will to exist archives

The Senate is busy wrangling over what to do about the 12 million or so people that have been allowed to pass into this country illegally.

WASHINGTON, May 28, 2006 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) — The Senate plan to provide illegal immigrants with a shot at citizenship probably is a deal-breaker that will prevent passage of a compromise on immigration overhaul, the House’s lead negotiator said Sunday.

“The words ‘path to citizenship’ is a buzzword for amnesty. We ought to be honest, it is amnesty,” said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

I have a gentle suggestion – quit flapping your gums and get focused on closing the borders to further illegal immigrants. Once that problem is dealt with, then you can focus on what to do about the millions already here. We can be honest, but let’s do it after the borders, north and south are actually secured.

I do have some ideas though, for the illegals still here – give them three choices to atone for breaking the law – sign up for two years in the military, sign up for two years of voluntary community service, or hand them a one way ticket home once the fences are up.

We could avoid all this mess if our nation hadn’t turned into socialism lite. The reason that all the illegal immigrants are a problem in the first place is that they exist in a largely cash economy that is outside the auspices of the IRS and other revenue collecting agencies that suck up the tax dollars required to keep socialism lite rolling. Since the illegals are mostly not paying into the government services they take advantage of, they create fiscal imbalances where they are concentrated heavily.

Hagel said the Senate bill would require all immigrant workers to have a tamperproof identification card. They would not be allowed to get a job without it. He said the United States cannot ignore their existence by just focusing on border security.

No such thing exists. A tamperproof ID card? Not possible. Where there is a will there is a way.

As a nation, we let them in, one way or another. It’s time to turn the faucet off and deal with the reality that there are at least 12 million people living here outside the law.

As you enjoy your long weekend and hopefully take time to honor America’s fallen heros, past and present, remember that there is a war going on inside America that is just as real as the battles going on daily in Afghanistan and Iraq. The war at home is represented on one side by people who, now that we have deposed an evil dictator, want to second guess his legacy. This, despite his 30 years of murdering and brutally repressing his own population while committing aggressive acts against neighbors. Instead of supporting Americans who are putting their lives on the line to try and make Iraq a place where people can choose their own destinies, some people are doing everything they can to disparage and undermine every attempt to bring Iraqis a better quality of life, more choices and lives free from religious intolerance and extremist motivated violence.

Recently, three men in Baghdad, a Sunni mentor and two Shia students were murdered for wearing shorts. Meanwhile, the anti-war poltroons hold forth idiots like Jesse MacBeth so they can spout lies about massacres that never happened. Here is Jesse’s real “war” record. He never even finished basic training:

The bottom half of the form is just as revealing. Block 19 says “Service Member has not completed first full term of service“. Block 24, as noted earlier, shows his service as “Uncharacterized” which is only given to those who are discharged as trainees. Block 25 is key. It shows he was discharged under the authority of AR 635-200 Chapter 11. That means he was found to be unfit to remain in the Army and was dicharged for the good of the service. Or as many have said, a boot camp washout. We’ve been through the code for discharge in the next block, but the narrative reason for his discharge is found in block 28, which says “Entry level performance and conduct“, or, he couldn’t cut it.

Goodbye, Jesse MacBeth and good riddance. You’re a coward and a liar. You did a fine job of representing the anti-war movement.
In real war, when the fantasy world evaporates and you find people are really trying to end your existence, sometimes mistakes are made. Sometimes, people lose their way and do bad things. Sometimes, atrocities take place. When Americans do commit war crimes, the truth almost always comes out. Perpatrators are investigated, facts are tabulated, trials are held, and the guilty are punished. We are not cruel, but we do not tolerate inhumane acts. The enemy we are fighting encourages them.

On the whole, Americans live by rules and moral codes that are better than those our enemies have to offer. If this were not true, I would not have become an American citizen. I would not have volunteered to serve, on two separate occasions more than a decade apart. And I would not be writing this blog entry telling you that I am proud of the character of the vast majority of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines with whom I have had the honor to serve. The military I serve in spits out people like Jesse MacBeth, and rightly so.

You have the right to think the war in Iraq is wrong. You have the right to protest against it. You have the right to vote for leaders who will tell America’s military to pack up and leave with the task we started only partially complete. You live in a nation that allows you vast freedom of thought and action in comparision to what most in Iraq or Afghanistan will ever experience. And you are only free because of the men and women I serve with, who continue to volunteer, time and again, to protect you from the same sort of people who would murder you for wearing shorts.

Go ahead and believe what you want. Jesse MacBeth is a courageous hero for speaking out against war. Saddam was a benevolent ruler who kept Iraq peaceful, prosperous and terrorist free. Iraq never harbored terrorists or supported them financially. There were never any weapons of mass destruction. Islam is the religion of peace, and we should tolerate all Muslims, no matter how extreme their views may be and no matter how violently they express them. You my friend, are one day going to succeed at whatever you put your mind to, because you’re one sharp individual. Nothing gets by you and your razor intellect.

I, on the other hand, am just a simple soldier with no vision and a limited understanding of the problems facing us in the 21st century. As technology shrinks the world and forces diametrically opposed viewpoints to clash as never before, you protestors who don’t know exactly what it is you are protesting might eventually prevail. You better go watch the Jesse MacBeth video again. That guy knows what is really going on over here in the sandbox.

Memorial Day isn’t just another day off. Memorial Day is about remembering the people who are no longer here because they were willing to defend the rest of us. This Memorial Day, 2006 I want to honor two fallen heros. The first is Mike Stokely, who I’ve dedicated my service in Iraq too. And the second is Jeremy Bohlman.

Marine Lance Corporal Jeremy L. Bohlman died in Al Anbar province, Iraq on June 7, 2004, victim of hostile fire (this probably means he was killed by an RPG or an AK-47 or the indirect results of fire from one or the other or both.)

Jeremy was married two weeks before his second deployment to Iraq. Photos of his memorial service can be found here.
In a guest book for him, Katie Boldt had this to say about Jeremy:

Jeremy-My dearest brother, not a day goes by that I don’t think of your smiling face and that goofy attitude. A year has gone by now and I still don’t understand all of this. I know your in such a wonderful place making everyone laugh like you did down here. I miss you and can’t wait to see you again. I love you-your sister always.
Katie Boldt (Minneapolis, MN )

What you believe about the war in Iraq doesn’t matter on this Memorial Day. What matters is that Jeremy gave up his life for all Americans, and the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people everywhere. Stop a moment to remember citizens like Jeremy on this holiday weekend.

Others who gave their everything for you:

Sgt. Rafael Peralta
Capt. Robert D. Kent
Capt. William Galt
Sgt. Perry D. Martin

Also stop by Smash’s place and meet a few more of America’s fallen heros. Thanks for organizing this Memorial Day blogswarm of respect and remembrance, Smash.

Island in the Sea of Time is a fascinating what if novel that asks the reader to imagine life for a group of 20th century Americans thrown back in time to long before the birth of Christ, into a world of polytheism, tribalism, bronze weapons, brutal wars and slavery.

One of the main characters is black, female and gay and also a military officer. Other reviewers I’ve perused seem to think Stirling spends too much time obsessing over Marian’s self-dialogue. I disagree. An intelligent gay black female military officer’s self-actualization would probably be pretty close to what Stirling writes on behalf of Alston, in my opinion.

Another character I found fascinating was Dr. Alice Hong, the S&M freak who takes advantage of the fact that she no longer lives in a world with central authority. I know some people like her who, in the absence of Rule of Law, would go hog wild, indulging their dark, animalistic passions at every opportunity. There are lots of humans like Hong floating around with no moral compass to guide them on their journey through life.

The research that went into Island in the Sea of Time appears to be meticulous. Two of the themes running through the tale that kept me reading were the 20^th century American conservative prejudice towards gays and the 20^th century group of “progressive” eco-idiots. Pamela Lisketter and her misguided buffoons’ misadventures and ultimate horrific demise were at once interesting and repulsive. I’ll leave other plot developments unmentioned to surprise you, but rest assured there are plenty of twists and turns that will keep you reading.

Island in the Sea of Time is not a kid’s book, and it isn’t written for the squeamish or homophobic. The tendency to jump from character to character on almost every page frustrated me slightly, but other than that I enjoyed Island in the Sea of Time quite a bit. I’ve read through it twice now.

The companion novel Against the Tide of Years is also an entertaining read.

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The last batch of photos generated a complaint. Someone asked for bigger photos, so I’m going to put thumbnails here that linking to larger images tban the ones I had posted in the past. You’ll have to click way down into the photo album and you’ll need to allow popups from this domain for the large images (1000 pixels wide).
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Some residents of Missouri have discovered that just because they are legally entitled to a gun permit doesn’t mean their state will issue them one.

“We found permits in other states were cheaper, lasted longer and were honored by more states,” said Mike Anderson, who lives in Jefferson County and can legally carry a gun in Missouri on his Utah permit. “I don’t see any motivation at all for getting a Missouri permit.”

I’m waiting for the day when I can carry my pistol in any state, without fear of being legally persecuted for responsibly exercising my right to self-defense.

We all have the right to free speech you say? Not if some politicians can help it.

Rep. Tom Allen, a Maine Democrat, co-sponsored legislation in March that would bring political Web sites under campaign finance rules if they spend $5,000 or more on their operations. He said he would watch how blogs factor into the 2006 races under the FEC rules before deciding whether to press the issue.

Anytime politicians want to regulate what you are allowed to say or do in regards to publicly discussing politicians the correct answer is to boot the politician(s) in question out of office. I encourage Mr. Allen’s constituents to remind him who serves who. By the way, tomallensucks.com is available if you’re thinking of expressing yourself. You do live in a (mostly) free country, for now.

Mike Stokely died in Iraq on August 16, 2005, victim of an IED.

I dedicated my service in Iraq to his memory and his character on January 23, 2006. Mike was a fellow Georgian.

This Memorial Day, Mike’s dad has a message for us all.

To be very honest with you, I can’t claim to have placed the proper focus on this important weekend in so many years in the past. But, this year I have a new perspective, to say the least. Sadly, it probably took my son Mike dying in Iraq to make this holiday a time to truly focus on what Memorial Day means. No doubt, I’d rather be remembering “someone else’s” fallen soldier. But, I also recognize that the lineage of fallen soldiers is one of privilege for the fallen’s family members. No soldier wills to die in battle, nor does a family hope such privilege is accorded them. But, as the dad of a fallen soldier, I can say that I recognize such privilege is given me and our family for who else would it be given if we chose not to accept it? SGT Mike Stokely is an example of a life lived well, boldly committed and bravely given.

Mike if you’re out there somewhere watching us, thank you for your sacrifice. I think of you often.

And here’s some information you might want to know about Home Depot. You’ll have to click “read more” to get to the important parts.
When I’m not in Iraq, I shop at Home Depot a lot. Good company. You find a lot of good information over at Mudville. In fact, I can’t keep up. But I try.

Part II of my visit to Tarmiya yesterday. Many more photos in this month’s gallery. I’ll have a text synopsis of my trip available later today.
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Today, I spent my time in Tarmiya, a town north of Baghdad. I’ll publish a rather lengthy entry on events that have transpired in Tarmiya recently, and my experience during my visit.

For now though, I would like to share this first batch of photos, a few of more than a hundred that I took:

You can see more images in the photo albums.

Yesterday I mentioned that 26 million veterans (probably including myself) have had their personal data stolen. Today, the Washington Post reports that this should come as no surprise.

In 2005, Veterans Affairs earned an F on the annual federal computer security report card compiled by Davis’s committee, the same grade it has received every year but one since the scorecard began in 2001. (It got a C in 2003.) The government-wide average for 2005 was a D-plus, but there were wide variations — the Social Security Administration got an A-plus, while the departments of Defense and Homeland Security earned F’s.

Hey, it’s government. Lowest common denominator is the rule of thumb.

How could security be improved? Less red tape. Less middle management. Competitive salaries for technicians and network engineers who actually plan and implement security.

From Bruce Schneier comes the news that El-Al is demanding the right to provide their own security screenings. I understand why. The TSA is good at herding cattle, not providing security.

Frankly, the TSA makes me feel about as secure as I would if I looked out the window and noticed that one of the plane’s engines was on fire during while crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

Rebecca’s Pocket has a link to an article about the idea I call the Resurgent Caliphate. It’s a dangerous idea, for those of us who value freedom.

“The Caliphate is a rallying point between the radicals and the more moderate Islamists,” says Stephen Ulph, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation. “The idea of a government based on the Caliphate has a historical pedigree and Islamic legitimacy that Western systems of government by their very nature do not have.”

I do not object to people governing themselves. My worry is that the Resurgent Caliphate will have no room for athiest, agnostics, Christians, Buddhists, Shintoists, Taoists, Hindus, Sikhs and other varities of human beings. I don’t have a problem with 1.5 billion Muslims under one government, but I do if they want to outlaw everyone else’s ideas about what’s right and wrong.

The “historical pedigree” of Islam isn’t a pleasant one. The mindset of the men who hold in their mush brains ideas like the one below are what scare me most:

“Islam obliges Muslims to possess power so that they can intimidate – I would not say terrorize – the enemies of Islam,” says Abu Mohammed, a Hizb ut-Tahrir activist. “In the beginning, the Caliphate would strengthen itself internally and it wouldn’t initiate jihad.”

I do not want to be obliged to worship someone else’s way any more than I want a government monitored security camera in my front yard for “my own safety.”

Abu Mohammed is telling you exactly what he wants for your future, and he’s not alone. Go read the full article at the Christian Science Monitor.

I recently wrote about Army Captain Brad Schwan, who has sued to get out of the Army Reserve.

Well, he wrote me an e-mail:

I am the CPT in question. I want to make clear one point. Contrary to Trevor’s suggestion in the post, officers are being held to an equal standard as enlisted men. He mentions that enlisted men mobilized overseas are being stop-lossed. So are the officers. I was stop-lossed in 2002 and was forced to serve an extra year which I did without complaint.

This is very different from my current situation. I am not stop-lossed and I have completed my MSO almost a year ago. And this is where enlisted men have a better situation than officers. If you are NOT stop-lossed, as an enlisted man, when your MSO comes up, you are automatically outprocessed unless you reenlist. There is no process by which a buruaucrat without a legally authorized stop-loss can hold you longer. As an officer, you must resign and hope it is approved, even if your MSO has expired. And in my case, and many other officers, LTG Helmly, acting of his own accord, denied our resignations in violation of the law. So I strongly dispute the notion that officers are getting a better deal. That is clearly wrong and shows a lack of understanding of the difference between stop-loss and nonobligated resignations, MSOs, etc.

I agree that officers should be held at the very least to the same standard if not a higer one than the soldiers they lead. But before you accuse one of not doing so, make yourself aware of all of the facts. Stop-loss is legal and applies to officers and enlisted men equally. It is imposed legally by statute and authorized by a politcal branch of the government. In my case, I am NOT stop-lossed and an unelected general with a conflict of interest is illegally disapproving my resignation without political approval and in violation of the statutes.

I don’t pretend to have it the worst of anyone out there. But I don’t think the fact that some people have been legally stop-lossed grants the authority to a general to violate the laws of Congress. If you believe that, so be it.

Before casting stones, please learn all of the facts. Please visit my website at http://militaryinjustice.homestead.com or feel free to e-mail me. I welcome your questions or comments. Thanks for your service Trevor. I hope the government honors its commitment to you when you choose to leave the service.

I hope so too, Capt. Schwanz. The federal government and the military both have a long and inglorious history of making promises and breaking them.

Your web site has depth, and it’s obvious you are attempting to be patient and proceed within the Rule of Law, which I respect. After having read through your site, captain, I’m convinced that you have a case. Although I found it particularly hard to read sideways, the government’s reply brief with exhibits did seem somewhat ridiculous.

To be quite frank, I have doubts about re-enlisting myself. I won’t discuss them in this post, because it’s about Capt. Schwanz and his case. But I will say that you can only stretch someone so far before they break. Every individual has a different breaking point. When he or she reaches it, they will simply not re-enlist anymore.

Of the people in my unit here in Baghdad, 25% had to be called up from Inactive Ready Reserve status to fill empty slots. The Army simply cannot continue playing bureaucratic games with people’s lives and expect to maintain adequate staffing levels.

Putting yourself in harm’s way is one thing. Putting yourself in harm’s way indefinitely after your voluntary contract has expired is quite another. I don’t know how long the bureaucrats in D.C. think they can play paperwork games to make everything look hunky dory when it isn’t, but I’m sure they will. Stop-loss cannot be used in perpetuity and the military brass better start coming up with some better ways to retain their best talent.

Decide for yourself though. Visit the good captain’s site. Read a plain English newspaper article. And ask yourself if you think Captain Schwanz might just be getting a raw deal from the Army.

Recruiting and keeping the right people to keep the American military strong and healthy is a very delicate task. When the government makes a contract with an individual it needs to honor that contract. Not doing so is a recipe for disaster in the long term.

I can understand why people are tired of the war in Iraq. I would respect most of the anti-war crowd if they had done any serious research on the topics such as Islam, Wahhabists, the centuries old rivalry between Sunni and Shia Muslims and the recent history of al-Qaida worldwide. But the vast majority of them don’t do any serious thinking. The vast majority of them are intellectually bankrupt semi-literate boors. I’m not even sure they are capable of serious thinking.

And that’s how you end up with losers of the first order like Jesse MacBeth being interviewed on video making a bunch of allegations that are patently absurd. The anti-war crowd is no more serious about understanding how the military really works, at a nuts and bolts level, than they are about understanding what’s inside the cesspools that pass for minds when it comes to Islamic fundamentalists.

And thus, we come to the latest and greatest roundup the developing fiasco I choose to call “The Jesse MacBeth Story: Hooah Special Forces Ranger” can be found over at Hot Air. Go have a look. This tale is far from over. Jesse MacBeth is going to find himself with a whole lot of bright lights being shined on him for the foreseeable future.

I hope all that practice he got slaughtering innocents as part of the murderous imperialist war machine prepared him for what is to come. Because Jesse MacBeth is about to have his entire life story examined in detail and then served up hot. Life in the modern age is full of electronic bread crumbs. People who know how to follow them are on the case.

The Gunn Nutt has an update on soldier Joshua Sparling, who was injured in Iraq.

You may not remember Joshua but I do, because Joshua is the soldier who received a card through the Red Cross wishing that he would die.

On the way to his first surgery on November 24th, the Red Cross gave Joshua a card. Josh thanked them for the card and opened it the next day. The card said, “Have a great time in the war and have a great time dieing in the war.” Joshua hung the card on the wall of his hospital room as an incentive to get well so he could go back to Iraq and finish the job.

