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
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