless.
I was going to post some pics, but the internet here has royally sucked for about three weeks, and stuff downloads and uploads so slowly that I don't have the patience. I have attempted to upload a picture for 20 solid minutes and...nothing. I'll try again next time.
OUT
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Long week
Hello,
This has been a long week. Ramadan is in full swing, and the natives have decided they're going to get a little restless at night. It's not as dangerous as it is annoying. So, during the day they can't eat, drink or smoke at all. After sunset they eat. I guess after they get a full tummy they decide to go out and make some mischief. It will be nice when it's all over.
It's also been a long week because I spent all of last week giving a technical review to a bunch of proposals. Some of that was some dense reading. And at night, after I was done, I had to come in to the office and catch up on stuff I couldn't do during the day. This week has been like two weeks packed into one. And while it is cooling off at home, we are still having daytime highs hovering around 110 degrees. I know I've said this before, but I don't know how the Iraqis can stand it. They get power for a few hours a day if that, and have to sleep in the humid, hot night air. It's cool at night now (at least it feels cool; it could be 85 degrees for all I know) so it's not as bad as July and August, but still. At least when Saddam was in power they had that much.
Speaking of Saddam, I am finishing up a book called, The Generals War, by Bernard Trainor. It's amazing to read it now since it was published in 1995. There are names in there from the Bush Administration (Failure #2) like Powell and Cheney, but also people like Paul Wolfowitz and Zalmay Khalilzad. I just got through the last chapter and I'm reading into the Epilogue, and I'm serious, it's hard to read the last two chapters. Trainor didn't have a Magic 8-Ball, but he ties a lot of the "problems" we faced through the '90's with Saddam to the indecisive conclusion of the war. Reading that book, you really get a whole different sense of what happened during the war than one got reading the papers or watching the news at that time. Then, you knew the Air Force had done a lot of damage, but you got the idea that the Army had been fighting tooth and nail to get up into Iraq near Basra. It was actually the Marines who did most of the ground fighting. Furthermore, because Schwarzkopf was such a rigid thinker he didn't pick up clues along the way that should have told him the enemy wasn't going to stand and fight. That assumption guided his entire approach to the ground piece of the war. His objective was to destroy the Republican Guard. He never achieved it. He stopped the war--or allowed it to be stopped--before that happened, and it allowed Saddam to recover a lot of his fighting capability. That enabled him to hold on to power. We also stirred up the Shiites in southern Iraq, and they thought we'd come help them rise up. Problem was, when Bush was saying that he hoped the Iraqi people would rise up and topple Saddam, he really meant that he wanted to see someone in the military topple him; he didn't want the Shia to do it. So there was never any thought given to helping them as they got crushed by the units that streamed out of Kuwait and were reconstituted. By the way, 12 years later, these were the same Shia that Vice President Cheney said "would welcome us as liberators." He must have hoped they had one hell of a short memory.
Schwarzkopf comes out in the book as an interesting individual. He seemed to lose his spine when he had to confront Powell at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Another thing that probably had negative effects at the end of the First Gulf War, and DEFINITELY had negative effects in the second one, was the military's absolute insistence that they were the ones who decided when they would leave the battlefield. This is what I mean: CENTCOM, commanded by Schwarzkopf, had every intention of getting the soldiers out of the Middle East as quickly as possible. That makes you incapable of really asserting yourself after the cease-fire. If things go wrong, you're already shipping personnel and equipment home, and the military had no intention of sticking around to enforce the peace. This group of officers were of the Vietnam-generation officer corps, and felt that the civilian leadership had abused them. They weren't going to allow it again. Well, because of the itch to get outta Dodge, Saddam stayed in power and we invaded 12 years later. And, oh by the way, when we invaded this time, again, the military had no plan to stick around to enforce the peace. The "Generation V" officers, after being subjected to a war they felt the civilians had lost for them, AND a decade (the 1990's) of peace keeping missions, felt a revulsion towards anything not directly related to the prosecution of war. The whole "we don't do peace-keeping" attitude ended up blowing up in their faces. If they did a little more peace-keeping they would have had to do a lot less war making.
And look where we are now. We have The Decider, a man utterly devoid of ideas and credibility, shooting off his mouth about a newspaper ad from MoveOn.org. I guess running off at the mouth about something like that keeps him from having to come up with a solution for the way out of this war. And again, going back to the book, when I see names in there like Wolfowitz and others it just makes my skin crawl. You know, we're still here and clowns like that are long, long gone. The Decider will transition from a completely broken president to a completely broken ex-president in about 16 months.
Anyway, I highly recommend the book. I'll blog some more shortly, and I promise I'll have some good pictures.
This has been a long week. Ramadan is in full swing, and the natives have decided they're going to get a little restless at night. It's not as dangerous as it is annoying. So, during the day they can't eat, drink or smoke at all. After sunset they eat. I guess after they get a full tummy they decide to go out and make some mischief. It will be nice when it's all over.
It's also been a long week because I spent all of last week giving a technical review to a bunch of proposals. Some of that was some dense reading. And at night, after I was done, I had to come in to the office and catch up on stuff I couldn't do during the day. This week has been like two weeks packed into one. And while it is cooling off at home, we are still having daytime highs hovering around 110 degrees. I know I've said this before, but I don't know how the Iraqis can stand it. They get power for a few hours a day if that, and have to sleep in the humid, hot night air. It's cool at night now (at least it feels cool; it could be 85 degrees for all I know) so it's not as bad as July and August, but still. At least when Saddam was in power they had that much.