Brian Kilmeade from Fox News and Colonel Oliver North came by the hospital just before Christmas and saw the card. They were appalled that someone would send such a card. The story made the news on Fox and Friends. Sean Hannity was made aware of the card and interviewed Joshua on his radio show.

I don’t cry easily, but reading the letter from Josh’s dad brough tears to my eyes. Go read.

It’s not as easy to fake being a war hero as it used to be, thanks to the advent of technowarriors. Jesse MacBeth is going to find that out the hard way.

Milblogs has the developing story. You’ll want to watch this as it grows, because there are few things more upsetting to a military serviceperson than someone who pretends to have earned awards that they did not, in fact, earn. When you lie about your service medals and awards, the what else are you lying about?

Check out all the recent entries to get the full story. This guy isn’t going to get away with anything.

The Opinionater has a humorous and completely false tale of his time in Fallujah with Jesse MacBeth. Go read the tale.

More information on fake special forces Ranger (no such thing exists) Jesse MacBeth can be found at Just Citizens. Good stuff exposing the lies that typify anti-war the best that anti-war idiots can come up with to try and cast a bad light on the hard work and sacrifices made by thousands upon thousands of good people – efforts that are slowly improving Iraq and inexorably moving the country toward stability and hope.

Here’s a hint for those of you who are working so hard to ensure that al-Quaida and the monsters win another 30 or 40 years of running things in the Middle East – check your idols before you offer them up for public worship – this one had feet of clay and he’s cracked and fallen down.

Author’s Note: The below blog entry deals with potentially offensive content. However, this blog is intended for an adult audience, and the normal topic du jour of this blog – war – is certainly an adult topic. You get one warning now. If you are easily offended by discussions of sexuality, then stop reading right here.

It’s obvious that the people at (link NSFW, may offend) Masturbate for Peace are at least slightly mentally ill.

From the site:

There’s no greater antidote for war than love. Feelings of hatred and distrust form the necessary basis of armed confrontation. Replace those negative feelings with love and you’re halfway towards resolution of any conflict.

However, any real love must start from within. You can’t love others without loving yourself first. And, of course, masturbation is the greatest expression of self-love. So it’s natural that we, the citizens of the world, are joining together to masturbate for peace.

While most sex therapists might tell you that self-love is a healthy way to relieve stress, I really don’t think these people have fully considered the implications of what would happen if Islamic fundamentalists caught us all with our pants down. I’m not sure what the Koran has to say about self-pleasure but I don’t see masturbation solving fundamental theological differences anytime soon. Maybe the site is just a joke that went over my head, but I have a troubling feeling that there are actually a lot of dimbulbs out there who believe they can magically manipulate their genitals into stopping global conflict.

If anything, a site such as Masturbate for Peace is likely in inflame violent religious fundamentalists, especially of the Resurgent Caliphate Dreamers Union, into further denounciations and violent activity against the “decadence of the West.”

Personally, I think the site is just an excuse to sell a few latex toys to lonely people, but hey, what do I know about war and peace? I wonder if this campaign would have saved the Jews during World War II? Perhaps it can have some impact on the victims of Darfur? Maybe the people who died on September 11, 2001 just need a little more autoerotica in their lives?

It must be nice to see the world through such rose-colored glasses. Then again, if you’re constantly looking at yourself, it’s probably hard to come up with realistic solutions to real problems that are more collective in nature. I guess it’s lucky you “masturbators for peace” live in a society that protects weak minded, strong wristed people.

One of my favorite readers sent me a link to an article about milbloggers that might be of interest to my audience, primarily because it contains a plethora of links to good milblogs and milblogging resources.

Check it out!

And now I would like to present the sordid tale of how up to 26.5 million veterans had their identities put at risk by one bureaucrat who couldn’t follow the rules:

A career data analyst, who was not authorized to take the information home, has been put on administrative leave pending the outcome of investigations by the FBI, local police and the VA inspector general, Nicholson said. He would not identify the employee by name or title.

You might want to be cognizant of just how poorly the government takes its very serious responsibility to safeguard the data it collects about you.

As we continue to trade liberties and privacy for a false sense of security, you might want to consider just what it is you’re giving up when you surrender fingerprints, retinal scans and DNA samples. All these pieces of you are stored as 0s and 1s that are often appallingly easy to steal and then use for the benefit of criminals.

Hopefully the burglar mentioned in the story above isn’t also a technophile. Otherwise, a lot of veterans may find themselves with credit problems or other legal headaches.

Just wait until Real ID is in place and that data starts getting lost and stolen. Oh joy. The same level of attention to detail and spotless record of only doing what’s best for the dumb public will certainly apply.

The weekend here in Baghdad was an eventful one. The Iraqi Parliament announced a new cabinet and the story is available here.

This despite the incessant shrilling for the last three years of the harbingers of doom, the prophets of gloom and the pundits of failure. The worst event was a minor shouting match as a small contingent of Sunnis walked out, upset over the failure to announce the important positions of defense minister, interior minister and minister of national security. Those will be filled in time.

Iraq’s new prime minister seems to be serious about dealing with the various elements that are fomenting continued violence.

The PM said disarming the militias would be a priority, along with promoting national reconciliation, improving infrastructure and setting up a special protection force for Baghdad.

There is still violence happening in the capital, but the government is not collapsing, despite the impression you may be getting if you watch the nightly news. For a city of six million, Baghdad is a violent place compared to other cities around the world of a similar size. But that is to be expected after 30 years of a despot’s rule. People are trying to settle scores and competing for power. It’s tragic, and it saddens me, but it is also to be expected considering the strongman mentality that has dominated the Middle East for so long.

What is done is done. In the short term, historically speaking, Baghdad is a dangerous place to live. But the level of violence is clearly unsustainable in the long term. I’ve heard my generals telling me that guerilla wars, insurgencies or whatever you want to call the tactics of the animalistic, calculating murderers who are carrying out this war against basic human decency last – on average – 13 years. We’re only three years into this war. Iraqis are tired of the violence and they’re calling in more and more tips that help kill and capture troublemakers.

What could cause the insurgents to win a whole or partial victory? Intellectually lazy voters back home. Politicians more concerned about their careers than about doing what is right. Weak willed, short sighted people who don’t understand the larger context of this war. The Iraqis can make it, if we stand by them. If you’re following the news, you know that the focus of the insurgency has shifted from spending most of the energy trying to kill coalition members to trying to kill Iraqi police and Army personnel, as well as the old standby of blowing up civilians going about their day.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again – when all you have to offer people is violence, fear, murder – you’re doomed unless you have complete control of the population. The insurgency doesn’t have that, or anything close to it. They have a strong presence in al-Anbar, and there is heavy fighting around Ramadi right now (ignore the mostly ridiculous editorial portions of linked story). Ramadi is a hotbed alright, but not an unwinnable one by any means.

War isn’t antiseptic, it isn’t easy, and it is expensive – fiscally, mentally, physically and emotionally. But we are winning. Walking off the field now would be stupid and tragic.

Bruce Schneier has a very thought provoking post on why privacy is so important:

For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that — either now or in the uncertain future — patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable.

How many of us have paused during conversation in the past four-and-a-half years, suddenly aware that we might be eavesdropped on? Probably it was a phone conversation, although maybe it was an e-mail or instant-message exchange or a conversation in a public place. Maybe the topic was terrorism, or politics, or Islam. We stop suddenly, momentarily afraid that our words might be taken out of context, then we laugh at our paranoia and go on. But our demeanor has changed, and our words are subtly altered.

Read the whole thing, because your privacy is under frontal assault. Are you willing to share everything with any government employee who wants it? I’m not willing to have my phone conversations, pillow talk or personal habits judged by random employees of Uncle Sam.

Military life has given me a pretty good idea what to expect if we give government free reign over our lives in the name of “security.” If you aren’t famialiar with a “health & comfort” inspection, make a mental note now. In the military we experience them fairly regularly, depending on the type of duty status. These inspections are basically and excuse to rifle through the personal belongings of soldiers to ensure they don’t have any prohibited items. The list of prohibited items is a long one that would astound and disgust you. Soldiers do not have the same rights that you are supposed to be guarenteed by the Constitution of the United States.

Believe me, there are those in your federal government who would like nothing more than to find an excuse to perform a health & comfort inspection in your home, for “your own good.”

Army Reserve Captain Brad Schwan is suing his service, according to this week’s Army Times (subscription required to read article).

You know what? I hope he loses. It’s not because he shouldn’t be able to resign his commission. I don’t mind that tradition. It’s the double standard idea that I abhor. Letting officers do things that enlisted troops cannot is morally wrong. I realize power hath its privileges, but I don’t like them in the context of government service.

Right now, sitting here in Baghdad, I am serving with a sergeant whose contract ran out three weeks ago. He doesn’t get to go home. He’s on stop loss (which some people call the backdoor draft). Stop loss is a policy whereby the military arbitrarily decides that because we’re in the middle of a war, you, as an individual soldier, don’t get to end your service contract when you and the Army agreed it would end. I personally think it’s morally wrong that the government feels it is OK for them to dishonor their end of a signed agreement when the individual who signed the agreement would go to jail if he or she failed to live up to their end of the bargain.

However, if I must live with bad policies (and there are thousands of them), I would prefer they be applied as equally as possible to all segments of the military, including commissioned officers. I am glad that Capatain Schwan is getting some publicity. His lawsuit may bring put some needed public attention on a grave wrong the military is doing to those who sacrifice their individuality for a contractual period of years in order to try and serve their fellow citizens.

Only the government could even contemplate servitude by force as a method of dealing with a recruiting and retention problem caused by the government. A lot of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are simply unwilling to deploy to a combat zone every other year. I know I am not. It would wreak havoc on my marriage.

As wrong as I think “stop loss” is, I believe that officers should be held to the same exact standards as the enlisted and NCO personnel who serve under them. If we must suck it up then they must as well. Captain Schwanz I would like to welcome you to the Army of One (Standard for Everyone).

This war that I find myself in the middle of can be looked at many different ways and it is, by people from all walks of life.

In the final historical analysis, one of the things that is most important, from my own perspective, is the amount of value that each side places on human life. It seems so obvious to me, even on the days when I want to throw up my hands and walk out of here (an impossibility no matter what I want), that my side cares oh so much more about human life. It’s often what keeps me going in the face of sometimes moronic bureaucracy.

No matter what it is I think I’m fighting for, no matter what my situation is, if I am injured in the line of duty, my fellow soldiers will move mountains to try and save my life. And that’s comforting because it is a reflection of the overall value system of the society I come from, which, as a general rule, affirms life. The people I am fighting against are willing to shoot you in the head because you aren’t wearing a scarf. They will murder you on general principle just because you want to wear shorts when its hot outside. They have demonstrated over and over that they don’t discriminate when it comes to death. They’ll blow up something small just to attract a crowd of rescuers so they can blow them up with something big.
When we attack, we do everything possible to minimize casualties. If all we cared about was winning, Iraq could easily be pounded into a flat plain devoid of human beings. We provide medical care to our enemies once they are down for the count. We love life, and want it to thrive. The reality of war is painful and often heart-rending. Americans are insulated from the sacrifices, the pain and the daily effort that goes into fighting a war against an enemy that hides in mosques, blows up children and beheading anyone who displeases them (Atwar Bahjat now appears to have been shot to death, not beheaded and tortured and drilled into so that’s a real relief cause the person being beheaded in the video was just some truck driver who worked for the wrong people *insert sarcasm here*).

I’ve always been of the opinion that we should all be exposed to the photos of people who jumped from the Trade Centers as they were being burned alive by jet fuel. We should have to see what really happened to Daniel Pearl and hundreds of thousands of other victims of modern day religious fanaticism. We should also be exposed to the human toll in Iraq, since we are told the two are related (and I believe they are).
HBO has just released a compelling documentary that chronicles what happens in an emergency room in Baghdad. You owe it to yourself to watch.

CDR Salamander has an opinion about the Baghdad ER HBO documentary too. Go read it.

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New photos for the month are up.

Certain types of birds are attracted to shiny objects and will brave great danger just to retrieve a coin or brass bauble. People can be the same way.

Some people live under the illusion that combat is a glorious adventure. I am not one of them. I do have one soldier in my unit who has a burning desire to earn his Combat Action Badge. He even preordered some in anticipation of that glorious firefight he knows is coming his way. The CAB is awarded to soldiers who are not in MOSes (military occupational specialities) or “jobs” to civilians which would put them into combat on a regular basis. Infantry troops get CIBs (Combat Infantryman Badge) and REMFs (scroll down to slang terms) get CABs. Both awards, in my opinion, are unnecessary baubles.

I come from the school of thought that says the less combat you get into, the wiser you are. So I’m dubious about people who are gung ho to kill other people, or get into fights, as a general philosophy of life, I tend to think that’s a fairly idiotic approach. I’d like to go through life getting into as little combat as possible.

I was an active duty enlisted marine from 1992-1996. In the Marines, you do some crazy things. But the Marines get some stuff right that the Army should think about. They are slow to hand out ribbons and badges. I don’t like the idea of giving out all kinds of special doodads for doing stuff that is mostly just part of your job. Combat Action Badge you say? Well that’s all fine and dandy, but we are all part of the Uniformed Armed Services of the United States of America. I’d say that the expectation of potential combat is just part of the job. If it happens, you do your best while you’re in the situation and then move on with your day, your week and your life.

For me, being here isn’t about seeing how many times I can engage the enemy. I don’t want glory, or stories I can tell in a bar to impress strangers. I just want to do my job as best I can and then go home and continue my life from the point where it was put on hold. I want to plant some flowers and watch them grow. Combat is sometimes necessary, but I think the Marines get it right by not passing out ribbons and badges like candy. If you go above and beyond, that’s one thing, but merely being exposed to enemy action is not going above and beyond. It’s an accepted risk when you sign up for the job.

It’s an alien way of thinking to me when I see someone preordering little baubles that they think are somehow going to be important in the grand scheme of their life, and maybe someone’s life will be changed for the positive because they have a combat action badge, but I just don’t get it. I admire and respect the guys who get up every day and hunt insurgents, and I don’t want to pretend to be one of them because I don’t face the same daunting daily risks that they do and it would be intellectually dishonest to pretend otherwise.

If the above diatribe has any meaningful point, I think it is this – you do not build character by collecting baubles. Saddam’s palaces were filled with glittering garbage that never made up for the fact that he lost his soul early in life. Avoid the shiny things in life, they tend to blind people.

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There is a janitor who works here in the building where I perform my duties as the MNF-Iraq.com webmaster. In the world of concrete and metal that surrounds us, this quiet, humble man has begun planting sunflowers. He plants them in pots, and in unused patches of dirt. I see him carefully tending his garden of green shoots several times a day in between his bathroom cleaning, mopping and sundry other duties.

This man braves danger every day when he comes to work. If I took his picture and posted it here, he would probably disappear soon after. The insurgents are not merciful to those who work with the fledgling Iraqi government, and are even less willing to tolerate the presence of men and women who cooperate with the coalition forces.

When I see my Iraqi friend tending to his sunflowers, I feel hope. All around this man, his country is in turmoil. Yet he gets out of bed every day, goes to his job and does not complain. He takes the time to plant new life and tends it carefully. He is not an important man. Most of the people who he deals with probably never give him a second thought.

I do.

I see Iraq’s future in this man, this gentle soul who cleans up the messes made by other people and who quietly tends his sunflowers amid the concrete fortress where we work. I’ll call my friend the Iraqi janitor Ali. It is a good Iraqi name. Ali gives me hope in the face of all those prophecying doom and gloom for the future of this nation. And I hope that, by treating him with respect and friendship, I am giving him hope as well. He will be here, dealing with this war long after I have returned home to my wife, the comfort of an easy American existence and the plehora of advantages we tend to take for granted in our land of peace and prosperity.

I’m getting my first real taste of the fabled heat of Iraq. Today it’s 116 in the shade. Since it’s my day off, I’m taking care of personal stuff like doing laundry and buying a supply of Reese’s Cups at the PX. I love Reese’s Cups. When it is 116 degrees outside, they melt very quickly. So do I. Just walking at a normal pace today made every part of my body break into profuse sweat. I think I had lost two quarts of body fluids in my short journey from the housing area to the PX and back. My uniform was completely soaked, and I am not one of those people who sweats a lot, normally.

Even my head was sweating and dripping. I hate the feeling of sweat beading on my scalp. Air conditioning is a blessing. I cannot imagine what it must be like for a conservative Iraqi woman who wears the full length black outfit including facial veil and has to walk from point A to point B in this heat. It seems insane. People around here tell me that you can’t feel the difference between 120 and 150 degrees and I have a feeling I’m going to find out soon.

I managed to avoid the mistake of putting something heavy on top of my Reese’s Cups *King Size* this time. Last week when I went to the PX I put something heavy on top of the candy and it melted into odd shapes that were hard to eat. By the time I got it back into the hooch and put them in the refrigerator I ended up having a mixed assortment of Reese’s Sculptures. I ate them anyway, and I was grateful.

Next time you think you’re having a bad day, volunteer to join the Marines in Fallujah, or visit your local Army recruiter and tell him that you would like to spend a year in Al-Anbar province. Those guys are doing the really tough jobs for very little pay. They end up understanding more about how the world really works in a year than some of you back home will absorb in a lifetime.

Interface is techno thriller that manages to bring together diverse characters, locales and an intricate plot into a fairly believable near future scenario in which the soon to be President of the United States is controlled by a computer chip implanted in his brain after a stroke.

It’s full of interesting characters including the first black female President of the United States of America, who begins the story as a nearly homeless bag lady plagued by misfortune. Then there is Floyd Wayne Vishniak, participant in polling research and destined to become a serial killer whom no one believes as he hunts down the conspirators controlling the candidate he has been watching on TV, whom he is certain is being mind controlled. Cy Ogle is the manipulative pollster at the center of the plot to put a puppet into the White House. These are just a few of the lively, interesting characters you’ll encounter.

One of the things that I enjoy most about Stephenson’s writing is his ability to put me inside the head of each character as they progress through their various pieces of the overall plot. Interface is one of many novels by Mr. Stephenson that kept me interested from the moment I picked it up until the moment I’d digested the last word. Could the events described in the book happen? Certainly.

Most of us believe that our government is doing things behind our back all the time. Are there really secret societies trying to pull strings behind the scenes and outside the law. Absolutely. Are they as powerful and effective as the ones described in Interface. Who knows? I’m not a member of a secret society. And if I was I wouldn’t be allowed to talk about it. If I did talk about it, I’d have to kill you afterwards.

