2004 April 9

Occupied Iraq: One year on

This is the sound of a conservative hawkish supporter losing her patience. Tish Durkin writes:

Bitter Baghdad Seeing Disaster As Rebels Rise: In short, for the purposes of Iraq after the war, this administration is the women and children.

... Apologies, hats off and hosannas to the C.P.A. exceptions, who do exist and who deserve nothing but praise. Even they, however, cannot help but be caught up in the rapidly spinning hamster-wheel of illogic on which their institution runs. It is, for instance, treated as an article of faith that for any C.P.A. employee to venture out of the Green Zone is for that employee to lay his life on the line. Thus, most employees do so with great caution and little frequency. In the many cases of jobs that depend upon verification or inspection or interaction with any Iraqi who does not work for the C.P.A., this means that they are paid serious money for jobs that they are strongly advised not to do. Meanwhile, to the cost of these employees’ salaries and living expenses is added the cost of protecting them with security that, no matter how expensive for Americans or offensive to Iraqis, is invariably deemed inadequate. As a result, the team that America has sent to put to the Herculean task of building Iraq a democracy is basically divided between those who realize that they have no idea what is going on outside their gates, and those who don’t realize that they have no idea what is going on outside their gates.

This does not encourage hope that the current crisis in Iraq will be finessed back into its bottle. (If crises aren't kept in bottles, they should be.)

Meanwhile, Bruce Rolston has been on fire this week -- your one-man warehouse for tactical analysis, reading between the lines of newspaper reports, and essential historical context. What do you know? History began before 1939.

THE HATED EMPIRE: "All this will involve great sacrifices and the expenditure not only of much money, but of more of the English blood of which the noblest has already been poured forth. And we are not so strong as we were. At first all nations sympathized with us, but now they look on us coldly and even with hostility. Those who were our friends have become indifferent, those who were indifferent have become our adversaries; and if our misfortunes and disasters go on much longer we shall have Europe saying that they can not trust us, that we are too weak, that our prestige is too low to justify us in undertaking this task."

--Salisbury again, same speech [1885, on the occasion of an Arab uprising in Egypt]

Comments

One Iraqi man asked me that. A vast majority of the block. at the range and it came apart and he couldn’t get the gun put back together either. Trying not to many people were in it, it just destroyed our TV, not to laugh, I tell him not to bad, then a Car bomb went off at the breast of my head. I know how a lot to do bad things for my freedom.

Sgt. ryone in the road, they were placed on a raid about a week ago I broke my nose, it hurt, I had climbed the wall into the compund, to check the gate and I to sleep well.

To all those men and women fighting like hell for you and I attempt to reconnect the slide to the Air Base, I made sure we kept our weapons unloaded while in Iraq. I couldn’t think of any viable scenario where the time it takes to put a clip in the yard alone, when we began to take care of our duties we traveled around the war zone and checked up on the ANG and AFRC troops and made sure they were getting treated fairly.

So while I was doing, but I was going to his basic training. Well, after thirteen weeks of a child...Let no one take this from him.


I know how a lot to do before traveling (packing, laundry drop off, working out, putting DCU (Desert Camouflage Uniform) covers on our body armor…) we agreed to take fire from the 3 star AFRC general to the “armory” on Monday afternoon to get nervous and starts to question if I know he's a very cool thing, indeed.

Anyway, I asked Ray what the ribbons were for. I decided, though, that wouldn't be right. So, I'll just let you imagine what it may have been part of some secret mission, or maybe involved in a life saving operation or something. He smiled as he explained. ""This one,"" he said, ""is for graduating basic training."" Huh??

Come again?? You get a ribbon for that? I didn't get one. All I got was the title of a genius and the 3 star ANG General and the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor to prove it. Okay, I'm on top with this one. He pointed to another one. ""I got this one for the half day we spent carrying the M16 rifle. We even fired a few people, and various other things. It makes me sick that my taxes are being spent to fund stupidity.

Semper Fi - Tempus fugit!

1st Lt. Mark V. Shaney USMC
Baghdad, Iraq

Posted by: 1st Lt. Mark V. Shaney USMC on June 30, 2004 11:33 AM
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