Speaking of Saddam, I am finishing up a book called, The Generals War, by Bernard Trainor. It's amazing to read it now since it was published in 1995. There are names in there from the Bush Administration (Failure #2) like Powell and Cheney, but also people like Paul Wolfowitz and Zalmay Khalilzad. I just got through the last chapter and I'm reading into the Epilogue, and I'm serious, it's hard to read the last two chapters. Trainor didn't have a Magic 8-Ball, but he ties a lot of the "problems" we faced through the '90's with Saddam to the indecisive conclusion of the war. Reading that book, you really get a whole different sense of what happened during the war than one got reading the papers or watching the news at that time. Then, you knew the Air Force had done a lot of damage, but you got the idea that the Army had been fighting tooth and nail to get up into Iraq near Basra. It was actually the Marines who did most of the ground fighting. Furthermore, because Schwarzkopf was such a rigid thinker he didn't pick up clues along the way that should have told him the enemy wasn't going to stand and fight. That assumption guided his entire approach to the ground piece of the war. His objective was to destroy the Republican Guard. He never achieved it. He stopped the war--or allowed it to be stopped--before that happened, and it allowed Saddam to recover a lot of his fighting capability. That enabled him to hold on to power. We also stirred up the Shiites in southern Iraq, and they thought we'd come help them rise up. Problem was, when Bush was saying that he hoped the Iraqi people would rise up and topple Saddam, he really meant that he wanted to see someone in the military topple him; he didn't want the Shia to do it. So there was never any thought given to helping them as they got crushed by the units that streamed out of Kuwait and were reconstituted. By the way, 12 years later, these were the same Shia that Vice President Cheney said "would welcome us as liberators." He must have hoped they had one hell of a short memory.
Schwarzkopf comes out in the book as an interesting individual. He seemed to lose his spine when he had to confront Powell at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Another thing that probably had negative effects at the end of the First Gulf War, and DEFINITELY had negative effects in the second one, was the military's absolute insistence that they were the ones who decided when they would leave the battlefield. This is what I mean: CENTCOM, commanded by Schwarzkopf, had every intention of getting the soldiers out of the Middle East as quickly as possible. That makes you incapable of really asserting yourself after the cease-fire. If things go wrong, you're already shipping personnel and equipment home, and the military had no intention of sticking around to enforce the peace. This group of officers were of the Vietnam-generation officer corps, and felt that the civilian leadership had abused them. They weren't going to allow it again. Well, because of the itch to get outta Dodge, Saddam stayed in power and we invaded 12 years later. And, oh by the way, when we invaded this time, again, the military had no plan to stick around to enforce the peace. The "Generation V" officers, after being subjected to a war they felt the civilians had lost for them, AND a decade (the 1990's) of peace keeping missions, felt a revulsion towards anything not directly related to the prosecution of war. The whole "we don't do peace-keeping" attitude ended up blowing up in their faces. If they did a little more peace-keeping they would have had to do a lot less war making.
And look where we are now. We have The Decider, a man utterly devoid of ideas and credibility, shooting off his mouth about a newspaper ad from MoveOn.org. I guess running off at the mouth about something like that keeps him from having to come up with a solution for the way out of this war. And again, going back to the book, when I see names in there like Wolfowitz and others it just makes my skin crawl. You know, we're still here and clowns like that are long, long gone. The Decider will transition from a completely broken president to a completely broken ex-president in about 16 months.
Anyway, I highly recommend the book. I'll blog some more shortly, and I promise I'll have some good pictures.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Drama
So we got some incoming this past week. Had a little drama. Fortunately no one in my unit was hurt, so that's a good thing. I have been so busy that I really haven't had much time to take a whole lot of pictures. And we're definitely forbidden from taking pictures of anything that may get damaged from fire from the outside.
The workload here is just going up and up. We are getting just a ton of materials and supplies that were ordered by the unit we relieved, and my piece of land to store it in is starting to get pretty cluttered.
Anyway, the big news of the week, aside from our own little drama, was the drama taking place in Washington. You know, the Democrats are really disappointing me. I don't know what's going on over there, but they have had 10 months to come up with alternative plans to counter what The Decider has "decided" to do, but they've come up with nothing. They should be going on the offensive here, and the silence is just deafening. I can't believe they aren't out there picking apart the report and the testimony delivered last week. The violence here is down? Really...I just spent a week reviewing construction proposals, and every one of these proposals had a plan to house the workers in a compound within the walls of the base they were building on. It wasn't for convenience, because these companies were going to hire Iraqis. It was for security so the workforce didn't get killed. They were also discussing keeping the materials from being stolen or destroyed on the roads. If the security situation is so "good," if "the surge is working," why is this necessary? What "work" was the surge supposed to do?
i found one comment GEN Petraeus made to be particularly noteworthy. He said words to the effect that most if not all of the military goals of the surge had been met. I don't disagree with that statement. The problem is, and the so-called "Liberal News Media" never quite got the implication of that statement, the goal of the surge was a political one, not a military one. Meeting the military objectives was supposed to enable the political objectives to happen. By The Decider's own math, the government here is not meeting all 18 benchmarks. I'd love to give an 'atta-boy for making a nice effort, but people are dying over here. Americans, Iraqis, and even a few coalition forces. "Nice try's" are pretty irrelevant when the killing and the ethnic cleansing go on without pause. I tell people, what would you think if there were as many killings in Baltimore (or wherever you live) every day or every week as there are here? You'd think it was complete chaos. If not chaos, you'd probably wonder how people can live like that and not be irreparably harmed. But hey, all we hear from the right-wing G.O.P. TV on Fox, and the Lazy News Media of the mainstream, is that "the surge is working." If I see one more Republican Senator or Congressman mouth those words on TV I will just throw up.