The truth is, the government doesn’t even know what the government is doing more than half of the time. In such an environment there are always rogue operators both inside and outside officially approved uses of power. Some of them are caught, and some of them are not. Certain types of human beings will always look out for their own interests above all else and at the expense of others.

Interface is an enjoyable novel about people looking out for their own perceived interests. It’s got medical aspects, psychological aspects, technological aspects and most of all, characters that pull you into the story and keep you interested in what happens next.

There is much debate inside Iraq and out about federalism these days. Early Americans had a debate too. The anti-federalists lost by a narrow margin. The Volokh Conspiracy has an interesting post about federalism in Iraq.

Critics of decentralized federalism often claim that it will lead to partition. Some, like Cordesman in his NY Times piece, do not even seem to distinguish between the two. It is in fact the fear of a dominant central government dominated by one’s enemies that leads to pressure for partition. Implementation of a strong form of federalism would dampen these fears, though probably not completely eliminate them. Realistically, the Kurds will not accept a highly centralized government of any kind (and I don’t blame them). The Sunnis will not accept one dominated by the Shia, as is likely to be case if the government continues to be democratically elected (the Shiites are 60% of the population). By removing the threat of nation-wide domination by one group, decentralized federalism will reduce pressures for partition rather than increase it. This is especially likely in light of the fact that partition would leave all three major Iraqi groups vulnerable to the depradations of Iraq’s unscrupulous and rapacious neighbors. Federalism is a way to capture the main benefits of partition, while mitigating its dangers.

Decentralized federalism may indeed work for Iraq, if Iraq can field a few relatively honest politicians who care more about Iraq than they do about power, wealth and their own personal agendas. These politicians would need to survive long enough to lead Iraq into a state of reality it hasn’t yet achieved – one where individual freedom is a widely held ideal that is protected by the law. Whether or not that is possible remains to be seen.

The U.S. version of federalism has experienced a great deal of mission creep since the Constitution was first implemented. Our Congress largely ignores the limits that were put in place to restrain the growth of federal governance. Iraq must create a system of governance that gives the majority of citizens the sense that they are a stakeholder in Iraq to succeed.

In Iraq, the Sunnis were on top under Saddam, and they abused the Kurds and Shiites. Shiites make up 60% of the population and are now the dominant political force in Iraq, although Sunnis dominate Islam worldwide. Kurds are distrustful of Arabs in general because of the abuse they have suffered at their hands. They want autonomy and will not accept a strong centralized federal government dictating terms to them. Everyone wants the oil, but it is mostly in Shia and Kurdish dominated areas.

It is interesting to watch as these three groups try to build their own uniquely Iraqi brand of federalism. As I’ve said here before, if the new government cannot sell the ideas of nationalism and the need for unity over sectarianism, Iraq is destined for more turmoil, more upheaval and more of the type of warfare that is making its people sad and soul weary. Hope lies in finding a system of governance that can put the past into the past and that focuses on building infrastructure, protecting citizens’ individual human rights and long-term economic development in a free market environment where basic security is not a major issue for the majority of citizens.

No matter the eventual form of government, if Iraq fails, America will be blamed. And we should be if that happens. It’s up to us to follow through and help Iraqis build the new and improved nation our President has been promising everyone.

For ordinary Iraqis who live in Baghdad, from what I can glean, life seems pretty dark these days.

“The killing, you can’t imagine the killing,” said Yusra Abdul Aziz, 47, a teacher, whose block, in Adhamiya, organized its watch group in March, after four neighbors were shot dead over several days. “Without any reason. Cars come and shoot us. We run to the hospital and get our wounded. We live in a nightmare, actually.”
On her block, seven men, Sunnis and Shiites, stand on rooftops and street corners from midnight to 6 a.m., stopping suspicious cars. Palm tree trunks and pieces of trash are used to block roads. Still, she is so afraid of nighttime raids by both the special police and marauding criminals dressed like police officers that she sleeps in her clothes.

In the United States, most of us take for granted that help in times of crisis is only a phone call away. The vast majority of us sleep soundly at night, unafraid that strange men will arrive in the wee hours with a crash, breaking down our doors and hauling off a father or brother who will later have to be claimed from the town morgue. Most of us trust our local police force.

In Baghdad, such is not the case. I ask those Iraqis I work with, doubting the news reports. They all say the same thing. It’s pretty chaotic out there on the other side of the concrete walls that shelter those of us in the Green Zone. I have a hard time finding optimistic Iraqis. Some think that government will always be corrupt here. Many think that war is always going to haunt them. One man I spoke too says that he was six years old when Iraq went to war with Iran and that he has not seen anything but war since. He cannot picture an Iraq at peace.

He would like to leave Iraq, but he cannot. It is almost impossible for an Iraqi to get a travel visa, he tells me. “Iraqis and dogs. No one wants us,” the man complains. In Islamic nations, dogs are considered unclean, dirty animals.

Who can blame this man and his fellow Iraqis? Day in and day out, they are forced to live with horrific acts of violence. They may be relatively safe inside the walls of the Green Zone, but as soon as they leave to go home, their lives become cheap. If they are discovered working with the coalition, they may be tortured and killed. Most of them go directly home and stay there until it is time to work again. They cannot lead normal social lives. The electricity is not reliable, the water is not reliable and their neighborhoods may flare with violence at any time.

The challenges for the government that is forming are great. They must quell sectarian violence. They must provide reliable basic services such as electricity and water. They have to manage Iraq’s vast oil fields in such a way that average Iraqis see some benefit. They have four years to convince Iraqis that an elected government can work better than what they had before under Saddam. It’s going to be a tough road.

I hope that one day, my Iraqi co-worker no longer feels that the world sees thinks of him as a dog. I hope that he will be able to visit the United States or Europe and see that there are places where people walk around free of the mental scar tissue most of Baghdad’s denizens have been suffering. The new government needs to purge itself of corruption, especially in the Interior Ministry. It needs to disband the militias and ensure that common citizens are being provided with real security by troops who have been trained to see through the blinding veil of sectarianism that seems to have wrapped itself around Baghdad.

Most importantly, it needs to convince normal Iraqis who just want to live free from fear and violence Iraqis that it is working for them and has their best interests at heart. Lots of work is being done behind the scenes to build a government that represents all Iraq. That new government needs to demonstrate that it is serious about security, and it needs to do so as quickly as possible.

During this time of transition, it is critical that the United States stand firm and stay the course.

While Iraqi politicians continue wrangling over the cabinet here, and Democrats and Republicans continue wrangling over the war back in the U.S., we just keep doing our daily jobs. Iraqis keep their heads down and try to survive in the midst of conditions most Americans can’t begin to fathom. And mother nature continues doing what mother nature has been doing in this region for centuries.

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As the choking sand descended, most of us emerged from our parking garage to gape at the orange and yellow skies. You couldn’t see more than 50 feet away. Everything turned murky, and our faces were coated with a fine grains of sand as soon as we stepped out of our trailers. It was surreal.

Below is a horrid, graphic description of the murder of an Iraqi journalist named Atwar Bahjat, which I am reposting from this Mudville Gazette entry because I believe the American public has a duty to understand what they are facing from Muslim fundmentalists, in Iraq and wherever else these disgusting roaches breed or are allowed to scurry about.

Two men drove up in a pick-up truck, asking for her. She appealed to a small crowd that had gathered around her crew but nobody was willing to help her. It was reported at the time that she had been shot dead with her cameraman and sound man.

We now know that it was not that swift for Bahjat. First she was stripped to the waist, a humiliation for any woman but particularly so for a pious Muslim who concealed her hair, arms and legs from men other than her father and brother.

Then her arms were bound behind her back. A golden locket in the shape of Iraq that became her glittering trademark in front of the television cameras must have been removed at some point — it is nowhere to be seen in the grainy film, which was made by someone who pointed a mobile phone at her as she lay on a patch of earth in mortal terror.

By the time filming begins, the condemned woman has been blindfolded with a white bandage.

It is stained with blood that trickles from a wound on the left side of her head. She is moaning, although whether from the pain of what has already been done to her or from the fear of what is about to be inflicted is unclear.

Just as Bahjat bore witness to countless atrocities that she covered for her television station, Al-Arabiya, during Iraq’s descent into sectarian conflict, so the recording of her execution embodies the depths of the country’s depravity after three years of war.

A large man dressed in military fatigues, boots and cap approaches from behind and covers her mouth with his left hand. In his right hand, he clutches a large knife with a black handle and an 8in blade. He proceeds to cut her throat from the middle, slicing from side to side.

Her cries — “Ah, ah, ah” — can be heard above the “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) intoned by the holder of the mobile phone.

Even then, there is no quick release for Bahjat. Her executioner suddenly stands up, his job only half done. A second man in a dark T-shirt and camouflage trousers places his right khaki boot on her abdomen and pushes down hard eight times, forcing a rush of blood from her wounds as she moves her head from right to left.

Only now does the executioner return to finish the task. He hacks off her head and drops it to the ground, then picks it up again and perches it on her bare chest so that it faces the film-maker in a grotesque parody of one of her pieces to camera.

The voice of one of the Arab world’s most highly regarded and outspoken journalists has been silenced. She was 30.

Now, once you’ve recovered from the horror that you, as a decent human being should feel at the thought of a woman having a power drill applied to various parts of her body, then being stripped and having her throat slit while the cretinous thugs responsible mutter about God’s greatness, there are several factors that I would like you, my reader, to keep in mind as you think about Iraq.

The first is that Iraq under Saddam was populated by the same thugs that perpetrated acts like the one you just read about. Iraq before Saddam was populated by the same thugs. Iraq after Saddam is still populated by the same thugs. Under Saddam, you didn’t bother to think about the people being raped and fed into plastic shredders because there was no free press here. If the monsters have their way, Iraq will revert once again to a nice black hole you don’t have to think about.

The second thing I’d like you to think about is the undeniable fact that technology is advancing exponentially and that is shrinking the world. If you are one of those who believe we can ignore other parts of the globe and not be affected by what is happening in them, you’re a short-sighted fool and represent a danger to the rest of us.

Finally, I’d like you to imagine what your life would be like if your daughter was treated similarly to Atwar Bahjat. What if your child was snatched off the streets, tortured with drills to the arms, legs, stomach and eyeball and then murdered by throat slitting while evil men recorded the event to instill fear in and silence others. Would you be silent?

This century will be defined by clashes between those who embrace change and those who fear it. Good and evil do exist and they come in many different guises, not all of which are obvious. It seems clear to me that the single biggest threat to human advancement in this hide inside a religion called Islam and wage evil in the name of Allah.

Human history has been tumultuous and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. I hope that most of us can live out our lives without the fear that we will have our cognitive organ hacked off with a rusty knife. I hope that the majority of those of you who read this blog entry will not be crushed inside a building or blown up on your way to work or snatched in the middle of the night only to be found shot in the head in a garbage dump a few days later.

What is happening here in Iraq now on a day to day basis will be a factor in determining your statisical chances of experiencing terrrorism first hand during your lifetime. Atwar Bahjat died horribly because she told the story of Iraq. Were you listening? Maybe you should start.

The above mentioned video is a hoax. It is a hoax only in the sense that Atwar Bahjat wasn’t the person being beheaded in the video. She was still murdered, but perhaps not during a videotaped beheading, so that’s all good *insert sarcasm here*. Instead, the person in the video was a truck driver who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got horribly murdered because he did something that “offended” Muslims fanatics. The general gist of my entry doesn’t change one whit. Islamists still represent a real and horrible threat to my way of life and yours in the coming century, which I believe will be the century of Islamic fanaticism. We shall all see, except for those of us who lose our heads.

It’s hot.

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The parking garage I work in is filled with European built portable housing/working boxes made of plastic and metal that are individually air conditioned. The wall units vent their hot exhaust air into the parking garage, which is fortified and sandbagged and has poor airflow. Needless to say, our offices are 72 degrees but everywhere else stays about 120 to 150 degrees, literally.

There are supposed to be exhaust fans sucking the hot air out of the parking garage but they are broken.

A few kilometeres away, we leave the air conditioners on in our living areas 24 hours a day, because if they are turned off while we are at work, the living space takes several hours to cool down to a bearable temperature again on our return. It’s not healthy to sit in a an oven box for any length of time beyond maybe half an hour.
I’m told this is only a prelude to the heat we will experience in a few short months. Some of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines lay out by the pool that used to belong to Saddam Hussein. I think they are crazy. One member of my unit sunburned herself severely a few weeks ago. I’m too old and canny to think that my body wants more than a few minutes of direct sun exposure in a day.
Let the young ones soak it up. Some of them will learn in time to avoid skin cancer. I’m not sure yet that I did, growing up in Haiti, Bangladesh and Florida. Time will answer the question, as it does all questions.

When a society treats its own champions and defenders like criminals bad things cannot be far off.

Newly released government documents show that even having a high-level security clearance won’t keep you off the Transportation Security Administration’s Kafkaesque terrorist watch list, where you’ll suffer missed flights and bureaucratic nightmares.

We live in a world where the government increasingly plays the role of nanny, decision maker and disciplinarian on our daily lives. This same government that is supposed to watch us, nurture us and protect us from our own flaws and failings cannot trust a soldier, a man or woman empowered to kill in the name of government, to fly with a penknife. Our federal government cannot even accurately identify its own highly placed civilian employees when they try do something as routine as boarding a plane.

Allow me to sound an alarm. We are all in trouble because our common sense is being assaulted on a daily basis by nanny organizations such as the TSA. These are people who, no matter how inane they become (and they’re really, really inane) you cannot argue with, or question. If you want to fly, you have to take off your shoes, keep your mouth shut, and bend over if told to bend over.

We’ve traded self-reliance and individual liberty for really bad fake security and government web sites that answer important questions like, “Am I Wearing the Right Shoes?”

The right shoes, you poltroons, are the shoes that don’t have bombs in them. Any idiot can figure that out, and you don’t need a fancy machine to determine whether or not someone has a wick sticking out of his or her shoe. I’m going to have to learn to fly a small private plane when I get back to the U.S. because I don’t think I can put up with much more of the whole everyone is a criminal treatment I’ve been getting from the people who are in charge of public airports. The first generation of real American zombies is being developed at a major airport near you and the scientists who are breeding them are the retarded looking people in the polyster pants and shirts emblazoned with TSA.

A fellow milblogger could use a prayer or two. He returned safely from Iraq only to discover he has colon cancer.

When I arrived in town, Greg told me it was cancer. They found a golfball size mass in his colon that had to be removed immediately. The surgery was scheduled for Monday morning. We both stared at each other trying to soak it in and register what was happening. I am not sure that we have fully gotten there even now.

You can read about it here. Please take a moment to offer Greg and his wife your support and let them know you’ll be rooting for them.

It can happen to anyone, anytime.

I recently reviewed Days of Infamy: A Novel of Alternate History and while I thoroughly enjoyed the book, I complained that author Harry Turtledove perhaps understated the brutality of the Japanese during World War II. End of the Beginning picks up where Days of Infamy left off, and this time, I think the true horror of living in a Japanese occupied territory during World War II is clearly illustrated.

Perhaps it is just me, but I am more horrified by violent rape than I am by death. Death can be horrible, but with death, the horror ends. In End of the Beginning, some of the characters that I had learned to identify with and had grown fond of find themselves in increasingly desperate straights. Hawaii’s civilians are slowly starving. U.S. prisoners of war are on a program of accelerated slow death. Their hunger is punctuated by random beatings and grueling manual labor.

Fletcher “Fletch” Armitage, a U.S. POW, is a walking skeleton and his wife Jane, who had been in the process of divorcing him when the war began, is forced to work in a Japanese “comfort house” as a sex slave. She is beaten and forced to satisfy numerous Japanese daily. The writer does an excellent job of bringing home the shame and horror of being forced to surrender your body repeatedly to other humans who do not perceive you as human but as an object to be used. This is not a book for children. I felt queasy reading certain passages, and I am perhaps one of the most jaded Americans I know.

Despite or perhaps because of the discomfort I felt as the stories of characters I had come to care about unfolded and took turns for the worse, this book had me hypnotized throughout. It was better than Days of Infamy mostly because I was rooting for America to retake Hawaii the whole time. I had to wait to read End of the Beginning for this to happen.

Although the Japanese are portrayed as brutal (and they were, historically speaking), Turtledove also portrays some of his Japanese characters as likeable men dedicated to their duty. Commander Genda, who is the engineer of the invasion and Admiral Yamamoto’s protege, has an affair with the recently crowned Queen of Hawaii but he is a likable, intelligent man who is not brutal by nature and is simply doing his best to serve his nation.

End of the Beginning managed to to suck me through its 440 pages in two days and left me wanting to hear more of the story. My own war here in Iraq seems boring by comparison to the scope and scale of events in World War II, and Turtledove’s imagined land invasion of Hawaii is not that far off what might have happened. A highly worthwhile read for history buffs, action fans, romance lovers and adventure aficionados.

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Yesterday seemed like a typical day to begin with. I performed my normal webmaster duties, attended my normal "state of the site" meetings, and did all the wonderfully boring and bureaucratic things that have become the daily routine here in Baghdad. The work day ran later than usual, and for that, I’m thankful.

As we were getting ready to depart our AO (area of operations) about two hours later than normal, I got the word that the place where we live had taken incoming. This could really mean anything. Usually, it means that some insurgents have randomly fired mortars into the International Zone. These typically do little damage and are quickly cleaned up. Other than a loud boom or two, and perhaps a slight temporary detour from the normal path one walks, life goes on without any complications.

Yesterday, the situation was a little closer to home. Literally.

We found ourselves unable to return to our quarters. Without giving away any information that might be useful to mine enemies, I think it’s safe to say that had I returned home on time yesterday, I’d probably still be pretty shaken up as I write this blog entry. As it was, I couldn’t get to my living quarters until nearly midnight.

A near miss that doesn’t injure or kill you still makes you think a little bit. "What if" is what you think about. What if my living quarters had been about 50 feet that direction? What if I had been in the shower when that attack happened? What if that had hit my body? It’s somewhat sobering to sit there and listen to the big giant voice methodically listing which barracks areas are off limits and hearing your own among the number. It’s somewhat sobering having Marines in battle rattle tell you that you can’t go home just yet because there is UXO (unexploded ordanance) right next to where you live.

It’s nice to return to your bed later to find that you don’t have a big hole in your roof, and that you can still take a private shower and slip off into dreamland, where you’re never quite sure whether it will be sweet memories of life at home with your lovely wife or whether it will be tainted nightmares of being trapped in this boom town forever.