The troops here are tired. The morale from what I can tell is pretty good, but damn they are tired. And a few people who are "outside the wire" guys with some experience under their belt wholeheartedly agree with the Jones Report (referenced in an earlier post): the Iraqi Security Forces cannot do the job. Period. They can't now, and won't be able to a year from now. But hey, with the crew making the decisions now, it's all about being able to blame the guy who follows Bush. It's gonna be a Democrat if they pull their heads out of their fourth point of contact (military for "ass"). And I can see it now: that the Democrats will be in a situation of no-win choices. And the Republicans will be lobbing bombs from the sidelines, as if 8 years of filth and lies and misguided, dogmatic policies never happened. I don't have a crystal ball, but believe it, folks. That day is coming.
Tomorrow I'll try to get some interesting pictures. I got a tripod, so now when I take longer-range shots they'll be steady. We'll see. Talk to you in a bit...
The workload here is just going up and up. We are getting just a ton of materials and supplies that were ordered by the unit we relieved, and my piece of land to store it in is starting to get pretty cluttered.
Anyway, the big news of the week, aside from our own little drama, was the drama taking place in Washington. You know, the Democrats are really disappointing me. I don't know what's going on over there, but they have had 10 months to come up with alternative plans to counter what The Decider has "decided" to do, but they've come up with nothing. They should be going on the offensive here, and the silence is just deafening. I can't believe they aren't out there picking apart the report and the testimony delivered last week. The violence here is down? Really...I just spent a week reviewing construction proposals, and every one of these proposals had a plan to house the workers in a compound within the walls of the base they were building on. It wasn't for convenience, because these companies were going to hire Iraqis. It was for security so the workforce didn't get killed. They were also discussing keeping the materials from being stolen or destroyed on the roads. If the security situation is so "good," if "the surge is working," why is this necessary? What "work" was the surge supposed to do?
i found one comment GEN Petraeus made to be particularly noteworthy. He said words to the effect that most if not all of the military goals of the surge had been met. I don't disagree with that statement. The problem is, and the so-called "Liberal News Media" never quite got the implication of that statement, the goal of the surge was a political one, not a military one. Meeting the military objectives was supposed to enable the political objectives to happen. By The Decider's own math, the government here is not meeting all 18 benchmarks. I'd love to give an 'atta-boy for making a nice effort, but people are dying over here. Americans, Iraqis, and even a few coalition forces. "Nice try's" are pretty irrelevant when the killing and the ethnic cleansing go on without pause. I tell people, what would you think if there were as many killings in Baltimore (or wherever you live) every day or every week as there are here? You'd think it was complete chaos. If not chaos, you'd probably wonder how people can live like that and not be irreparably harmed. But hey, all we hear from the right-wing G.O.P. TV on Fox, and the Lazy News Media of the mainstream, is that "the surge is working." If I see one more Republican Senator or Congressman mouth those words on TV I will just throw up.
The troops here are tired. The morale from what I can tell is pretty good, but damn they are tired. And a few people who are "outside the wire" guys with some experience under their belt wholeheartedly agree with the Jones Report (referenced in an earlier post): the Iraqi Security Forces cannot do the job. Period. They can't now, and won't be able to a year from now. But hey, with the crew making the decisions now, it's all about being able to blame the guy who follows Bush. It's gonna be a Democrat if they pull their heads out of their fourth point of contact (military for "ass"). And I can see it now: that the Democrats will be in a situation of no-win choices. And the Republicans will be lobbing bombs from the sidelines, as if 8 years of filth and lies and misguided, dogmatic policies never happened. I don't have a crystal ball, but believe it, folks. That day is coming.
Tomorrow I'll try to get some interesting pictures. I got a tripod, so now when I take longer-range shots they'll be steady. We'll see. Talk to you in a bit...
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
The "Report"
So, the CG of Multi-National Forces-Iraq (MNF-I) has given his testimony to Congress. Bush did an excellent job of minimizing expectations, and predictably, the Democrats failed the country. Great. Looks like we're staying the course until January 20, 2009.
The thing that angers me is that this is such a colossal waste. Not just American lives, but hundreds of Iraqis are killed every week. The White House may direct that the statistics get massaged to reflect what they want, but Jesus, the situation isn't a whole lot better here. We still can't leave the base. They are still firing junk on our position. Guys are still dying. And what is happening in Washington? They're playing footsie under the bathroom stall. What a damn disgrace.
The surge has done such a great job, it's "working" so well, according to John McCain and others, that when we bid construction contracts they have to build a compound for these guys to live in for their safety. That's pretty standard. Amazing. We still run convoys with armed escorts up and down the roads. When will The Surge That Is Working end that practice? I was watching The News Hour on PBS over here and Jim Lehrer asked Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) if he thought Gen Petraeus was "spinning" the report to reflect what he wanted it to say. Lugar's response was very interesting. I am paraphrasing because it was like 14 hours ago that I saw it, but he basically said that Petraeus came prepared to deliver a point of view and he defended that point of view. To my ears, calling it a "point of view" was significant. Here is a Senator who is widely acknowledged to have credibility in foreign affairs saying that the guy was not presenting a balanced, objective report. I mean, hey, what would have happened if he reported that this is a total fiasco? He's have been awarded The Solid Brass Balls Award and been shown the door. Besides, they are all complicit in this mess and they truly want the chance to make right with it all. I can respect that. But damn, this mission is lost, folks. Lost.
So what do we do now? In my own humble opinion, I think that what we need to do is start making deals. We will never, ever create a government here that replicates our own. In fact, Sen. Lugar pointed out on the News Hour this morning that the Iraqi Constitution--the one we strong-armed them into creating--specifies that the central government does not have the sort of power that ours has; the power is decentralized. I think the conservatives would call this concept "States' Rights." Here it is done to acknowledge the power and influence in this culture of clan and tribal ties and lines of authority. Man, and the Neoconservatives that created this mess just thought that we could come in here, knock off Saddam, and all would be well. How childish. And people voted for them? I would be ashamed to have that much blood on my hands, I know that much. But I tend to think that Bush sleeps like a baby at night. He's got a place waiting for him when he goes to the next world.
Till next time, go to this website and read the Jones Report regarding the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF): http://forums.csis.org/isf.pdf
OUT
The thing that angers me is that this is such a colossal waste. Not just American lives, but hundreds of Iraqis are killed every week. The White House may direct that the statistics get massaged to reflect what they want, but Jesus, the situation isn't a whole lot better here. We still can't leave the base. They are still firing junk on our position. Guys are still dying. And what is happening in Washington? They're playing footsie under the bathroom stall. What a damn disgrace.
The surge has done such a great job, it's "working" so well, according to John McCain and others, that when we bid construction contracts they have to build a compound for these guys to live in for their safety. That's pretty standard. Amazing. We still run convoys with armed escorts up and down the roads. When will The Surge That Is Working end that practice? I was watching The News Hour on PBS over here and Jim Lehrer asked Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) if he thought Gen Petraeus was "spinning" the report to reflect what he wanted it to say. Lugar's response was very interesting. I am paraphrasing because it was like 14 hours ago that I saw it, but he basically said that Petraeus came prepared to deliver a point of view and he defended that point of view. To my ears, calling it a "point of view" was significant. Here is a Senator who is widely acknowledged to have credibility in foreign affairs saying that the guy was not presenting a balanced, objective report. I mean, hey, what would have happened if he reported that this is a total fiasco? He's have been awarded The Solid Brass Balls Award and been shown the door. Besides, they are all complicit in this mess and they truly want the chance to make right with it all. I can respect that. But damn, this mission is lost, folks. Lost.
So what do we do now? In my own humble opinion, I think that what we need to do is start making deals. We will never, ever create a government here that replicates our own. In fact, Sen. Lugar pointed out on the News Hour this morning that the Iraqi Constitution--the one we strong-armed them into creating--specifies that the central government does not have the sort of power that ours has; the power is decentralized. I think the conservatives would call this concept "States' Rights." Here it is done to acknowledge the power and influence in this culture of clan and tribal ties and lines of authority. Man, and the Neoconservatives that created this mess just thought that we could come in here, knock off Saddam, and all would be well. How childish. And people voted for them? I would be ashamed to have that much blood on my hands, I know that much. But I tend to think that Bush sleeps like a baby at night. He's got a place waiting for him when he goes to the next world.
Till next time, go to this website and read the Jones Report regarding the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF): http://forums.csis.org/isf.pdf
OUT
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Football Season's here!
So as I write this entry it is about 20 minutes before 9:00 pm. The football season started on Thursday with the (formerly Baltimore) Colts thumping the Saints. Tonight--today in the US--is when the first Sunday football games start. The Ravens are my team, and they play tomorrow night against the Bengals. If the Ravens play on offense they way they are capable, and play solid defense they will win. If Ed Reed freelances too much and gets burned, or they pick on Samari Rolle, ballgame. They lose. The Ravens have not been a very good come from behind team for some time, if ever. They have to play carefully.
So I have spent a lot of time out of the office this past week because we are getting all kinds of supplies in here and I have to coordinate the pick up and movement to our Class IV Yard. "Class IV" is the Army Supply Class that includes engineer barrier material, construction material, etc. Class II includes stuff like tents and shelters. Anyway, we just got an avalanche of that kind of stuff last week. Here is how the stuff has to be handled:
+00007.jpg)
I took the picture in black & white on a lark just to see how it looked. I may do that a little more when I take pictures of people. We'll see. That container fits right onto the back of a 40' flatbed truck, which then carries the whole thing to wherever it needs to go. They also make them in 53' and 20' sizes. They are both designed to go on trucks, ships, and trains. You got some smart people who can figure out how to make something that will fit on all those modes of transport, plus will carry more cargo than if you just packed the stuff on pallets or in boxes.
The place that I put most of this stuff is here:
What I will do before I leave this place is get some video of these machines to show my son when I get home. He loves watching construction machines.
I was thinking about the band I saw perform here last night, and I would compare them to a micro-brew beer: they may not be available in a lot of places, but they are high-quality. It makes you wonder, how many other bands are out there like this one that probably get very little support from their record label (if they have one)? Why do we get fed the corporate BS music when there are bands like this out there that you never hear on the radio? Thank goodness they came out on this tour, and I definitely want to thank and give kudos to the folks at USO for getting them out here. They have an ear for talent, for sure. It was just a very cool time.
Anyway, time for football!!! Gotta run. I will be in meetings almost all of this week, so my blogging my pause. If I do get to it, I may do a little venting, so please have patience with me...thanks!
So I have spent a lot of time out of the office this past week because we are getting all kinds of supplies in here and I have to coordinate the pick up and movement to our Class IV Yard. "Class IV" is the Army Supply Class that includes engineer barrier material, construction material, etc. Class II includes stuff like tents and shelters. Anyway, we just got an avalanche of that kind of stuff last week. Here is how the stuff has to be handled:
+00007.jpg)
I took the picture in black & white on a lark just to see how it looked. I may do that a little more when I take pictures of people. We'll see. That container fits right onto the back of a 40' flatbed truck, which then carries the whole thing to wherever it needs to go. They also make them in 53' and 20' sizes. They are both designed to go on trucks, ships, and trains. You got some smart people who can figure out how to make something that will fit on all those modes of transport, plus will carry more cargo than if you just packed the stuff on pallets or in boxes.