Life here isn’t exciting most days. Most days, it’s just like the movie Groundhog Day without the snow. Yesterday broke the routines and reminded me, and I’m sure others as well, that I am in a place where death is always only just around the corner. I am in a place where death rides the trajectory of a weapon held by a man who hates everything my life has been or will be. I am squarely in the crosshairs of those whose philosophy is submit or die. These desperate men see change coming and they are flailing about, drowning in the knowledge that their time of relevance and their power over others are both on the wane.

I will not submit. My way of life and my society, while sometimes poignantly flawed, are far superior to anything you can offer. My dreams are life-affirming and freedom loving. I am tolerant of those who do not kowtow to my way of thinking, except when you announce that you intend to murder me for being who I am. I am better than you because I do not seethe with blind, burning hatred. You are cancer and I am alpha interferon. You fear change and human progress while I embrace them. And I am still here, doing my job, wanting to harm no one but unwilling to sit idly by while you spread your philosophy of brutish evil by force, murder and hate filled teachings.

There are two ways to immigrate to the United States, legally and illegally. They are very different.

As a legal immigrant and naturalized citizen who submitted myself to the tedious, irritating and somewhat dehumanizing process of having the federal government approve my application for citizenship I would say this: if you are here illegally, instead of wasting time rallying in parks and demanding benefits you haven’t earned, start working on switching your status from illegal to legal. This will assure you many opportunities you will not otherwise have. One method of ensuring your eventual citizenship, if that is what you want, is to join the military and serve honorably. I know because I chose that path. If you aren’t here with the goal of legally becoming a citizen, then please go home.

This country isn’t about free rides, or it shouldn’t be. Learn English. Work on your education. Get your paperwork in order. Then you can protest and demand things. Until then, shut up. The American dream is reserved for people who try to live within the framework of the law.

To be fair, there are a lot of bad laws on the books. Perhaps you have found yourself inconvenienced by some of those. If so, then perhaps when you are done learning English and going through the naturalization process, you will find yourself motivated to become a lawyer. Maybe you will dedicate your life to government service and try to change things for the better. Until then, I’m tired of your whining. You are here illegally and therefore, you are not entitled to the same consideration that legal immigrants receive. If you cannot understand this, you do not belong here in any case.

Please consider moving to Waziristan where the idea of Rule of Law is not an important one. I’m sure they will welcome you.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. John McCain thinks that his ideas about "clean" government are more important than the Constitution he swore an oath to defend. Well I swore an oath to defend that same Constitution, and I disagree with Mr. McCain.

"He [Michael Graham] also mentioned my abridgement of First Amendment rights, i.e. talking about campaign finance reform….I know that money corrupts….I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I’d rather have the clean government."

Go read the source document and if you live in Arizona, I hope you’re really paying attention. Do you think "clean" government is more important than free speech?

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book. I’m a huge Neal Stephenson fan. His writing is wonderful. His characters are fascinating. This book, co-written with his uncle under the pen name Stephen Bury is, in my opinion, highly underrated.

First and foremost, if you’ve read Stephenson’s recent work (Cryptonomicon, The Baroque Cycle then you’ll probably find The Cobweb to be somewhat light reading. On the other hand, if you like thrillers, this is a very easy and palatable read.

What I enjoyed most about The Cobweb were the indictments of Washington bureaucrats, and of the way the U.S. Government works (or doesn’t, as is more likely). The books characters are people are I can relate to, whether we’re talking about simple speaking but intelligent deputy sheriff Clyde Banks or the cynical career CIA agent Hennessy. The family of wrestlers named Dhont and the (fictional) migratory Vakhan Turks added a lot to the tale.

Since I have spent five years on active duty in both the Marine Corps and the Army, I particularly enjoyed the critiques of bloated bureaucracy and the central theme of the book “being cobwebbed” by bureaucrats. The detailed descriptions of government bloat and inefficiency are spot on.

The Cobweb manages to mock politics, politicians, bureaucrats and bureaucray and I found that aspect of the novel highly refreshing. The only scene I found unrealistic or unbelievable in the entire novel was the shootout in downtown D.C., in which one of the characters survives a pistol battle only to ask, “What was that all about?” People who survive gun battles that take place inside a vehicle with the windows rolled up aren’t going to be able to hear, but I can forgive the authors since they’ve probably never heard a gun fired inside a car with the windows rolled up. I’m pretty sure a lot of the botulism stuff was unrealistic too, but I’m not a scientist, and so my suspension of disbelief remained intact in regards to the Iraqi terrorist plot to use botulism against Israel, and thereby break the coalition. I suspect that in the real world, though, such a scenario wouldn’t work, because the truth of the matter is that every country but Britain could have pulled out of the first Gulf War and the result would still have been identical. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting plot the kept my rapt attention throughout.

My favorite portion of The Cobweb is a long speech, in which the jaded Hennessy explains that government does not solve problems, it merely manages them. Bureaucrats don’t actually fix anything, they find ways to drag out and prolong the problems, making them their own and passing them on to the next crop of bureaucrats, who continue the process of managing the problems.

The Cobweb is a wonderful yarn that highlights the best and worst in people and institutions and it’s a wonderful romp through a fictional part of Iowa that I highly recommend. Guest starring two real historical characters – Tariq Aziz and George Herbert Walker Bush.

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There have been obvious signs over the last few days that the Iraqi government intends to do more of its own heavy lifting from now on. Assets appear to have begun being shuffled already.

I’m doubtful that my unit or I will be affected, but it’s fairly clear that the Iraqi government is quite interested in Iraqis taking care of their own problems. This is as it should be. While the United States and its allies have clear ideas about what Iraq should become, Iraqis are ultimately going to be the ones who decide what Iraq will evolve or devolve into.

Iraq isn’t really Iraq yet. Rather, it’s Shia, Sunni and Kurd, as it has been for a long swath of history. Under Saddam, Iraq was only held together by brutal force, one sociopath’s will and his ability to inflict raw fear. Whether Iraq will coalesce or splinter remains to be seen. Many Iraqis are staking their lives on the eventual outcome here. It seems clear to me from the elections held in December that most Iraqis want to solve debates a new way, through discussion and political processes rather than the use of force.

I have heard the first messages from the new Prime Minister about disbanding militias. What’s really critical is quelling the insurgency because the militias, in part, are a response to the lack of security for Iraq’s citizens. Integrating the militias into the military and police forces may be a partial solution, but only if the police and military are led by nationalists who can do two things – a) survive and b) control their units.
The United States, Britain and other members of the coalition will increasingly have to stand by on the sidelines as the Iraqis discover their national identity and try to forge a nation that respects life and affords citizens an existence of dignity and choices. It is going to take generations.

In the meantime, Iraqis will increasingly be going it alone.

“Certainly at the end of this year there would be a sizeable gross reduction of troops,” he said. “In the next couple of years we would hope that most of the coalition forces will go back home safely.”

Donald Rumsfeld and Condeleeza Rice visited us yesterday. I stayed in my hole, as I usually do. I have no real desire to meet the high and mighty in my government, as I might say something that would get me into trouble. I don’t get star struck like some people, and I’m not impressed by rank.

Reviews of the surpise visit by our Secretary of State and Defense Secretary were mixed but that is to be expected.

I try to read between the lines whenever these types of events happen, to figure out if anything truly noteworthy might result from such visits. I think the most hopeful development I heard out of yesterday’s visit was this:

He (Donald Rumsfeld) said as a practical matter, one of the first things he wants to do is address a long-standing irritant for ordinary Iraqis: the poor quality or lack of electricity.

Now that would truly be progress. For three years, Iraqis in Baghdad, the capital city, have suffered with spotty, erratic electricity. I don’t think a nation can be truly civilized without electricity. Air conditioners, televisions and computers are things that would greatly benefit this city. Not too mention the ability to refrigerate food, light your home and so forth.

In large American cities, when the power goes chaos isn’t usually far behind. I hope that the electricity situation in Baghdad and throughout Iraq really is going to be a higher priority. Keeping the power on would truly show Iraqis that their fledgling government is looking out for them, and that infrastructure is a priority and basic improvements to quality of life are coming.

I’m slightly dubious but hopeful.

A man in the Middle East needs your help making the world a better place.

The most wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, released a rare video of himself yesterday, proving to the world that he is alive and still playing an active part in the insurgency he helped to create.

Looking composed in black clothes and green combat webbing, the Jordanian head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was seen in his desert hideout posing with a captured US machinegun and planning tactics with followers, whose faces were hidden by black masks. “America has realised today that its tanks, armies and Shia agents will not be able to end the battle with the Mujahidin [fighters],” he said, referring to the newly-formed Government in Baghdad.

Most of us have, in our mind’s eye, a vision of various things that would make the world better. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is no exception. And he’ll murder anyone who disagrees or just happens to be in the way. If that sounds like a winning plan to you, then buy a one way ticket to Jordan. From there, it’s just a short car ride across the border into Iraq, where you should have no problem joining the insurgency.

There will be sacrifices.

Here are some things you’ll be giving up:

• Rational discussions of any issues – it’s Musab’s way or the shallow grave for you now that you’ve arrived
• Medical care (including dental) – it’s spotty at best
• Heat in winter/Cooling in summer – it gets pretty hot here and shorts are frowned on
• Access to most consumer goods you take for granted – pirated movies are easy to get but the electricity is pretty spotty
• Easy access to potable water – bring a lifetime supply of Immodium
• Daily bathing
• Religious freedom (you better learn your Qur’an before heading over)
• Sex (except within very stringent guidelines, see the holy book mentioned above)
• Freedom of speech (whine at your own peril)
• Your home and any automobiles you own
• 11 years off your expected lifespan, assuming you don’t meet a violent end shortly after arriving and being mistaken for an infidel
• Alcohol is frowned on by Islamic zealots, although they will probably allow you to get high at least one time if you volunteer for a suicide mission
• If you’re female, learn to obey men without question

Here’s what you’ll gain:

• The satisfaction of a glorious afterlife including an abundant supply of virgins*

*No money back gaurentee, females not included in offer

Me, I’m sticking with President Bush and his right hand man Rumsfeld for the time being. They may not be perfect, but they’re not likely to cut off my head or blow up my house over disagreements we may have.

This image was taken yesterday as a rain/sand storm made it’s way across central Baghdad. The storm lasted several hours, and strong winds turned the sky a color I’ve not seen before. The accompanying thunderstorm sounded like the biggest mortar barrage I’ve ever heard.

Earlier in the day, I had heard several car bombs go off, and they were puny in comparison to the power of nature. The violence and energy of one thunderstorm kind of put things back into perspective for me. Thunderstorms, however, do not intentionally target human beings for death. They are blind and furious but they are not malignant and evil as the lesser beings who live below them can tend to be.

Today, in its infinite wisdom, the Army forced me to submit to a "random" urine donation exercise. That’s a fancy way of saying blind bureaucracy wants some sort of tangible proof that I am not participating in the ingestion of prohibited substances. Luckily, I somehow managed to avoid using black tar heroin while I was home on leave so I am quite sure I passed this particular "test."

The amount of time and energy spent testing soldier’s urine samples could be invested in something worthwhile, like stopping insurgents from planting IEDs. But hey, that’s just me, a guy who thinks the drug war is a colossal waste of time and energy.

Taking a few hours out of my busy day to pee in a small plastic cup only to prove what my chain of command should already know – that I’m not using any illicit substances, is just part of the brave new world of bureaucracy we’ve all come to accept. I suppose one day when we’re all forced to wear a microchip that monitors our every moment of existence to ensure that none of us is doing anything Uncle Sam doesn’t approve of, well, we’ll all be the better for it. Or something.

This Reason article claims that the War on Terror is actually a war on jihadists, and is well worth reading.

“I think defining who the enemy is is a real problem in this war,” says Mary Habeck, a military historian at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. “If you can’t define who’s a real threat and who’s just exercising free speech, it’s a problem.” As it happens, Habeck is the author of one of three new books that, taken together, suggest the time is right to name the battle. It is a war on jihadism.

Go educate yourself a little bit. Call them Islamists, or jihadists, or Caliphatists or radical Muslims, but don’t do a disservice to the mission by continuing to allow the mission creep that is already threatening to lose this war for us. This is not a war against terror. You can’t fight a war against something that nebulous and win. This is a war against the people who want fundamentalist Islamic governments worldwide. This is a war against people who want a Caliphate that rules the East and eventually the West. This is a war against people who want to force their rigid belief system on EVERYONE.

Much like the War on Drugs is unwinnable, the War on Terror is a pipe dream. The moniker is being used as an excuse for government growth and abuses that would make most of the men and women who founded the United States of America turn over in their graves.

I’m tired of waiting. I can’t imagine how much more that feeling affects actual Iraqis who are forced to live in a state of choas and uncertainty because their leaders aren’t leading.

Speaking by videoteleconference with reporters at the Pentagon, Col. David Gray, commander of the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, said the political vacuum in Baghdad is troubling Iraqis in Kirkuk, the capital of the oil-rich region in northern Iraq. Kurds would like to incorporate the Kirkuk area into their self-ruled region known as Kurdistan, a move opposed by Arabs, Turkomen and the Turkish government in Ankara.

“They’re a little bit apprehensive,” Gray said, referring to provincial and local leaders in the Kirkuk area.

In Baghdad, there appeared to be progress Friday toward forming a unity government. Shiite politicians agreed to nominate Jawad al-Maliki as prime minister, replacing the incumbent Ibrahim al-Jaafari, whose nomination had sparked sharp opposition from Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders and caused a four-month deadlock.

I, for one, would like to hear that final decisions have been reached. As I sit typing this the power brokers of Iraq are meeting nearby. Four months should be enough time to figure out who the prime minister will be. It’s quiet – there are no distractions. Haven’t heard an IED, VBIED, mortar, or rocket all day. Let’s get some decisions made, for the love of all that is holy.

I think al-Jafaari is out and someone I’ve never heard of named al-Maliki is in. Great, if al-Maliki is willing to work on building an Iraq where everyone has basic human rights, and where the insurgency is stomped on so hard that the truly important tasks such as rebuilding a country neglected for 30 years can really get underway.

Lead or be damned by the ghosts of those who died waiting for Iraq to be transformed into a place where decent people can lead happy lives.

Days of Infamy was an easy read for me. I finished it in two sittings, which isn’t bad for a tome that runs 440 pages in hardcover. The premise – Japan following up the air attack on Hawaii with a land invasion, is a fascinating one. Turtledove develops a palatable chain of events the could and probably would have happened had such an attack occurred. His characters are compelling, and he tells the story from the viewpoint of both Japanese and American characters, as well as throwing in some others for a nice potpourri. Imagine Hawaii with a king – I won’t say anymore to keep from spoiling the tale.

I think that Mr. Turtledove probably understated the brutality of the Japanese a little bit. If you read this book and don’t already have a firm understanding of what did happen in World War II, then read about the Rape of Nanking. Days of Infamy does address the sheer brutality of Japanese troops during World War II, but barely begins to touch on the scale of the brutality. The main characters in the book are spared watching their wives and children raped and murdered in orgies of what I would call unrestrained evil. Massacres with knives, swords and bayonets are absent in this imagined invasion of Hawaii, although the Japanese are cruel and harsh as conquerers.

Perhaps the lack of massacres is a realistic one. The Japanese left foreigners in China mostly unmolested as they pillaged the land they conquered. Centuries of animosity between Japan and China might have been one of the reasons for the wholescale slaughters of Chinese. Having read other Harry Turtledove alternate history novels, I know that he does meticulous research and believe he has written a fairly realistic what-if book in this case as well.

What’s great about this "novel" is that it kept me spellbound throughout the invasion and up until the climactic naval air battle in the last chapter. What’s not great about this tome is that nowhere on the jacket are readers told that that book is the first in a series. It sucked me in without being honest and that irritates me. The book ends without wrapping up the surviving characters stories.

Two of the main characters, artillery officer Fletcher Armitage and his ex-wife Jane are in limbo as the book ends. Fletcher is slowly dying of starvation in a POW camp as Jane grows her own vegetables and worries about being raped by occupying Japanese troops. And another character, introduced halfway through the book, Joe Crosetti, is still flying trainer planes stateside on his journey to become a naval aviator. There are plenty of other characters whose stories are left unfinished as the book ends.

Clearly, the book is part of a series. I liked the first installment enough to buy the second to find out what happens to the remaining characters. I don’t appreciate not being told I’d have to invest another $50 to do so. If a book is part of a series, then the cover should tell you so.

Days of Infamy is an excellent read. It’s well researched and the descriptions of men and machines are detailed and highly interesting. The characters feel real to me, and I wrote a four year weekly column about World War II while on active duty in the Marine Corps, so I probably have a better education about World War II than most who might be interested in this book and the ones that follow. Highly recommended for those who enjoy reading for the pure pleasure of reading, and for those who don’t mind getting a little history lesson out of their novels.

I read this entire novel while traveling from Baghdad, Iraq to Atlanta, Georgia on my two weeks rest and relaxation so kindly afforded to me by the government as a reward for serving in a combat zone.

Kiln People is a fun read, with plenty of plot twists around the central idea that society has discovered a way to make a cheap replaceable you. People can have cheap copies of themselves made for various purposes. These copies only last one day, but multiple copies can be made per day if you have the resources.

The central character in Kiln People is detective Albert Morris, who has been hired by multiple groups with multiple agendas to solve the same central mystery. The mystery revolves around changes to the people copying industry. Without giving away anymore of the plot, if you can imagine a world where someone has reduced the soul to a science, and figured out how to copy it into a clay vessel, then you will probably enjoy some of the resulting imagined social changes as described by author Brin.

Some of the scenarios envisioned are very interesting. Casual sex without any consequences that we face today, such as disease. Dying over and over again being of no consequence because the original you survives. Most interesting is the plethora of changes to social mores as most people spend most of their time in throwaway bodies and the new social groups that result in support and opposition of cloning and cheap throwaway selves.

The book got almost unbearable towards the end as the central character is changed. Without throwing in massive spoilers, suffice it to say that I thought Mr. Brin spent way too much time trying to explain quantum mechanics and the Soul Standing Wave ruined my suspension of disbelief somewhat. Overall though, I enjoyed Kiln People’s action, mystery and massively complex plot sequences that all inexorably drew together into a grand finale that was odd but enjoyable. I’d pick up another Brin novel in a heartbeat.

Not much changed here in Iraq in the two weeks I was gone. People are still killing each other and acting like soulless fools.

The Shiites and the Sunnis are at each others throats like a pack of surly dogs that needs an alpha male to keep them in check. That’s sad to say, but it’s true. Now that Saddam is a fading memory and Iraqi “leaders” have nothing to worry about from above, they’re proving that they just need another Saddam to keep them in check.