The place that I put most of this stuff is here:
What I will do before I leave this place is get some video of these machines to show my son when I get home. He loves watching construction machines.
I was thinking about the band I saw perform here last night, and I would compare them to a micro-brew beer: they may not be available in a lot of places, but they are high-quality. It makes you wonder, how many other bands are out there like this one that probably get very little support from their record label (if they have one)? Why do we get fed the corporate BS music when there are bands like this out there that you never hear on the radio? Thank goodness they came out on this tour, and I definitely want to thank and give kudos to the folks at USO for getting them out here. They have an ear for talent, for sure. It was just a very cool time.
Anyway, time for football!!! Gotta run. I will be in meetings almost all of this week, so my blogging my pause. If I do get to it, I may do a little venting, so please have patience with me...thanks!
Saturday, September 8, 2007
MWR Night
Tonight we had a surprise performance by a pretty cool band from California. They're called Wilson Gil and the Willful Sinners. They're a rock and roll band that kind of makes you think about all those bar bands you saw when you were in college that just rocked the house when you saw them. They were really, really good. They were also pretty funny in between some of the songs. They had a pretty strong stage presence. Here's a picture of me with Tony Gil himself:
That's Staff Sergeant Fiorani in the background being a doofus. That's not like him; he's usually the doofus in the foreground.
They were really cool. Listening to an American rock band in Baghdad is a little strange. I talked with one of the guys in the band (Joe Dean) who mentioned that this was definitely one of the more "different" venues they've played. I imagine Afghanistan is a lot more austere. They played there during the summer.
They also are down with an energy drink they have here in the DFACs called "Rip-it." It's just like Red Bull except for the price tag. It's free! Woo hoo! They were all trippin' on the stuff. I'll tell you what, I have my own stash in my office cube for when I need a little boost.
Like I said, if you get the chance to see this band you need to do it. Great bunch of guys, and great music. Coming over here to play for us takes some courage. They aren't even armed.
Check out their website: http://www.wilsongil.com
Thanks guys!
That's Staff Sergeant Fiorani in the background being a doofus. That's not like him; he's usually the doofus in the foreground.
They were really cool. Listening to an American rock band in Baghdad is a little strange. I talked with one of the guys in the band (Joe Dean) who mentioned that this was definitely one of the more "different" venues they've played. I imagine Afghanistan is a lot more austere. They played there during the summer.
They also are down with an energy drink they have here in the DFACs called "Rip-it." It's just like Red Bull except for the price tag. It's free! Woo hoo! They were all trippin' on the stuff. I'll tell you what, I have my own stash in my office cube for when I need a little boost.
Like I said, if you get the chance to see this band you need to do it. Great bunch of guys, and great music. Coming over here to play for us takes some courage. They aren't even armed.
Check out their website: http://www.wilsongil.com
Thanks guys!
Friday, September 7, 2007
Get ready for next week
Here we are again on another Friday. This week, like almost every week since I have been here, has flown by. That's a good thing. My leave comes up in a couple of months and if the weeks go by like this, I'll be home in no time at all. It will be an exciting flight going home, and a very depressing one coming back. How could I be happy leaving this behind?
I learned a lot about the global commercial transportation system these last ten weeks. It's amazing how long it can take some things to get here. The mail can get here as quickly as 5 days. The supplies that come over on ships can take two months or more. I got slammed today with 11 40' trucks worth of stuff that I had to sign for and take possession of. It took a full 7 hours to get this stuff loaded, moved less than 2 miles, then off-loaded. I am smoked! It wasn't as hot as normal today, maybe only around 105 or so.
DAMN!! I just checked it out--it was only 95 degrees at 6 o'clock tonight. I thought it felt cool!
Anyway, the moral of that little story is that when it rains it pours--I had nothing come in that I needed for weeks, and all of a sudden I get 11 truckloads of stuff the unit we replaced had ordered. They left two months ago.
So next week GEN Petraeus delivers the report that the White House will be writing for him. I do not envy that man. He is being set up for failure, and to be honest, both parties share some blame. The Republicans are blowing the trumpets, saying that "the surge is working," when it isn't. And some of the Democrats are backing away from twisting Bush's arm about getting out of here. let me tell you something--the soldiers here want to do the job. They want to do it right, and they want to go home. Morale is pretty good, but they are tired. This is my first tour here; I personally know guys who have been here two, three, and four times. It's time for this junk to end. The Democrats, instead of speaking loudly, they need to get into a meeting with Bush and hammer his ass. Problem is they're too beaten down, and I think probably still a little hesitant to use the same disgusting, soulless political tactics against Bush that he used in them. I say go for it--and do it soon. Meanwhile the meat grinder goes marching on. Petraeus now says that we can start sending a Brigade home by Christmas. I have a feeling it won't be ours.
Check out the GAO report here:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d071195.pdf
I really get irritated when Bush and the cronies claim that the tribes in Anbar are coming over to our side because of the surge. That is complete BS--the fact is that Al-Qaida in Iraq (the Iraqi-populated Al-Qaida, not the Osama bin Laden Al-Qaida) was forcing the tribes in Anbar province (and Diyala to a lesser extent) to intermarry with them in order to insinuate themselves into the tribal and clan fabric of these areas. The sheiks resisted, and it escalated very quickly from threats to targeted murder to mass murder. The sheiks finally said, "enough," and that's when they turned. If you read the CSIS paper that I linked in a previous post, you'll see that this current cooperation with the government and US forces is in their self-interest; if the tribes feel like the government here won't give them a fair shake all bets are off and they'll be shooting at us again. Anthony Cordesman gave the government up to 180 days to give the Sunni tribes a place at the table or else they go back to being hostile. So, how did an extra 5 brigades enable that to happen? It didn't. And it started well before the surge, anyway. The extra troops here in-country are in a position to exploit this development, and let's hope we do. But as has been said already, the military has held up its part of the bargain. There is nothing else we can do--we have reached the limit of our effectiveness. The Iraqi politicians have to sort their stuff out.