Frankly, Iraq’s politicians are failing Iraq’s people, miserably. The government should have been seated months ago. The politicians need to seat the government, immediately. Every day they delay and continue wrangling is another day of unnecessary bloodshed, another day of tragedies that make it harder to move forward once a four-year government is seated.

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Militants killed two people at elementary schools in a mainly Shiite district of Baghdad on Wednesday, the government said. But police in the neighborhood denied any attack occurred.

The situation is confusing, even to those who live here. It’s being muddled on purpose, by those who do not profit from stability, or peace, or prosperity and those who are merely hungry for power.

What hasn’t changed since I left on R&R is the necessity for the U.S. of seeing things through here. Abandonment is not a recipe for anything good. Running away now would condemn Iraq to another strongman dictator and in the long run that would have worse consequences for the Middle East and the world than staying the tough, confusing and often painful course that has been tenatively and sometimes short sightedly laid out by the administration and U.S. policy makers.

One of the key missing ingredients on all sides is honesty. I would love to see more honesty from the mouths of the decision makers.

I’m back in Iraq for the second half of my tour as a public affairs go-to guy. R&R just flew by. I found myself resentful when the moment I had to walk away from my wife at Atlanta’s airport actually arrived. I didn’t really want to leave. But I volunteered and I follow through on things, as a general rule.

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After seemingly endless plane rides and an artificially induced semi-catatonic state caused by shuffling from one metal box to another, sleeping and eating and sleeping again, I’m back for the back half of my tour of duty. I can’t say I’m excited. The food back home was better. Sleeping in my own bed felt right. Holding my wife was nice. Being home fits me better than being here. But here I am.

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I’ll make the best of it and do the best job that I can.

If you wonder where your tax money goes, perhaps you should read this article.

And where did that 40% of your income go? Most of it, if you’re under 65 and working at a regular job, went to the less fortunate. The numbers are stunning. Federal expenditures were $2.55 trillion, with $495 billion going for national defense and another $272 billion going for purchased goods and wages paid. At the same time some $1.69 trillion was transferred to someone else — well, actually a lot of someone elses. That’s some federal case.

Income redistribution makes up the lion’s share of your stolen sweat, your pilfered time and your wasted dollars. No wonder most of you are cheating.

More proof that Americans have no idea what personal responsibility is – the idiot DEA agent who shot himself with his own handgun is now suing the DEA for leaking the video of him handling his weapon irresponsibly. Apparently, the only lesson Lee Paiged learned from his own stupidity was that someone else should pay him for being a moron.

Lee Paige was making a presentation to children at the Orlando Youth Minority Golf Association on April 9, 2004, when he shot himself. Moments before the shooting, the 14-year agency veteran was displaying his firearm and telling students he was the only one in the room professional enough to handle a gun.

He was suspended for five days without pay after the accident, and the video was turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The lawsuit filed April 7 in federal court in Washington alleges the agency leaked the video to the public.

Frankly, the video should be part of the public record. It’s the perfect lesson on government employee arrogance, and the ideal reminder that a gun is ALWAYS loaded, so you should never, ever point it at anything you are not willing to shoot.

Government agencies and officials like to pretend that they are the only ones responsible enough to handle certain dangerous items and that they are the only people qualified enough to deal with problems that are just too big for us “average” folks to handle.

What garbage. Lee Paige should be forced to wear a hat that says “I shot myself in the foot in front of a room full of kids and all I got was that stupid hat.” He should also have to pay all the court costs involved in filing his suit when he loses. Being publicly ridiculed when you do something idiotic has value. It can teach you not to repeat the action that caused the ridicule.

This guy didn’t even lose his job, but since he didn’t shoot himself in his giant cajones, he is using them to attempt something that his shame should make him think twice about. Lee Paige, I’m publicly going to tell you I think you are an idiot, and I don’t think you learned the right lesson from shooting yourself in the foot. You should have gone and taken a gun handling class. You probably should have been fired. You’re living proof that our government employees are no more likely to be responsible with sensitive items than anyone else is.

You complain that people recognize you and that you can no longer work undercover because of the publicity you received. Good. You deserve negative attention.

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Click on the images if you want a little more info about what you’re seeing.

Bloggers take note:

A syndication service that delivers commentary from 600 bloggers for use by newspaper publishers is set to launch on Tuesday, further blurring the lines that divide blogs and mainstream media.

BlogBurst, as the service from blog technology company Pluck Corp. is known, includes headlines and articles for use by newspaper publishers in the news or feature sections of their online services, as well as print editions.

Blogs are changing the way we communicate across the board. Previously unheard voices are now able to find their audiences. It’s great.

I don’t like the TSA and I think DHS is an unncessary agency. The below story is probably not representative of federal employees in either agency, but there really isn’t a lot to boast about when it comes to the two new behemoths of bureaucratic bulls**t. Anyhow, presented for your reading pleasure is the sordid tale of a high ranking Homeland “Security” official named Brian J. Doyle, who, at 55 years of age, has not yet learned to control his penis. Rather, it continues to control him.

During online conversations, Doyle revealed his name, who he worked for and offered his office and government-issued cell phone numbers, the sheriff’s office said.

On several occasions, Doyle instructed her to perform a sexual act while thinking of him and described explicit activities he wanted to have with her, investigators said.

This is a guy you have signed over your security proxy too. This is one of the men who decide you can’t fly with a lighter because you might use it to take over the plane. One of the same people who make the rules that say a member of your nation’s military isn’t qualified or trustworthy enough to have a knife or multitool on board while flying. Yet he’s busy giving out his professional information to a fake 14-year-old on the Internet.

This man must have passed some sort of background check prior to being hired.

When people are almost completely disconnected from their government and when bureaucracy is used as a substitute for logic, then it is inevitable that we’ll hear about more and more high quality employees like this guy. He may not be typical of the people of Homeland Security, but I’d bet money he is, in regards to his overall lack of personal self-control and obvious lack of ability to use reason. While not every TSA or DHS employee is interested in molesting a 14-year-old, what is typical of the employees of those two agencies (the ones I have met) is a sense of bureaucratic ennui and a lack of common sense (Mr. Doyle certainly demonstrated the latter of the two.)

The rich irony of a government official posing as a 14-year-old temptress and hooking another government official interested in molesting said fake 14-year-old shouldn’t escape those who peruse this article. I wonder how large we can grow our most parasitic social entity before is causes our society to collapse inward upon itself. I also wonder what sort of new society will rise from the ashes.

The trip home took a LONG TIME. It was ridiculous. After catching a C-130 ride from Baghdad International Aiport to Kuwait, I spent a day scrambling to get a paperwork error corrected on my leave form. A missing signature threatened to keep me in Kuwait for up to five days, but my unit got the problem corrected and I was able to catch my charter flight from Kuwait to Atlanta, with a stopover in Germany.

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The process is one that seems interminable. In Kuwait, you’re put into a tent with a group of other soldiers going on R&R and you spend your time sleeping or drinking coffee or in the PX in the middle of a tent city in the desert. You have to attend several briefings in which you are shuffled through lines having your paperwork copied over and over. Reminders of the rules for leave are constant. Once you’ve had your travel papers processed, you are put in “lockdown.” This is basically a self-run customs facility which is fenced in with concertina wire. Everyone is searched and all belongings are scanned by humans and machines to ensure that no one makes it home with any contraband. The list of contraband is ridiculous and includes items such as sand, soil and of course grenades, bullets, weapons and war trophies.

What is most disturbing about this process is that the government doesn’t trust its own employees to be honest or responsible. I suppose that some bad apples must be serving in the military. It is inevitable in such a large cross sample of humanity. It’s the dehumanization factor that I don’t like. In ten years of military service, I’ve never once been in any trouble. If the government can trust me with a rifle, pistol or machine gun and some ammo as well as the lives of those around me when armed, I can’t understand why I’m suddenly treated like a criminal when it’s time to go home. The whole mentality of treating everyone like a herd animal that is so prevelant in government is highly discouraging. With all the technology available to us, you’d think they would be able to profile people individually and only single out those who have various risk factors such as a history of not following the rules, etc for the sort of negative treatment we received in customs. More importantly, what does it say about our system that we are trusted with the power of life and death and then suddenly a magic switch is supposed to turn us all back into the sort of moo cows we seem to be in 21st century U.S. airports.

Ironically, the tents we were kept in during lockdown were named Freedom Tent 1, 2 and 3.

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The bus ride from our desert tent city to the airport seemed to stretch on forever. The plane ride from Kuwait to Germany to Atlanta caused my mental faculties to go into hibernationa mode. All I remember is alternately eating, drowsing, reading and watching movies punctuated by trips to the bathroom and a couple glances out the window as we passed over tundra that might have been Greenland.

It is good to be home with my wife. It is good to be in a place where the sound of explosions and war are not part of the background noise. I’ve been enjoying the bliss of domesticity and I’m looking forward to pursuing one of my favorite activities – exploring the North Georgia countryside.

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The military is an honorable institution that is plagued by bureaucracy, statism and the mentally lazy. On my way home for two weeks R&R (rest & relaxation) I am suddenly reduced from being a talented, mentally stable master technician to the status of lowly herd animal.

It begins with a helicopter trip from LZ Washington to BIAP. You may be asking what that means. I did the first time someone mentioned the departure and destination points. LZ Washington is landing zone Washington, the premiere departure and ingress point for those who have business in the International (aka Green) Zone, located in the heart of Baghdad. BIAP is, of course, Baghdad International Airport, which is currently less of a traditional international airport and more of a giant military hub. There are two ways to leave the Green Zone, by road or by air. Air is the faster, less inconvenient and less dangerous of the two, statistically speaking. So LZ Washington to BIAP via Catfish Air is how I started my R&R.

When you depart LZ Washington for BIAP you make a combat takeoff and zoom low over Baghdad. The trip is amazing. There are plenty of signs that there is strife taking place below. I saw at least two Iraqi police caravans winding their way through the giant maze that is Baghdad, sirens blazing and flashers flashing. More interesting to me though, were the signs of building taking place. We passed over slum areas, but we also passed over a myriad of construction projects. Many of these were private residences, some of them opulent. I saw lots of commerce taking place below me, lots of bustling activity and people carrying out their daily lives. No sign of the media’s wished for civil war were evident from the air. I’m sure things look different from street level, and that bad people are still moving about plotting evil, but they certainly aren’t choking the lifeblood of the city of Baghdad – the heart of Iraq. I saw no signs of an eminent myocardial infarction.

For some reason, nameless bureaucrats somewhere have decided that the likelihood of my abusing the responsibility of having weapons is vastly magnified when I am placed into any type of flying vessel. Before you can go on leave you must surrender all your weapons and spend seemingly interminable hours of unarmed waiting in various areas around BIAP. Once you are actually at BIAP and only hours from departure, you’ll find yourself in the midst of milling crowds of mildly irritable or completely indifferent but also disarmed military personnel from all branches as well as lots of seemingly randomly placed civilians.

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The BIAP waiting area is a small covered cement field with picnic tables surrounded by a huge field of what appear to be stream worn rocks. The one cardinal rule of the BIAP waiting pen is stay away from the rocks. The bureaucrats who run the place are obsessed with not allowing people to lie on or sleep on the rocks. Every five minutes, an announcer reminds everyone not to lie on the rocks, sleep on the rocks, or enjoy the rocks in any way.

This blog will be going silent for at least a few days. I mention this for those of you who check in daily. I’m OK, thanks for caring!

This morning started off with a bang. Our first bomb woke me promptly at 6 AM. Since that is my normal rise and shine time, I got in the shower and went to work. The bombs don’t stop daily life here, unless you happen to be in the immediate vicinity of the blast. We heard two more by 8 AM. The only thing worth mentioning about them is that they are the first I’ve heard in almost two weeks.

Iraq is floating the middle of a sea of carefully orchestrated violence. It’s awash in disinformation campaigns. Everyone here has an agenda. Bearing that in mind, remember that the coalition’s mission is to provide basic infrastructure, security and what boils down to hope for humanity by providing choices in government. In particular this involves creating a government that respects human rights and values life. For three years, the old guard evil that lives in and around Iraq has been fighting against these things. It’s not in the interests of men who need complete control of a society to allow rebuilding and prosperity. Freedom of movement, freedom of information and freedom of thought are incompatible with rule by fear and ignorance.

Well fed, well clothed and well educated Iraqis who are happy in their daily lives represent a great threat to the status quo in this part of the world, especially in Syria and Iran. If we can all be convinced to give up on Iraq, the destroyers and parasites will again take power here, and the daily hopelessness of 26 million Iraqis will fade from the world stage for a time. Bad things will breed inside corrupt minds in that forgotten darkness. One fine day, you’ll be on your way to work and the world explode in flames around you, like it did for thousands of us on September 11, 2001.

Iraq may not have been the direct source of the twisted minds of the 9-11 hijackers, but the same mentality they had was born here more than one thousand years ago, and continues to breed wherever resolute men are unwilling to fight it.

You would think the CPT organization would find it in their hearts to at least offer thanks for the rescue. Nope. This is the statement released by the Christian “Peacemakers” after their remaining three hostages were rescued from captivity and almost certain torture and murder and given free medical care:

Harmeet, Jim and Norman and Tom were in Iraq to learn of the struggles facing the people in that country. They went, motivated by a passion for justice and peace to live out a nonviolent alternative in a nation wracked by armed conflict. They knew that their only protection was in the power of the love of God and of their Iraqi and international co-workers. We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq. The occupation must end.

Today, in the face of this joyful news, our faith compels us to love our enemies even when they have committed acts which caused great hardship to our friends and sorrow to their families. In the spirit of the prophetic nonviolence that motivated Jim, Norman, Harmeet and Tom to go to Iraq, we refuse to yield to a spirit of vengeance. We give thanks for the compassionate God who granted our friends courage and who sustained their spirits over the past months. We pray for strength and courage for ourselves so that, together, we can continue the nonviolent struggle for justice and peace.

Throughout these difficult months, we have been heartened by messages of concern for our four colleagues from all over the world. We have been especially moved by the gracious outpouring of support from Muslim brothers and sisters in the Middle East, Europe, and North America. That support continues to come to us day after day. We pray that Christians throughout the world will, in the same spirit, call for justice and for respect for the human rights of the thousands of Iraqis who are being detained illegally by the U.S. and British forces occupying Iraq.

During these past months, we have tasted of the pain that has been the daily bread of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Why have our loved ones been taken? Where are they being held? Under what conditions? How are they? Will they be released? When?

What an incoherent, rambling set of thoughts.

I just visited the CPT site again, and they did post the “first of several addendas” in which they very grudgingly thanked the people who risked their lives to save three people who couldn’t save themselves and were counting on God to intervene on their behalf. Well, I guess God did intervene in the form of men with guns who were willing to use them. The CPT author(s) couldn’t resist throwing in some meaningless crap about how happy they were no shots were fired during the rescue. Guess what, the harsh reality is that the only shots you should have been worried about were fired into the body of your colleague. Those bullets were fired by radical Muslims, not “the illegal occupiers” who, by the way, are only still here because Iraqis have asked them to stay. The history of inhuman violence and the cheapness of life in Iraq (Mesopotamia) goes back at least 1,200 years and probably much further. Your captors didn’t care that you were here to “help them” or whatever it was you thought your were doing.

You help people by giving them a good solid education. You help people by teaching them useful skills that put food on the table. You help people by providing them with positive memes. You help people by teaching them not to think in terms of old tribal disputes and by helping them focus on nationalism instead of sectarianism. You help people by making sure they’re fed, clothed and healthy and giving them the tools they need to take care of those things themselves in the long term. You don’t help people by getting kidnapped by thugs and then blaming your rescuers for the bad things that happened to you because you were misguided.

But that’s just my unofficial opinion. I guess I could be wrong. Maybe if I threw away all my guns, my enemies would too. I think I’ll keep them though, just in case.

The Forever War is primarily the story of a soldier named William Mandella. Mandella is a time traveling space warrior who jumps from battle to battle over a period of hundreds of years, fighting an inhuman enemy called the Taurans. As he fights, those around him die, and everything he knows back on Earth changes. Mandella is a draftee and when his initial compulsory service ends, he tries to make a go of it on back home on Earth. Things have changed too much, and so he and his paramour, Marygay, find themselves voluntarily rejoining the war in progress.

Without giving everything away, I will say that the ending to this novel was highly disappointing to me. There are many fascinating ideas explored within the book itself and the battle scenes kept my interest. The idea of societally mandated homosexuality was particularly interesting as author Joe Haldeman explored what it would be like if everyone’s sexual “polarity” could be switched from one preference to another at will.

Don’t read any further unless you want the ending spoiled. The fatal flaw of this novel, in my opinion, is that a 250 page novel was wrapped in the last eight pages as our hero, now a major, finds out that his thousand year war was all a mistake perpetrated on purpose by the military brass who wanted to boost the economy of Earth. For 200+ pages we are treated to war, war and more war. Then it the last eight pages, we find out a thousand year life has been nothing but a mistake perpetrated by amoral men. The Forever War was an interesting read, but the plot wrap didn’t sink in too well for me. I’m in the middle of a real war in Iraq and there are two groups here who have been killing each other for about 1,200 years on and off. They are called Shia and Sunni. I’m not sure how realistic it is to ever expect that a war, once begun, will end with a societal epiphany like “Oh, it was all just a giant miscommunication. Everyone stop fighting.”

War may be a monument to human stupidity, but we’ve got a lot of stupid left to kill off and some of us seem to be breeding even more stupid. Until we fix that, war is going to be a fact of being human. The Forever War is an enjoyable read but it didn’t really change my worldview any.

By Trevor Snyder | willtoexist.com

A large majority of blog readers think traditional media sources should withdraw completely from reporting within a year. The Will to Exist reports that the poll of 100 bloggers, conducted by Will to Exist International, found that only three percent of blog readers felt the traditional media sources continue to remain unbiased and/or relevant as reliable sources of accurate reporting about world events. Although the poll, conducted in March of 2006, was carried out without Pentagon approval, The Will to Exist International said they did have the approval of commanders in Iraq.

Of the 100 blog readers who participated in the unpaid opinion gathering poll, 75 percent felt that traditional media sources have become “increasingly biased and irrelevant” leading some experts to conclude that many newspapers and television stations may soon face serious financial woes. Twenty percent of poll participants believed the media was “a mixed bag.” Three percent said traditional media sources were “doing a great job” and only 2 percent weren’t sure what the hell was going on.

The poll was funded by an unknown and mysterious organization called the Center for Citizen Empowerment, which received money for the project from an anonymous prowar activist. Trevor Snyder, the president of The Will to Exist International, said the donor had no imput on the content of the poll, or how it was conducted. Of those surveyed, 75 percent visited blogs multiple times, 62 percent had stopped using traditional news sources such as daily newspapers and network news stations, and 25 percent were angry at pollster John Zogby, whom they believe to be biased.

One surprising finding in the poll is that 85 percent of those surveyed believe that liberals display a surprising inability to harness the power of logic when making decisions and that that might be one primary source of the increasing backlash against a perceived or perhaps real bias in reporting from traditional mainstream media news sources. Numerous commissions and studies have been unable to prove that polls have much scientific value, or that elected leaders should use them as a guide for making important decisions. Meanwhile, 18 percent of bloggers said that they wished someone would invent a keyboard that wouldn’t get sticky when soft drinks (also called soda pop in some parts of the United States) are accidentally spilled while blogging.

“We were surprised by that, especially the 18 percent [figure],” Snyder said. “Clearly too many people are trying to drink and type at the same time, and the public certainly deserves, at a minimum, a keyboard which can be run through the dishwasher.”

In discussing the findings on its website, Will to Exist International said that when bloggers were asked why they think that some Americans want better reporting and less bias from news sources, said:

“I think it’s the fact that they hire people who are pretty instead of intelligent. Maybe that’s a symptom of a larger problem. Perhaps Americans are too focused on being pretty or at least looking at people who are pretty and not focused enough on having some sort of meaningful substance to the fabric that makes up their lives. Don’t ya know?”

Editor’s Note: The above blog entry was copied directly from a “real news story” and then re-written to suit the tastes of The Will to Exist International. All poll results cited above are mostly real. Margin of error +/- 5 percent (margin of error is completely made up and not based on any mathematical formula.)

I’ve interviewed one of the soldiers in my unit, SPC David Claffey, who just returned from Tal’Afar. Here are some of the things he had to say:

“. . .Since the war began it seems that city has been a focal point for conflict. . .Al-Qaeda of Iraq once had their headquarters there. . .”

“. . .From every indication I got, the letters (from the mayor of Tall Afar) were certainly not fake. . .we did ask him. . .he was very adamant. . .he said they came right from his heart. . .”

“. . .It’s just a complex situation here. I personally feel that we’re doing a great job here (in Iraq). I really think that we are making a difference. . .”

Listen to the full interview with SPC Claffey. It’s unofficial, not sugar coated and uncensored. The partial quotes above are some of the more positive portions of the interview. You’ll have to listen to all of it to get Claffey’s opinion in full context.

Sometimes I get upset about the way the media reports things. I have a hard time believing their polls and quotes and so on. I would love to know which troops Zogby interviewed to get these results:

More than 70 percent of US troops now in Iraq want American troops withdrawn in 2006, according to a new poll of more than 900 troops by Zogby International.

I conducted my own informal survey of random people I work with daily. You can hear the results for yourself, uncensored and spin free. They differ significantly from Zogby’s findings. I have no idea what he had to do to scrounge up his numbers. He certainly didn’t call those soldiers during their family dinner hour. Anyway, hear for yourself what some people on the ground think about pulling out now.

However, there is considerable confusion about the reason for the invasion. According to the poll, 85 percent of the survey respondents said that the US mission is mainly “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9/11 attacks”, and 77 percent said that they also believe that the main or a major reason for the war was “to stop Saddam from protecting Al Qaeda in Iraq”.

I am not confused about why I am here. Read a few previous entries in this blog if you doubt me. I conducted my poll mainly to retaliate for biased reporting from silly people with an agenda that baffles me.

In the long run, it doesn’t matter what American troops favor anyhow. We aren’t the elected decision makers for national security policy, we just carry it out. If what we’re told to do is moral and lawful, we do it. Most of us, I think, believe what we’re doing in Iraq is both lawful and moral, so we do it, even when we are having a bad hair day.

By the way, decent human beings working together to make Iraq a better place rescued the remaining Christian “Peacekeepers” who were being held hostage.

I’ve been doing book reviews here for a little while. I might as well share my thoughts on movies. I watched Lord of War starring Nicholas Cage last night. It sucked.

I won’t give away all the details in case you want to watch it for yourself. The acting is somewhat flat, but it’s tolerable. What’s truly sucky about the movie is the moral message – it’s muddled. I’m not sure what the main message is. Perhaps the movie’s creator was trying to say something meaningful about warfare, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Perhaps he wanted us all to believe that arms dealers are the source of all evil. Perhaps he wanted to ram home the message that the permanent members of the United Nations security council are also the world’s largest arms dealers.

The irony of making a movie portraying Western nations as the devils behind every third world war is that the most horrible scene in the movie is a scene in which a mother and son are hacked to death by a gang of thugs armed with machetes and the only man with a conscience about it is a Westerner. The whole movie is based on a fictional arms dealer played by Cage and a very loose intrepretation of a very real and very evil character named Charles Taylor, who at one time in the fairly recent past ruled Liberia.

Lord of War sucks because it pushes the idea that the major militaries of the world are behind all the evil in the world when the truth is that evil exists mostly independent of those military forces. Some men, if given a rock, will use it to bash in the heads of anyone they can.

In particular, the scene in which Nicholas Cage and his brother are meeting with a Sierra Leone warlord on a rise above a refugee camp was unrealistic. The scene shows a tent camp filled with unarmed Africans being circled by a single truck filled with machete wielding thugs. While Cage negotiates over a payment of “blood diamonds” for his two trucks filled with guns, RPGs and grenades, his brother watches a child try to escape the camp, followed by the mother. Both of them are hacked to death with machetes while curled up in a fetal position.

The scene tugs at the emotional strings of anyone watching, but the premise of the scene is as flawed as the premise of the movie. Men with machetes and murderous intent don’t need black market guns to kill a camp full of refugees. In real life, they’ll use the machetes if that’s all they have. In real life, Nicholas Cage would never have been able to negotiate his diamonds for guns deal above a refugee camp full of innocents waiting to be slaughtered. They would have been slaughtered prior to his arrival with whatever was available.

Lord of War is based on the same flawed thinking that motivates anti-gun crusaders in the U.S. to try and outlaw personal weapons ownership. Blaming guns for what lives in the hearts and minds of men is silly, and doesn’t solve any long-term problems of men killing other men. You don’t build responsible, healthy societies by dumbing down the population and more than you do by killing anyone who disagrees with you.

Lord of War shows us an inaccurate picture of war as it tries to blame all of Africa’s problems on the West. There are no scenes showing British peacekeepers as they end the civil war in Sierra Leone. There are no scenes showing any of the centuries long history of tribal warfare that has gone on in the region. None of Liberia’s history is put into context. All we are presented with is an amoral arms dealer and the impression that the U.S. government is behind all the violence in Africa because of shadowy arms deals and greedy profiteers. Taking pieces of the truth and rearranging them to fit your worldview is a dangerous business with far reaching consequences.

You might want to watch Lord of War, but I would highly recommend researching the history of the larger events portrayed in the movie prior to doing so. In particular, I would recommend reading the full history of Liberia and Sierra Leone. The U.S. government has certainly been involved in the area for some time, but the real story is much more complex and layered than what we’re shown in the movie.

Pre-Lord of War Homework assignment 1
Pre-Lord of War Homework assignment 2
Pre-Lord of War Homework assignment 3

The President gave a pretty decent speech last night. I think he’s wrong on a lot of domestic stuff, but I fully support the war in Iraq.

Last December, four short months ago, more than 11 million people expressed their opinion. They said loud and clear at the ballot box that they desire a future of freedom and unity.

And now it is time for the leaders to put aside their differences, reach out across political, religious and sectarian lines, and form a unity government that will earn the trust and confidence of all Iraqis.

My administration, led by Ambassador Zal Khalilzad, is helping and will continue to help the Iraqis achieve this goal.

The situation on the ground remains tense. In the face of continued reports about killings and reprisals, I understand how some Americans have had their confidence shaken.

Others look at the violence they see each night on their television screens and they wonder how I can remain so optimistic about the prospects of success in Iraq. They wonder what I see that they don’t.

So today I’d like to share a concrete example of progress in Iraq that most Americans do not see every day in their newspapers or on their television screens. I’m going to tell you the story of a northern Iraqi city called Tal Afar, which was once a key base of operations for Al Qaida and is today a free city that gives reason for hope for a free Iraq.

Tal Afar is a city of more than 200,000 residents, roughly the population of Akron, Ohio. In many ways Tal Afar is a microcosm or Iraq. It has dozens of tribes of different ethnicity and religion. Most of the city residents are Sunnis of Turkoman origin.

I’ve written about Tall Afar several times, here, here and here. Accentuating the positive stories in Iraq is vital.

Of course, Bush has, for a variety of reasons, earned the blind hatred of nearly half of the politically active segments of the population. These people will criticize and question any success story. If God himself came down from Heaven and appeared on CNN announcing to the American public that George W. Bush was the right man to lead the nation, these people would still be sending e-mail like this to me over here in Iraq:

“Bush is a killer war monger, a piece of crap, another bastard who is a chicken shit turn coat who could not support this country in the fight in nam. . .” and “. . .the solders (sic) are again little boys that have chosen to play the game ‘kil’l (sic), so if they get killed — oh well, that’s the game. . .”

I truly wonder what people like the man who wrote the above do for a living and strongly suspect that they are some of the same people who have been sucking the government tit that I continue to support with my tax dollars when I’m not wearing the uniform. People like him make me want to throw my support behind Bush more than I would otherwise. After all, not doing so sometimes feels like letting the idiots win. I look at the people who call our President dumb and make PhotoShop pictures of his face on a monkey’s body, and I think to myself, my God, we’re raising a generation of people who don’t have anything useful to contribute to our society.

Debate has to be intelligent for it to be useful. Meanwhile, in Iraq, Iraqis and Americans are dying while you mock the President. Do you really want to leave Iraq in the hands of ruthless murderers? If you do, then maybe one day, your town will be visited by the same sort of animals masquerading as humans. Maybe you’ll have the “pleasure” of living in a lawless place where your death could be hiding just around any corner. Maybe you’ll have the opportunity to sleep restlessly every night wondering when your house will be mortared because you happen to be (insert ethnic or religious affiliation of your choice). Perhaps you’ll enjoy watching your wife gang raped in front of you before you are shot in the head by a gang of thugs.

Is the President perfect? Certainly not. Should he have to deal with healthy criticism? Certainly. Healthy is the keyword. Most of his opponents appear to me to be mentally unhealthy and projecting their own shortcomings onto him. You don’t solve problems by running away from them. Iraq had been a problem for 30 years. Now it’s being solved, and yes, it does hurt.

Fareed Zakaria has written an op-ed piece explaining why he thinks Iraq is still worth fighting for.

So why have I not given up hope? Partly it’s because I have been to Iraq, met the people who are engaged in the struggle to build their country and cannot bring myself to abandon them. Iraq has no Nelson Mandelas, but many of its leaders have shown remarkable patience, courage and statesmanship. Consider the wisdom and authority of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, or the fair-minded and effective role of the Kurds, or the persistent pleas for secularism and tolerance from men such as Ayad Allawi. You see lots of rough politics and jockeying for power in Baghdad. But when the stakes get high, when the violence escalates, when facing the abyss, you also see glimpses of leadership.

I wish every idiot with a pen would visit Iraq before they wrote their op-ed piece on why we should run away quickly with our tail between our legs. Sadly though, most of today’s mainstream media outlets aren’t looking for op eds that use logic as their basis. Now please read the most important sentence of Mr. Zakaria’s editorial:

These sectarian power struggles can get extremely messy, and violent parties have taken advantage of every crack and cleavage. But this may be inevitable in a country coming to terms with very real divisions and disagreements. Iraq may be stumbling toward nation-building by consent, not brutality. And that is a model for the Middle East.

In the performance of my official duties, I have to read messages of blind hatred that come from members of the American public who, without the nanny culture they have come to rely on would be food for jackals. Sometimes these messages wishing for my death and supporting IEDs and more insurgency come in to my personal e-mail as well. To all you morons who think we are just over here randomly killing every Iraqi we see for fun, I will pay for your plane ticket to Baghdad International Airport. From there, you can wander anywhere you want and join the insurgents if you think they have so much to offer.

I’m tired of those of you who are protected by people like me whining the whole time I’ve over here risking my life to keep you fat, dumb and happy perpetually bitching about everything. If it weren’t for my fellow troops and I the same kind of wolves who are gnawing on the fabric of the nation of Iraq would be scratching on your door and killing your kids on their way to school. If you keep on undermining everything good that better people than you are trying to do over here it won’t be long before suicidal maniacs bent on mass destruction show up in New York again. Or maybe they’ll target Los Angeles or Washington, D.C. next.

I recently wrote about drug war victim Cory Maye, who is on death row because he dared to defend himself when police officers broke into his house.

Radley Balko of The Agitator is doing his own investigative journalism on Cory’s behalf. Hopefully, he’ll make some progress in getting Cory’s case looked at by people who actually understand that it’s not alright for the police to break down your door in the middle of the night and then charge you with murder when you try to defend yourself.

I’ve heard secondhand from people close to Cory Maye that even some police officials, particularly with the sheriff’s department, will off-the-record concede that the Pearl River Basin Narcotics Task Force is excessively aggressive, and that it wouldn’t be all that surprising to learn that, indeed, they hadn’t announced themselves before kicking down the door to Maye’s apartment. “Cowboy mentality” was the phrase used more than a couple of times.

What’s amazing to me is that people are much more interested, on the whole, in what I have to say about war in Iraq than they are in what I have to say about war at home in the United States. In case you have missed the news, the United States incarcerates more citizens per capita than any other nation. For a country that calls itself the land of the free, that’s kind of odd, don’t you think? Prisons are a growth industry in the United States. That’s a sign of troubled times ahead.

Read all about Cory Maye. Thanks Radley, for your work on this important case, in which Cory’s life is at stake.

I recently criticized Isaac Hayes for being a hypocrite willing to poke fun at any religion but his own. It seems that I spoke too hastily.

It now appears Hayes had a stroke. His “church” quit for him, according to this report. According to author Robert Freidman, “It’s also absolutely ridiculous to think that Hayes, who loved playing Chef on “South Park,” would suddenly turn against the show because they were poking fun at Scientology.”

Maybe I owe Mr. Hayes an apology for my earlier comments (like he cares what I think, the guy doesn’t know I exist). Just proves you can’t trust everything you read. And Scientology is still very scary and weird.

Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability is to a web designer what a rifle is to a soldier.If you’ve ever been involved in building a web site that will serve as the virtual world shingle for a corporation or government entity, you should have had this book with you during the project. Get it now if you’ll be building such sites in the future.

Web sites don’t become popular because someone in a meeting says, "Woudn’t it be great if…" They become popular because they are focused and usable. Don’t Make Me Think takes you step by step through the process of making a web site focused and usable. Once your web site is focused and usable, you will find that your web site will attract the only thing that justifies pouring your heart and soul into a web site – an audience.

If you build it they will come was a very popular moniker in the 90s. It isn’t true. It should be, if you build it right, they will come.

The premise of this book is that if you make people think too hard about finding something on your web site, they’ll go away and they won’t come back. So if you are interested in having people come to your site and then come back for a second visit, this is the right book. I won’t tell you what the author tells you about the logic behind keeping visitors. What I will tell you is that Don’t Make Me Think follows its own rules. The book is superbly designed. It’s full of practical examples of what works and what doesn’t. It answers important questions like are we really asking the right questions? It’s good. Buy it if you need help building a web site that will actually keep people interested in the content of said web site.

An educated and well-spoken Iraqi’s perspective on where Iraq is three years into “the change.”

Life stopped and time stopped when Saddam ruled Iraq, actually that totalitarian regime was moving backwards and dragging us with it and nothing could stop the deterioration that began the moment Saddam came to power. We had to accept the change and live with all that would come along with it whether good or bad.

The democracy we’re practicing today in Iraq is the exact opposite of what we had for decades and until three years ago. This democracy carries the essence of life, the differences, the dynamics and yes, the failures but also the seed of a better future.

Please take the time to read Mohammed’s entire entry.

The road to “progress” in Afghanistan is going to be a long one. One would almost think that the Taliban was still in charge after reading this article about a man facing the death penalty after having been turned in by his family for being Christian.

On Thursday the prosecution told the court Rahman has rejected numerous offers to embrace Islam.

Prosecuting attorney Abdul Wasi told the judge that the punishment should fit the crime.

He says Rahman is a traitor to Islam and is like a cancer inside Afghanistan. Under Islamic law and under the Afghan constitution, he says, the defendant should be executed.

So he was “offered” the “opportunity” to “embrace” Islam. I’ve used the cancer analogy myself, but I’ve used it against the mindset that allows a man to tell another man to embrace his version of God or die.

No wonder some people reject God entirely. Human beings act so inhuman in His name. Sounds like blasphemy to me. It also sounds like Afghanis need some help mentally getting out of the Middle Ages.

It would be easy to get confused about what’s happening in Iraq, listening to all the voices. The voices we hear are dischordant. Do we listen to the current Secretary of Defense, or do we listen to the retired Major General who was in charge of training Iraq’s new army?

He (Rumsfeld) said “the terrorists” in Iraq were attempting to stoke sectarian tension and spark civil war, but that they must be “watching with fear” the progress in the country over the past three years.

“The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq. I believe that history will show that to be the case,” Rumsfeld said.

But in an opinion piece published on Sunday in the New York Times, Eaton said Rumsfeld had proven himself “not competent to lead our armed forces” and therefore “must step down.”

“First, his failure to build coalitions with our allies from what he dismissively called ‘old Europe’ has imposed far greater demands and risks on our soldiers in Iraq than necessary. Second, he alienated his allies in our own military, ignoring the advice of seasoned officers and denying subordinates any chance for input,” Eaton said.

I’m not sure about the history of the animosity between Rumsfeld and his former subordinate, but I do know that there are 35 countries participating in our military operations in Afghanistan and around 30 participating in operations in Iraq.

Mr. Rumsfeld is correct when he says leaving Iraq now would be the equivalent of handing Germany back to the Nazi party after World War II. It’s a good analogy. Rumsfeld is easy to criticize. And he probably has made mistakes. We all do.

“Imagine what would happen if it were announced tomorrow in the headlines of the papers of in America and throughout the world that Rumsfeld was fired,” said Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), a Delaware Democrat. “It would energize, energize the rest of the world. They’d be willing to help us.”