And on the subject of shooting, that plane that was shot at (the one with the Senators and Congressman) was flying out of here last Friday. In fact, I saw one of the Senators--Richard Shelby from Alabama--in the chow hall around 5:30 or 6:00 that night. Then three hours later he's getting shot at. I swear--I had nothing to do with it!!
It would have hit the fan if that plane had gone down. Whew! Well, Bush would still say "the surge is working," I guarantee you that. I think he's drinking again, to be honest with you. Both him and Cheney. The depression and shame they must face every morning would crush me. But I wouldn't be that arrogant and dumb and disgusting to start with. I'm ranting...anyway, pay close attention next week when the General is in Washington. Read between the lines.
So a few more pictures. This is where I live. It's called "Freedom Village." We call it, "The Ville."
Sometimes I end up spending a lot of time in that trailer in the foreground. I don't know what I'd do for a home-cooked meal right now...but it would be a lot.
There is a lot of history at this place. There is a place down on Camp Striker called "The Zoo." There was actually a zoo down there, with tigers and birds and stuff. There was a story when the war was going on about tigers being loose in Baghdad--they came from here. They were so malnourished that they had to be killed. But here are some pictures of the area (what's left of it).
Nothing says, "4th Infantry Division was here" quite like this:
This was probably someones home who had some importance...
And if whoever lived there was tired of walking around, hell, they could take the dinghy.
And this is me, taken about 4 hours ago:
One other thing about the tigers--I was told by someone who was here in 2004 that back in '04 they found that a tiger was up in one of the camps here that was called, at the time, "Tigerland." When the Iraqis still owned the place it was where they let wild animals loose and hunted 'em. Hearing that I immediately thought of the Loeuvre in Paris. Anyway, they discovered him up there hiding in the tall grass by one of the canals and had to go find him with a humvee and shoot him with a .50 cal. Imagine walking to the shower trailer one night and finding a tiger eyeing you up for dinner.
This was going to be a short post. When I took that picture I was tired and hungry. Now I'm even more tired. This post rambled a little bit, but like I said up top pay attention next week. It's about to get very interesting.
OUT
I learned a lot about the global commercial transportation system these last ten weeks. It's amazing how long it can take some things to get here. The mail can get here as quickly as 5 days. The supplies that come over on ships can take two months or more. I got slammed today with 11 40' trucks worth of stuff that I had to sign for and take possession of. It took a full 7 hours to get this stuff loaded, moved less than 2 miles, then off-loaded. I am smoked! It wasn't as hot as normal today, maybe only around 105 or so.
DAMN!! I just checked it out--it was only 95 degrees at 6 o'clock tonight. I thought it felt cool!
Anyway, the moral of that little story is that when it rains it pours--I had nothing come in that I needed for weeks, and all of a sudden I get 11 truckloads of stuff the unit we replaced had ordered. They left two months ago.
So next week GEN Petraeus delivers the report that the White House will be writing for him. I do not envy that man. He is being set up for failure, and to be honest, both parties share some blame. The Republicans are blowing the trumpets, saying that "the surge is working," when it isn't. And some of the Democrats are backing away from twisting Bush's arm about getting out of here. let me tell you something--the soldiers here want to do the job. They want to do it right, and they want to go home. Morale is pretty good, but they are tired. This is my first tour here; I personally know guys who have been here two, three, and four times. It's time for this junk to end. The Democrats, instead of speaking loudly, they need to get into a meeting with Bush and hammer his ass. Problem is they're too beaten down, and I think probably still a little hesitant to use the same disgusting, soulless political tactics against Bush that he used in them. I say go for it--and do it soon. Meanwhile the meat grinder goes marching on. Petraeus now says that we can start sending a Brigade home by Christmas. I have a feeling it won't be ours.
Check out the GAO report here:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d071195.pdf
I really get irritated when Bush and the cronies claim that the tribes in Anbar are coming over to our side because of the surge. That is complete BS--the fact is that Al-Qaida in Iraq (the Iraqi-populated Al-Qaida, not the Osama bin Laden Al-Qaida) was forcing the tribes in Anbar province (and Diyala to a lesser extent) to intermarry with them in order to insinuate themselves into the tribal and clan fabric of these areas. The sheiks resisted, and it escalated very quickly from threats to targeted murder to mass murder. The sheiks finally said, "enough," and that's when they turned. If you read the CSIS paper that I linked in a previous post, you'll see that this current cooperation with the government and US forces is in their self-interest; if the tribes feel like the government here won't give them a fair shake all bets are off and they'll be shooting at us again. Anthony Cordesman gave the government up to 180 days to give the Sunni tribes a place at the table or else they go back to being hostile. So, how did an extra 5 brigades enable that to happen? It didn't. And it started well before the surge, anyway. The extra troops here in-country are in a position to exploit this development, and let's hope we do. But as has been said already, the military has held up its part of the bargain. There is nothing else we can do--we have reached the limit of our effectiveness. The Iraqi politicians have to sort their stuff out.
And on the subject of shooting, that plane that was shot at (the one with the Senators and Congressman) was flying out of here last Friday. In fact, I saw one of the Senators--Richard Shelby from Alabama--in the chow hall around 5:30 or 6:00 that night. Then three hours later he's getting shot at. I swear--I had nothing to do with it!!