Really? I think that’s sort of delusional. Firing Rumsfeld would be the key that would turn this war around? One man is responsible for all the mistakes we’ve made in Iraq? Wow. If only things were really that simple. Maybe someone should poll the rest of the world first though, so we can all be sure that Rumsfeld is the crux of all our problems. Yes, a poll would certainly ferret out the truth, just as it jcategorically proved once and for all my suspicion that more than 80% of the troops are against this war and want to come home immediately (insert sarcastic tone here, just in case you missed it).

Should we try to learn from our mistakes? Certainly. Should we listen to suggestions for improvement from the bottom up? Absolutely. Can we improve on our efforts to help rebuild Iraq? Yes, we can. Are we losing in Iraq? No. Are we losing back home? Perhaps we are. The hearts and minds of Americans are truly where this war will be won or lost. It’s not about whether Donald Rumsfeld or Joe Leiberman is our Secretary of Defense. It’s about whether America, as a whole, has the backbone to finish the task we have started in Iraq, imperfect and messy and painful as that task may be.

President George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld will have faded from the political spotlight long before the issue of Iraq and the larger issue of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism have been decided. What’s happening now in Iraq is going to follow America around for my lifetime and yours. We should try to be a little less schizophrenic when it comes to national self-dialogue. If we can’t figure out how to work together, we’re going to fail miserably, and not just in Iraq.

I’ve been listening to a new album – the soundtrack from Broken Flowers, the movie, and I really enjoy it. Highly recommended:

The movie itself was interesting but not exactly my kind of movie. Maybe I’ll watch it again sometime and review it here, but for now, I just want to say that this is great chillin’ music.

Listen. Then listen again. It will grow on you.

There are a lot of Americans who want to take the easy way out of Iraq. Maybe they are lazy. Or it’s possible they are scared. Maybe they truly think we’re just here for the oil. Some of them blindly hate the President and would campaign against him even if he suddenly did a 360 degree spin and ordered all American troops home immediately.

You can find these folks ranting regularly at places like the Daily Kos or Huffington Post.

What none of these people ever seem to address is the root of the problem that modern America faces in the Middle East and worldwide – the threat from Islamic fundamentalists who want to kill us (including Ariana Huffington), destroy our way of life (regardless of whether your are liberal or conservative) and establish an Islamic Caliphate that covers the face of the globe. I can’t find any evidence of a progressive author with anything approaching common sense when it comes to addressing the reality of what Islamic fundmentalists want to achieve. Let me lay that out again for those of you who have let your minds get muddled by the cacophony of confusion being spewed by all the talking heads:

” . . . For the American forces to expect anything from me personally reflects a very narrow perception. Thousands of millions of Muslims are angry. The Americans should expect reactions from the Muslim world that are proportionate to the injustice they inflict.” Osama bin Laden to Time Magazine Dec 1998

Obviously, thousands of millions of angry Muslims is an optimistic number on the part of bin Laden. It’s probably only in the tens of millions. Nevertheless, if my neighbor announces that he intends to kill me because of some sort of “injustice” that I have perpetrated on him, then certainly, it makes sense to consider taking action to ensure he doesn’t succeed. Many self-labeled Progressives want you to wait until the knife is already in your chest before you defend yourself. I’m unwilling to wait. September 11, 2001 was quite enough of a wake up call. A few million angry Muslims who want to kill all Americans, Europeans, Jews and anyone else who disagrees with them on any point seems more realistic. But Islam is just being used as an excuse to justify evil when it comes to these people. Every religion has been perverted by men throughout history to justify unacceptable and unforgivable behavior.

If you don’t believe there is a threat from our current batch of fundamentalist Muslims worldwide, just criticize them instead of President Bush and watch how fast you find your life in danger or snuffed out. Wikipedia has chronicled just a few of the more famous fatwas issued against those who have “offended” Islamic fascists by daring to question their worldview. If you are Muslim, and you have never issued or supported a fatwa that supports killing those who do not practice or mock Islam, then good for you. I’m not worried about you fine people and might actually enjoy your company. I’m worried about the guys who think like Theo Van Gogh’s murderer.
Back to the crux of the matter – what are we doing in Iraq? Well the answer is simple, we’re trying to spread something most Iraqis had never even contemplated as a possible reality – the ability to choose. Instead of being forced by those around you to be whatever it is they want you to be, we’re trying to build an Iraq that allows its citizens to choose for themselves who or what they want to become in life (and perhaps in death).

None of us is perfect, and none of us has all the answers to life’s problems. What we say is important. What we do is even more important. You can ignore the problem. You can criticize what other people are trying to do to fix the problem without offering your own alternative and hopefully better solutions. You can misintrepret the problem. In doing any of these things, you are part of the problem.

You cannot force freedom on people who do not want it. But Iraqis want freedom. They want television, Internet, electricity and running water. They want choices in supermarkets, reading material, leaders, cars, spouses, hairstyles, business opportunities and health care. They want to be able to travel. They want to be able to go out at night. They want to live in secure communities. They want the things most Americans have most of the time.

Now ask yourself who is keeping them from having those things. It certainly isn’t George W. Bush, the man so virulently hated by self-righteous armchair quarterbacks everywhere. No, George W. Bush would be very pleased if Iraqis had all the things I just mentioned above. Would Ariana Huffington? Would Ted Kennedy? Would Osama bin Laden? Would Musab al-Zarqawi? Would Moqtada al-Sadr? These people all share something in common – they want us to fail in Iraq. They need us to fail in Iraq.

If we do fail in Iraq, it will be because of all of them; unconsciously or purposefully working together to ensure that Iraqis never have the things we all take for granted so much of the time. Iraq is in the center of a worldwide maelstrom whose outcome will determine whether we allow violent fundamentalism to breed and reproduce because that is easier in the short term, or whether we’re willing to buckle down now and ensure that future generations won’t have to live under tyrants. I think the latter benefits all those of us willing to stand up to those who want to make our choices for us, no matter who they are or what sort of justification they use for their demands.

This philosophy applies just as much to present day Americans as it does to present day Iraqis. Who are you allowing proxy rights to make your choices for you?

The last few days have been eerily quiet here in the Green Zone. An injection of American troops coupled with Operation Swarmer to our north seem to have changed the routines quite drastically. Things are happening behind the scenes too, as negotiations continue on shaping the government. It has been slightly more than three months since the elections in which Iraqis voted in much higher number than we do back home in the U.S. The media continues to try and give the impresssion that Iraq is embroiled in a full scale civil war, doing Iraqis and the coalition a great disservice.

There is nothing like the American Civil War happening in Iraq. Instead, what is happening is that a centuries old conflict between two different brands of Islam, Shia and Sunni, is being reawakened by external and internal agitators. These agitators are people who would not benefit from a stable and prosperous Iraq. Iraqis are not a stupid people though – they can see through the violence and they have things like this to say:

Finally I would like to say to all our friends in the West and America in particular, this: have no fear; the battle is far from being lost. The land of Sumeria, Akad, Babylon, Ur, Nimrod and Ashur will never die. The land where the Old Testament was written and the Aramaic of Jesus Christ was spoken cannot become extinct. The Capital of Harun Al-Rashid and the Arabian nights cannot die. Land of Abraham and the prophets, Mesopotamia is indestructible. Seven thousand years of turbulent history attest to this. Only this land will remain tortured and cannot rest or calm down until it achieves greatness again. This is a germ that has been genetic in this mystic land from the beginning of history. This same history will credit the U.S.A. in years to come to have been the one to arouse this long dormant genie.

There are dedicated people cleaning up the mess. You can help us by supporting our mission, and resigning yourself to the fact that we might need to be here a long time. Good people like Alla are counting on us to stay the course. The lives and futures of 26 million people are at stake here. When you hear the talking heads who are against the war yapping, bear in mind that none of them have any better viable solution to the problems here than the ones already being tried. Throwing up our hands and walking away from something just because it’s messy would send the world a very clear message the we take the easy way out and that we don’t follow through on promises.

Ann Althouse has written an important editorial about the institution of marriage.

Legal marriage isn’t just about love, it’s an economic arrangement. Having the state authorize your union is not the same thing as having your friends and neighbors approve of you and your religious leaders bless you. It affects taxes and employee benefits — huge amounts of money. A gay person with a pension and a health insurance plan is incapable of extending those benefits to his (or her) partner. He (or she) can’t file a joint tax return. That’s not fair. A polygamous marriage, however, puts a group of persons in a position to claim more economic benefits than the traditional heterosexual couple. That doesn’t appeal to our sense of fairness.

To me, legal marriage is just a piece of paper from the state that changes my tax status and the way I fill out some of the forms that seem to follow me around and haunt me throughout life. Actual marriage is something completely different. It’s a bond between my wife and I, emotional, intellectual and physical. And who the hell am I to tell someone else that that sort of a bond is not their right, no matter who they choose to form it with.

If you want to “marry” only one person, of the same sex, then you should be afforded that choice. And if some other human being wants to marry 12 people then that is their choice, and I don’t see how it affects me unless they ask for my advice. As long as “marriages” are among consensual adults I don’t see how it is anyone else’s business.

Here we are telling Iraqis that we’re bringing them freedom while keeping adults in our own country from having their long-term committed relationships legally recognized except when they fit into a very narrow category. Hypocrisy? Possibly. I certainly think the terms freedom and liberty are misunderstood. Is it fair to tell gay people or polygamists that they don’t have the same right to enter into legal contracts as heterosexual couples? Nope.
Life doesn’t come with a fairness gaurentee though. All we can do is learn as much as possible and try to keep a good attitude despite other human beings innate need to manage our lives for the “good of everyone.”

Other blogger’s thoughts on marriage, gayness and polygamy:

Below the Beltway: Gay Marriage, Polygamy, And Individual Liberty

Andrew Sullivan: A Simple Point on Polygamy

Ann Althouse: Distinguishing Gay Marriage and Polygamy

Fascinating reading material if you’re a nerd like me:

Malefactors would have more trouble stealing or buying the classical agents of biological warfare than synthesizing new ones. In 2002, after all, a group of researchers built a functioning polio virus, using a genetic sequence off the Internet and mail-order oligonucleotides (machine-synthesized DNA molecules no longer than about 140 bases each) from commercial synthesis companies. At the time, the group leader, Eckard Wimmer of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, warned that the technology to synthesize the much larger genome of variola major — that is, the deadly smallpox virus — would come within 15 years. In fact, it arrived sooner: December 2004, with the announcement of a high-throughput DNA synthesizer that could reproduce smallpox’s 186,000-odd bases in 13 runs.

You don’t have to read the whole thing. What you should be cognizant of is the high likelihood that Islamic fundmentalists will harness recent and upcoming advances in biotech for evil purposes. They have clearly stated that they want biological weapons and will use them once they are acquired. Ignoring the threat is not an option, unless you are the type of person who wants the whole world to shrivel into itself like Afghanistan did under the Taliban.

CENTCOM is aware of the the threat. In the words of General John P. Abizaid:

Finally, and most important, this enemy seeks to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction. If they could develop or acquire a chemical, biological, or nuclear device, they would use it. This is not a guess. This is what they say. Their willingness to use suicide means to deliver such a weapon heightens this threat. There should be no mistake about the stakes in this broader war against al Qaida. The enemy must be deprived of time, safe haven and resources to prevent development and use of mass-casualty producing devices.

Don’t take a general’s word for it though. No, don’t listen to an American commander who also happens to be of Lebanese heritage and fully fluent in Arabic. That would make way too much sense and we all know the U.S. military just wants the oil. Since you don’t trust our generals, get it from the proverbial horse’s mouth instead. In this case, the horse happens to be named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

Zarqawi’s exposition of Islamic theology as he sees it is most revealing. “There is no doubt,” he says, “that Allah commanded us to strike the Kuffar (unbelievers), kill them, and fight them by all means necessary to achieve the goal. The servants of Allah who perform Jihad to elevate the word (laws) of Allah, are permitted to use any and all means necessary to strike the active unbeliever combatants for the purpose of killing them, snatch their souls from their body, cleanse the earth from their abomination, and lift their trial and persecution of the servants of Allah. The goal must be pursued even if the means to accomplish it affect both the intended active fighters and unintended passive ones such as women, children and any other passive category specified by our jurisprudence.” He is arguing, in other words, that operations such as 9/11 are fully sanctioned by Islamic law.

And that holds true, he argues, even if Muslims are among the victims: “This permissibility extends to situations in which Muslims may get killed if they happen to be with or near the intended enemy, and if it is not possible to avoid hitting them or separate them from the intended Kafirs. Although spilling sacred Muslim blood is a grave offense, it is not only permissible but it is mandated in order to prevent more serious adversity from happening, stalling or abandoning Jihad that is. If one says that we must not allow the killing of Muslims under any circumstance, especially in light of modern war tactics, this means nothing except stalling or permanently abandoning Jihad. This will lead to handing over the land and people to the unbelievers who are full of hate for Islam and Muslims. The unbelievers will have a free hand to humiliate and persecute Islam and Muslims and Muslims will be forced to live by Kafir rules and be treated like slaves. Many Muslims will be pressured or forced to give up their religion, Islam will be altered, modified, and replaced with another form that will be totally different from that which was revealed to the one who was sent with the sword, peace and prayer be upon him.”

Read the full article about “holy man” Zarqawi. His mentality and his memes closely match that of other prominent fundamental Islamists, including his mentor Osama bin Laden.

I know, I know. It’s all about the oil. This is an illegal war of agression. I’m a babykiller. I should die painfully. Blah blah blah. Some of you get it, and some of you never will. You’ll willfully choose to remain ignorant, clinging to your bad but famialiar memes like a 5-year-old hugging her favorite blanket. Your bad memes are dangerous. I would like you to surrender them peacefully. I promise to give you a new and better set of memes. Of course, some of you will have to be forced to surrender your security blanket, and you’ll kick and scream the whole way as we drag you into a world where people are allowed to practice different belief systems unmolested by one another.

But not all of you obfuscators, conspiracy theorists, anti-war protestors, pacifism or death practicioners and other security blanket people are going to be with us when Islamofascists join the ranks of neo-nazis as side show freaks on the global stage. Some of you are going to die of ricin in your soup or anthrax on your pillow. Some of you will perish from jet fuel baths or explosive packages. And if enough of us ignore the threat of violent Islamic fundementalism, perhaps you’ll lose a family member or two to a tailored virus that only attacks people with blue eyes or people with red hair or some other genetic marker people like Osama and Musab don’t carry.

I know, I know. I’m a baby killer racist Muslim hater who is just here in Iraq because I love American imperialism. Saddam Hussein was a nice man who never hurt anyone. Bioterror is total madness and no sane person would ever consider using it against YOU or your family! After all, YOU didn’t vote for Bush and you’ve been posting Photoshopped images of his face cloned onto a monkey’s head for several years now. Osama and Musab and their types will surely leave you alone.

Author’s Note: I wrote this for my county newspaper, the Pickens Progress.

My name is Trevor Snyder and I am a sergeant in the Georgia National Guard.

Recently, my life has been uprooted in the service of my state and nation. My new surroundings are quite different from the rolling hills of rural Pickens County, and the beautiful pastoral scenes that I’ve grown to love are fading memories. The red clay has been replaced by brown sand. I’ve traded refreshing thunderstorms for choking dust storms. My three bedroom ranch house in the country and beautiful wife have been temporarily replaced by a tiny trailer outside one of Saddam’s former palaces in the heart of Baghdad, which I share with another Georgian citizen soldier.

I am a public affairs specialist – my mission is to refine and produce information for internal and external audiences. In plain English that means I am part of a unit filled with soldiers who have specialized technical training. We produce military newspapers. We run military radio stations. We take pictures. We shoot video and produce newscasts. We escort the civilian press and try to facilitate their access to other soldiers and servicepeople in theater, so they can tell our story and the story of Iraq to you folks back home.

Most of our days here are the same. We live routines that repeat themselves. Danger encircles us. It sometimes reaches out and attempts to touch us, but thus far it has missed the mark. The insurgents shoot mortars randomly into the area where we live and work. Sometimes they fire rockets too. I’ve stepped out of a building to see a rocket fly over my head, missing the top of the building by a few feet and landing somewhere behind it. I’ve felt the thud of a mortar in my chest as it impacted close enough to make me duck but not close enough to be seen. On Christmas Day, 2005, I found out that people without body armor on can run much faster than I can when I’m wearing it. The attacks, when they come, are over almost as soon as they begin. They are only exclamation points at the end of the sentences that make up daily life for an information warrior in Baghdad.

I have a rifle and a pistol but I haven’t fired them since we got off the C-130 that brought us here. We have Internet access in our offices and even in our tiny rooms. It’s not fast, and it doesn’t always work, but this is the first war America has fought where the privates and enlisted soldiers could e-mail their families and tell them what is happening halfway around the world in real time.

I could forget I live in the middle of a war if it wasn’t for the fact that I live and breathe the stories that make up this war. Every death passes across my desk in black and white letters and I am reminded that could be me. I know that person was someone’s son, someone’s husband, someone who will be missed somewhere back home. I think about why I am here and whether or not we are winning this war. I think about what winning means. We hear explosions in the distance almost daily. Sometimes they are far away. Sometimes they are close enough to shake the room I work in and I’m glad that I have concrete walls around me and a thick concrete roof over my head. Sometimes my heart starts racing when the boom goes off and sometimes I don’t have a reaction at all and I just keep doing whatever I was doing before the explosion.

Inside tall walls, protected by concrete, concertina wire, tanks and multiple layers of men with guns, I hear, feel and smell the war. I write about the war and the war changes the thought patterns inside my head. My war is fought mostly with a keyboard and a camera. This war will be won or lost based on public perception and reporting. What you see on TV is often disconnected from the reality of daily life here.

If you want the unedited truth, I suggest visiting these resources: Milblogging – http://www.milblogging.com and Mudville Gazette – http://www.mudvillegazette.com/. In this modern age you can get your information straight from the horse’s mouth. The guys who are carrying out their orders at the risk of their own lives are also writing about it, and you can get your news directly from them. I highly recommend doing so.

We just got boomed for what seems like the thousandth time. It was one of the biggest shock waves I have experienced. It shook our entire facility, which is made of reinforced concrete. No one hurt, no one injured. Not here.

VBIED? Not sure, but it was really big, or really close. It’s good to be reminded of the fragility of life. The explosions cause me to continually reassess whether I’m spending my time wisely.

The explosion turns out to have been a mortar near miss, not a car bomb. One of the soldiers in my unit saw it fly over and land as he was on duty outdoors at the time. One of the interesting things about explosions is that you can’t tell the difference between a distant bomb if it’s large enough and a nearby mortar, which has a smaller concussion than a car bomb but which is still quite loud and powerful if it lands near enough to your general area. Today’s mortar was quite near us. They usually come in pairs, and this one was a single, but the insurgents use old ordnance and thankfully, their mortars often just land without exploding. For all I know today was a two shot that had a 50% success rate on impact.