It would have hit the fan if that plane had gone down. Whew! Well, Bush would still say "the surge is working," I guarantee you that. I think he's drinking again, to be honest with you. Both him and Cheney. The depression and shame they must face every morning would crush me. But I wouldn't be that arrogant and dumb and disgusting to start with. I'm ranting...anyway, pay close attention next week when the General is in Washington. Read between the lines.
So a few more pictures. This is where I live. It's called "Freedom Village." We call it, "The Ville."
Sometimes I end up spending a lot of time in that trailer in the foreground. I don't know what I'd do for a home-cooked meal right now...but it would be a lot.
There is a lot of history at this place. There is a place down on Camp Striker called "The Zoo." There was actually a zoo down there, with tigers and birds and stuff. There was a story when the war was going on about tigers being loose in Baghdad--they came from here. They were so malnourished that they had to be killed. But here are some pictures of the area (what's left of it).
Nothing says, "4th Infantry Division was here" quite like this:
This was probably someones home who had some importance...
And if whoever lived there was tired of walking around, hell, they could take the dinghy.
And this is me, taken about 4 hours ago:
One other thing about the tigers--I was told by someone who was here in 2004 that back in '04 they found that a tiger was up in one of the camps here that was called, at the time, "Tigerland." When the Iraqis still owned the place it was where they let wild animals loose and hunted 'em. Hearing that I immediately thought of the Loeuvre in Paris. Anyway, they discovered him up there hiding in the tall grass by one of the canals and had to go find him with a humvee and shoot him with a .50 cal. Imagine walking to the shower trailer one night and finding a tiger eyeing you up for dinner.
This was going to be a short post. When I took that picture I was tired and hungry. Now I'm even more tired. This post rambled a little bit, but like I said up top pay attention next week. It's about to get very interesting.
OUT
Monday, September 3, 2007
Busy week
Hey Folks,
I was out of the loop all last week because we were at a pretty high OPTEMPO here. Lots of stuff to do to prepare for upgrading and expanding facilities. It is amazing how fast the day can go by. I feel guilty telling my wife how fast time flies here because she's at home with our five-year-old, in a big house, managing the home and trying to squeeze a few minutes out of each day for herself. Sometimes she'll get a few moments, most times she doesn't. It's definitely not easy. Here's a picture of my little buddy:
They went to the beach this year, and he caught himself a ghost crab. He wanted to play with it (these things have pinchers, by the way) and convinced Mom to let him bring it back to the cottage with him. Crabs need to be at the ocean or they die. This one has definitely expired, but hey--he's still having a rockin' time with it! Good for him. I get to spend ten months at the beach. What sucks is that they won't let me go to the ocean.
So I go back to my CHU after chow and turn the TV on while I'm changing. Armed Forces Network (AFN) has about 9 channels, and they do a pretty good job of mixing up the programming. There is a re-run of an episode of "60 Minutes" with one of the Marines involved in the Haditha killings being interviewed. Apparently he is the only one still charged with murder. The guy doing the interview is just such a sanctimonious a**hole; I mean, these dramatic little squints and expressions and sighs for the camera...that Marine had to have the patience of Job not to roundhouse kick this jackass square on the mouth. And I'm watching this interview with this sense that the guy doing the interview is judging the Marine in front of him, asking these gentle little leading questions, like, "But Bill (or whatever the sergeant's name is--I can't remember), throwing grenades into rooms of a house...how can you do that? How do you do that without getting PID (positive identification)?" Jesus...Close quarters battle (CQB) is extremely dangerous and you have less time to react than a guy has to swing at a fastball, and this is life or death, not sports. You clear a room with shock and speed, not by slogging through the house like you want to buy it.
Another thing the questioner did was sneer at the way we are trained to identify hostile acts and hostile intent. The sergeant made a pretty good attempt at explaining it, but hey--that just wasn't good enough to this guy. The Iraqis know what to do, and that's what the Marine said--they know the deal. If something goes boom, and they get accosted by Americans, stop, show your hands, get on the ground, and allow yourself to be searched. They KNOW the deal. These guys--according to the sergeant--were stopped in a car a hundred meters from where the IED destroyed a vehicle, killing at least one initially and wounding others. He thought they were involved. At the time, radio-controlled IED's (RCIED's) were being used by insurgents in some parts of the country.
Anyway, they were ordered out of the car, and--according to the sergeant--attempted to flee. Yes, folks, that can constitute hostile intent. How?? This is how--they know to get down and be searched. If they flee they could be fleeing in order to fight another day. They are refusing to follow orders in this case, and therefore displaying hostile intent--the intent to not comply. I wasn't there, but this guy claims they ran. No one there at the time (that I am aware of) says anything different. You're going to indict the guy because everyone on the scene agrees? Wonderful...
These guys were ambushed and assaulted three houses they thought they received small arms fire from. In my opinion, from what I know of the incident, yeah, they overreacted. The smugness of this guy asking the questions was just vomit-worthy. Give the Marine some credit--he has a pair of solid brass swingers for even agreeing to do the interview, and he kept his cool throughout. But it just left a bad taste in my mouth, so I was motivated to go workout. Not like I was when "Cheryl" was running her mouth at me, but close. Anyway, other stuff is going on here...
Bush made a spot visit to Iraq today. His remarks were, um...I don't know, a little underwhelming, maybe. What the heck can he say at this point? He's desperate to back up his "Mission Accomplished" moment. This is so far gone from what they thought they accomplished; it's nothing like they thought it would ever be. It will never be what they thought they had created. It never was. It never could be. They have prepped the battlefield for the report next week to be delivered by GEN Petraeus. Oddly, he's delivering it with the US Ambassador here, but the White House is actually writing it. Am I the only one who thinks that is totally bizarre? With all the brainpower over here, they don't trust the man in charge to write the report, so the political hacks and cronies will write it for him; it gets presented as "his" report, and he takes the HEAT rounds for it from both sides. Yeah, a real profile in courage from the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Just remember the old adage--believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.
So here are some more photos of T-walls I took in the last few days, and baby you can believe them:
This one was simple but really well done.
Here's a good one:
I love it because the Personnel Services Branch (PSB) unit here is all gung-ho and stuff. Definitely a lot of esprit de corps.
Here's another good one. I love the eagle holding the mailbag:
Even the postal company is keeping it real with the T-wall art. Here are a couple more:
Here's one from the MP unit that just rolled out of here:
These guys are down on Camp Striker:
Okay, time for bed for me. I'm beat. I'll be back at it soon. Next time I'll post pictures of one of the compounds here that used to be pretty nice before the war. See you later.
I was out of the loop all last week because we were at a pretty high OPTEMPO here. Lots of stuff to do to prepare for upgrading and expanding facilities. It is amazing how fast the day can go by. I feel guilty telling my wife how fast time flies here because she's at home with our five-year-old, in a big house, managing the home and trying to squeeze a few minutes out of each day for herself. Sometimes she'll get a few moments, most times she doesn't. It's definitely not easy. Here's a picture of my little buddy:
They went to the beach this year, and he caught himself a ghost crab. He wanted to play with it (these things have pinchers, by the way) and convinced Mom to let him bring it back to the cottage with him. Crabs need to be at the ocean or they die. This one has definitely expired, but hey--he's still having a rockin' time with it! Good for him. I get to spend ten months at the beach. What sucks is that they won't let me go to the ocean.
So I go back to my CHU after chow and turn the TV on while I'm changing. Armed Forces Network (AFN) has about 9 channels, and they do a pretty good job of mixing up the programming. There is a re-run of an episode of "60 Minutes" with one of the Marines involved in the Haditha killings being interviewed. Apparently he is the only one still charged with murder. The guy doing the interview is just such a sanctimonious a**hole; I mean, these dramatic little squints and expressions and sighs for the camera...that Marine had to have the patience of Job not to roundhouse kick this jackass square on the mouth. And I'm watching this interview with this sense that the guy doing the interview is judging the Marine in front of him, asking these gentle little leading questions, like, "But Bill (or whatever the sergeant's name is--I can't remember), throwing grenades into rooms of a house...how can you do that? How do you do that without getting PID (positive identification)?" Jesus...Close quarters battle (CQB) is extremely dangerous and you have less time to react than a guy has to swing at a fastball, and this is life or death, not sports. You clear a room with shock and speed, not by slogging through the house like you want to buy it.
Another thing the questioner did was sneer at the way we are trained to identify hostile acts and hostile intent. The sergeant made a pretty good attempt at explaining it, but hey--that just wasn't good enough to this guy. The Iraqis know what to do, and that's what the Marine said--they know the deal. If something goes boom, and they get accosted by Americans, stop, show your hands, get on the ground, and allow yourself to be searched. They KNOW the deal. These guys--according to the sergeant--were stopped in a car a hundred meters from where the IED destroyed a vehicle, killing at least one initially and wounding others. He thought they were involved. At the time, radio-controlled IED's (RCIED's) were being used by insurgents in some parts of the country.
Anyway, they were ordered out of the car, and--according to the sergeant--attempted to flee. Yes, folks, that can constitute hostile intent. How?? This is how--they know to get down and be searched. If they flee they could be fleeing in order to fight another day. They are refusing to follow orders in this case, and therefore displaying hostile intent--the intent to not comply. I wasn't there, but this guy claims they ran. No one there at the time (that I am aware of) says anything different. You're going to indict the guy because everyone on the scene agrees? Wonderful...
These guys were ambushed and assaulted three houses they thought they received small arms fire from. In my opinion, from what I know of the incident, yeah, they overreacted. The smugness of this guy asking the questions was just vomit-worthy. Give the Marine some credit--he has a pair of solid brass swingers for even agreeing to do the interview, and he kept his cool throughout. But it just left a bad taste in my mouth, so I was motivated to go workout. Not like I was when "Cheryl" was running her mouth at me, but close. Anyway, other stuff is going on here...
Bush made a spot visit to Iraq today. His remarks were, um...I don't know, a little underwhelming, maybe. What the heck can he say at this point? He's desperate to back up his "Mission Accomplished" moment. This is so far gone from what they thought they accomplished; it's nothing like they thought it would ever be. It will never be what they thought they had created. It never was. It never could be. They have prepped the battlefield for the report next week to be delivered by GEN Petraeus. Oddly, he's delivering it with the US Ambassador here, but the White House is actually writing it. Am I the only one who thinks that is totally bizarre? With all the brainpower over here, they don't trust the man in charge to write the report, so the political hacks and cronies will write it for him; it gets presented as "his" report, and he takes the HEAT rounds for it from both sides. Yeah, a real profile in courage from the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Just remember the old adage--believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.
So here are some more photos of T-walls I took in the last few days, and baby you can believe them:
This one was simple but really well done.
Here's a good one:
I love it because the Personnel Services Branch (PSB) unit here is all gung-ho and stuff. Definitely a lot of esprit de corps.
Here's another good one. I love the eagle holding the mailbag:
Even the postal company is keeping it real with the T-wall art. Here are a couple more:
Here's one from the MP unit that just rolled out of here:
These guys are down on Camp Striker:
Okay, time for bed for me. I'm beat. I'll be back at it soon. Next time I'll post pictures of one of the compounds here that used to be pretty nice before the war. See you later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)