If you read my blog regularly (thanks to all three of you), you’re going to get sick of me talking about memes. But they’re important. The memes make the man (or woman). In this case, the memes influenced a well educated Iranian to attempt to kill nine random Americans by running them down with a car. And here is what influenced him:

“Allah gives permission in the Koran for the followers of Allah to attack those who have raged war against them, with the expectation of eternal paradise in case of martyrdom and/or living one’s life in obedience of all of Allah’s commandments found throughout the Koran’s 114 chapters…”

“The U.S. government is responsible for the deaths of and the torture of countless followers of Allah, my brothers and sisters. My attack on Americans at UNC-CH on March 3rd was in retaliation for similar attacks orchestrated by the U.S. government on my fellow followers of Allah in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and other Islamic territories. I did not act out of hatred for Americans, but out of love for Allah instead.”

If the coalition used the same fallacious thinking that Mr. Taheri-Azar used when he decided to run over random people because the “U.S. government is responsible for the deaths of and the torture of countless followers of Allah,” then it would just use all of its firepower to decimate the entire population of every Islamic nation. Luckily for all of us, the United States isn’t run by madmen who are trapped by the same flawed memes the proponents of Islamofascism are stuck with.

Whether or not it is publicly acknowledged by officials, the war in Iraq is a war against destructive memes. A man whose reality is so warped he cannot distinguish between college students and agents of a government whose policies he disagrees with is a dangerous idiot. The United States is generally a place that promotes tolerance of differences. This makes it a threat to anyone who feels that their way is the only way. Taheri-azar’s twisted viewpoint allowed him to attack and attempt to murder people just for being free to choice something other than what he chose as a way of life.

Reasonable people don’t want to attack Islam or Muslims, but we’re also not going to allow mad followers to dictate to everyone else their own moral code, and we are not obligated to follow the teachings of Allah or the tenets of Islam. For a long period in human history, it was fairly commonplace for groups of human beings to enslave other groups of human beings. Thankfully that time is over, and we are moving on. Just as slavery has faded into the archive of bad, outmoded memes that are no longer practiced, so too should any religious memes that justify killing anyone who disagrees with them.

One size fits all religion doesn’t work in the modern, interconnected world. Freedom means having options and being able to choose them yourself. The defense of free will is worth dying for even when the fight is run imperfectly.

From the Gun Owners of America and into my in-box comes this:

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote, as early as Thursday, on legislation introduced by Texas Congressmen Jeb Hensarling and Ron Paul. This bill (H.R. 1606) will exempt the Internet from regulation under federal “electioneering” laws.

Unless the Hensarling-Paul bill is successful, many major blogs and web sites could be shut down for 60 days before any general election
— and for 30 days prior to any primary — making it much more difficult for groups like Gun Owners of America to criticize anti-gun candidates.

How did we arrive at such a dismal state?

You may remember that, a half-decade ago, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) pushed a McCain-Feingold bill which, as enacted, prohibits organizations from engaging in major “broadcast communications” which even mention a candidate in a favorable or unfavorable light within 60 days of a general election (30 days of a primary).

Personally, I’d rather go to jail than allow myself to bow to political censors. I have the right as an American citizen to criticize my leaders and share my viewpoints about them with my fellow citizens. Any attempt to squelch that right will be met with whatever level of active or passive resistance I deem appropriate. America is what it is because of freedom of expression and the right to self-defense. I will not tolerate anyone stomping on either one and I won’t surrender to tyranny quietly, especially when it is masked in fake nobility. Dishonest control mechanisms wrapped up in honest sounding entreaties for fairness are unpalatable and inexcusable.

I hope the House salutes freedom by voting against unconstitutional curbs on free speech.

Ron Paul, a co-author of the above mentioned legislation is one of my heros, by the way. In general, I’m unimpressed by most politicians, and that’s being kind. But Ron Paul is a politician I admire and would be honored to meet. More importantly, I trust him and feel that he has the interests of real Americans in mind when he votes for or against legislation.

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Click the photos and make sure you read the English translation of the inscription.

As a resident of the International (aka Green) Zone, I have a deeply personal interest in this story:

Security officials foiled a plot that would have put hundreds of al-Qaida men at guard posts around Baghdad’s Green Zone, home to the U.S. and other foreign embassies as well as the Iraqi government, the interior minister told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

A senior Defense Ministry official confirmed the plot, and said the 421 al-Qaida fighters involved were actually recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Al-Qaeda is increasingly desperate. Their own foolish and murderous choices leave them with eroding support from Iraqis. I like being alive quite a bit. Al-Qaeda couldn’t have come close to taking over even a small part of the zone with 421 ‘workers’ but they certainly would have stirred things up. Of course, when the only things you sell are tragedy, violence and empty promises of an eternal reward that can’t be proven, it’s hard to earn repeat customers. Al-Qaeda is doomed because they don’t have anything to bring to the table. Nobody wants to invest in a death cult.

Modern societies produce new things that are simply amazing:

A team of researchers in the Materials Science Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has managed to imitate the complex structures found in ice and mollusk shells, and the ultra-strong material could lead to everything from stronger artificial bone to airplane parts.

Anyone who has had a hip replacement or other body modification done via surgery is a transhumanist, whether he or she knows it or not. By the time I need a replacement hip, I’m hoping it will be better than the original. Some call me a dreamer. I call those people pessimists. If you study what’s happening in biotechnology, nanotechnology or just look at how quickly the lump sum of human knowledge is growing, you cannot help but see that this century will usher in momentous changes.

Many are predicting a near future singularity event. I just want to live a very long, very fulfilled life and well managed technology seems like my best bet for doing that. I’m also absolutely fascinated by what human beings, working together in voluntary cooperation, can come up with.

Iraq is certainly in the hands of Iraqis, but which Iraqis? The appearance of the absence of rule of law, or the reality of its absence are disturbing. Sadr City is a slum with a population of two million. I’m doubtful that the entire area has been abandoned by U.S. and Iraqi troops. But vigilante acts are certainly taking place, and they need to be reined in. The cold, harsh reality is that if government doesn’t provide adequate security, someone will fill the vacuum and they won’t necessarily be well intentioned, impartial or unbiased.

In Sadr City, the Shiite section in Baghdad where the terrorist suspects were executed, government forces have vanished. The streets are ruled by aggressive teenagers with shiny soccer jerseys and machine guns.

They set up roadblocks and poke their heads into cars and detain whomever they want. Mosques blare warnings on loudspeakers for American troops to stay out. Increasingly, the Americans have been doing just that.

There seems to be no minimum age to join the action. A playful boy named Musa, who said he was 11 but looked about 8, was part of a 4-foot-tall militia struggling to drag chunks of concrete into the street to block cars on Monday.

“We’re guarding the road,” Musa explained.

He was carrying a toy pistol. Some of the other boys had real ones.

Across town in a busy shopping area in western Baghdad, a 15-minute gun battle broke out between security guards, more evidence of the authority vacuum.

Dispensing “justice” without courts, without law books and without the authority of the people you claim to be dispensing that justice for is a dangerous business. What is clear is that Iraq needs to move forward in seating the permanent government so that it can go about the business of changing parts of Iraq from Wild West style street justice over to a more measured system of dispensing justice. Iraqi leaders and politicians are not serving their people by allowing militias to roam parts of Baghdad.

Finding a way to integrate these men into authorized, regular security forces or to otherwise gainfully employ them seems the best option. Certainly, they shouldn’t be receiving their marching orders from a religious cleric who is unelected and has an unserved arrest warrant for murder hanging over his head.

The reality that must be faced though, is that Moqtada Al-Sadr has power, and that he is exercising that power in ways the are dubious at best. Omar at Iraq the Model calls al-Sadr a thug and more:

You form a multi-thousand men militia, you arm them with all kinds of weapons you can find, you fill them with hatred through your inflammatory speeches, you promise to use your militia to defend Iraq’s worst enemies, you accuse the Sunni of being Takfiri terrorists, accuse the US of supporting this terrorism and accuse Kurds and fellow Shia of being materialistic opportunists and puppets of the US occupier. And your Islamic militia attacks dozens of mosques and kills dozens of people over night.

And after all this you call yourself a patriot.

You are just as dangerous to Iraq as Saddam was or al-Qaeda is.

And just as Omar says, the mortars have been less evident these last few days, but death is still creeping around Baghdad conducting business slightly differently. The coalition must tread carefully as Iraqis decide the future of Iraq. Will the clerics rule or will men of reason end up dominating? The first would mean continued stagnation and bleak futures for common Iraqis while the latter would eventually bring prosperity and peace. Iraqis are overdue for some prosperity and peace.

The coalition can only move forward as fast as Iraqis allow it too. Progress is slowed and diffused by sectarianism, fanaticism and the reality that Iraq’s memes are centuries behind those which nations with modern value systems take for granted. Iraq is not a hopeless place, but it is a hard land filled with people who had grown up in the midst of conflict. If you’ve never known anything but war, then you might think war is all there is.

Isaac Hayes has quit South Park over an episode that mocks Scientology.

“In ten years and over 150 episodes of ‘South Park,’ Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslim, Mormons or Jews,” Stone said in a statement issued by the Comedy Central network. “He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show.”

As Chef would say, “Don’t be a little bitch, children.” How utterly hypocritical can one man be? You don’t get to mock everyone else and then act like a child when people mock whatever you hold dear. Grow up, Mr. Hayes.

The Dubai ports deal is dead. But should it have been killed so quickly? I initially thought it sounded ill advised and soon reconsidered after reading several thoughtful opinions. Here’s another thoughtful opinion.

We should understand that the management of American ports by foreign companies is not some stark or alarming deviation from the norm. Rather, it is the norm and as such, is entirely emblematic of the nature of the global economy. Similarly, the ability of American culture and companies to pervade the cultural and economic life of other countries is part and parcel of the global economy. Autarky — never an attractive option — is now permanently out as an approach to business management; whether or not that management significantly impacts domestic security.

Perhaps we killed it too quickly, without mulling it over long enough.

My last Trevordamus prediction was wrong. I didn’t know enough about Iraq when I made it. I still don’t know enough about Iraq but I know a lot more.

Anyhow, it’s time for another prediction, which I hope will also be wrong. There will be a bioterror attack in Europe, the United States, or both in the next quarter century. I’ll also predict that only after such an attack will societies get serious about biodefense technology.

Glenn Reynolds writes about the threat:

Pathogens tailored for particular ethnic groups. Diseases that only attack children. Psychotropic pathogens that affect people’s minds — grossly, via schizophrenia or tranquilization, or subtly, by imbuing love for Big Brother. As Pontin notes, this kind of thing isn’t currently within the capabilities of terrorists or small groups, but it’s something we can expect from nation-states. We’ve never seen a technological revolution that somebody didn’t try to weaponize, and here, “the revolution in biological science will provide enormous temptations to nation-states. And the stuff that nation-states will be able to do is really scary. It provides enormous possibilities for coercion and oppression, quite possibly for the most positive-seeming reasons.”

Most people will poo poo this sort of threat because they don’t want to bother elasticizing their own brains to encompass just how quickly technology has expanded our ability as human beings to do good or evil or any of the many layers of actions in between. If you can think it, someone has tried it has never rung more true. Evil people are dreaming up schemes right now that would horrify most of you. What are you doing about it? For most of you, the answer is nothing. We have such short memories. The Holocaust is being turned into a myth by history revisionists in many parts of the world. Oh no, we’ve evolved beyond ethnic, tribal and ideological warfare, you’re thinking to yourself as the genocide in Darfur continues and Muslims slaughter one another in Iraq.

If you don’t think the bad men are trying to take it to the next level, then you are delusional, obstinate or dimwitted.

Both Ray Kurzweil and Senator Bill Frist have called for a “Manhattan Project” level of urgency toward biodefense, with an eye toward developing generic antiviral drugs, rapid-response vaccine production, and even more advanced techniques, yet unknown, for responding rapidly to new pathogens (whether natural or artificial in origin). This new article from Technology Review would seem to underscore the importance of such an approach. Pontin estimates that with that kind of an effort, effective responses might be a decade away. That may be soon enough. Let’s hope, anyway.

My wife has a degree in biology and I’ve often thought I would like to pursue a degree in biotechnology. It’s fascinating stuff and the field is expanding at the same exponential rate that propels our computing power forward. But the important thing to remember is that as biotech expands the people with access to its power are not just benign, some of them are malignant and we must deal with the ramifications.
The clock is ticking. I know people I admire are offering up clarion calls and I hope they are heeded.

I wish politicians could bring themselves to avoid political correctness, but the general gist of last night’s speech was one I agree with:

The situation in Iraq is still tense and we’re still seeing acts of sectarian violence and reprisal. Yet out of this crisis we’ve also seen signs of a hopeful future.

One reason the speech was notable is that Bush didn’t mention cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, who, depending whether you are a journalist, coalition force member, or intellectual Iraqi is seen as a savior, thorn, or devil (< --- follow the devil link, important read hidden within.)

Iraq’s leaders know that this is not the last time they will be called to stand together in the face of an outrageous terrorist attack. Iraq’s leaders know they must put aside their differences, reach out across political, religious and sectarian lines and form a unity government that will earn the trust and the confidence of all Iraqis.
Iraq is going to take at least 5 years to settle down and 20 years before prosperity has erased some of the scars. Maybe more. Everyone involved in trying to build an Iraq worth having should be mentally prepared for this. Everyone who wants to set a timetable should contact the insurgents and get something in writing from them. I’m sure they’ll honor any withdrawal agreement they sign.

Read the whole speech. It’s your responsibility as an informed citizen. You owe it to yourself to learn to read between the lines.

Tall Afar, or Tal Afar or Tal’Afar, depending which English spelling you prefer, is a clear success story for the coalition. I first blogged Tall Afar in January, pondering why the mainstream media was ignoring the good news coming out of Iraq.

Here we are, only two months later and I’m shocked but pleased to report that someone, somewhere was listening. I don’t know if they listened to me, or someone else in the blogsphere, but I’m glad I was able to play a role in getting this story out, even if it wasn’t pivotal.

The media was literally handed this story! Why it took two months to follow up is a mystery, but I’m glad it’s being told. When the mainstream media finally decided to use their massive resources to tell the story of Tal’Afar, some incredibly important quotes resulted. The true nature of this war is clearly revealed in the 60 Minutes piece on Tal Afar: Al-Qaeda’s Town:

“They had schools for snipers. They had kidnapping and murder classes that were attended by people on the best techniques,” says McMaster.

The colonel says he was surprised to learn the enemy in Tal Afar was so organized. “You had this blending of former military expertise and organizational ability with, with a radical Islamic ideology, and it was fertile ground here.”

Col. McMaster is a soldier-scholar, known for writing a book that found fault with military and political leaders during the Vietnam War. As commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry, he was given the mission to recapture Tal Afar. He told 60 Minutes that to defeat an insurgency, you have to win the trust of the people.

“The enemy showed the people who they really are. These are mass murderers. These are people who don’t have respect human life,” says McMaster. “These are people who want to choke the life out of cities like Tal Afar.”

Beheading people and leaving their corpses in the streets. Killing a child and hiding explosives inside his body as a technique for killing the father because they knew he would claim the body. The lowest and vilest acts imaginable from merchants of ideological despair. Tal’Afar was controlled by desperate death peddlars and vagabond scum.

Imagine your home town with decapitated bodies being put on display in the streets. Imagine thugs snatching your kids off the streets to use as pawns in a murderous game. Imagine houses taken over and dedicated to torturing and murdering families of anyone who disagrees with the villains who have taken over. Ignoring Islamofascists or downplaying the spread of their memes is an invitation for them to grow their ministry of destruction and blind hatred. Like certain types of rodents and insects, Islamofascists hide in dark places and breed. The U.S. Army acted as the Orkin Man in Tal’Afar and Iraqis who live there acknowledge this fact. This is an important and possibly even pivotal story in the larger and ongoing history of this war.

Stories of hope are the ones we need most. The people bringing hope to Iraq are not part of the insurgency; they are not the purveyors of the revenge killings and sectarian murders. They aren’t the people sneaking across the border from neighboring countries bent on keeping Iraq in turmoil and scared of what seeds of freedom that have been planted here might grow into one day.

What sort of hope does Al-Qaeda have to offer? False promises of eternal reward for murdering school children? Cunning men have always taken advantage of the gullible. The only long-term question that worries me is whether Al-Qaeda’s leadership, working with the governments of Syria and Iran will be able to continue manipulating a gullible American public into thinking that we should just give up in the Middle East. If the Zarqawi’s of the world can convince us to substitute small tragedies on a personal scale for a much larger one on a worldwide scale, then they will win.

The New York Post ran a mostly positive Tal’Afar story recently, but they require registration to read it, and I don’t play the content/spam exchange game. What the mayor had to say, however, is incredibly important. “Before their sacrifices, the smiles were stolen from our children’s faces. With their sacrifices, they have given us life and hope and the smiles of the children,” he said. He wants Americans to know that progress in Iraq is happening, and that his town, at least, is grateful.
This completely debunks the lies and inneundo being spread by the mean-spirited and short-sighted whiners over at the Daily Kos, which I commented about recently. I was taught that if you have nothing productive to contribute to a situation, you should keep your mouth shut, and that’s my advice to those folks right now.

How many surgeons do you think the Iraq insurgency employs?

I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to describe the miracle of what we’ve seen the last few days. The experience has been overwhelming in many ways: the severity of the wounds we’ve seen, the intensity of the ER and operating rooms, the delicate care in the intensive care unit. My first day here I watched a patient very nearly die from a gunshot wound to the chest and a surgeon place his finger on the pulmonary artery to keep the blood from draining a life. I saw the surgical team refuse to give up on that patient when many would have thought it hopeless. I very literally watched a life saved and realized the miracle that was being performed through the hands, hearts and minds of these care givers.

Check out Blink Into Focus and read for yourself what happens at Ibn Sina, Baghdad’s coalition trauma hospital, where lives are saved every day. This war is about builders and destroyers. I leave it up to you to glean which side represents the engineers, scientists, doctors and content creators of society and which side represents the blind, shuffling, angry world eaters who want to lead us all to an earth that is actually hell.

One of the great things about my blog is that I have intelligent readers with whom I get to correspond. One of my “regulars” recently pointed out a blog entry from Free Iraqi in which he very clearly illustrates the depth of the problems that must be overcome if Iraq is to flourish and prosper:

One of my cousins study agriculture in Al-Kufa University in Najaf. Her father came to me once asking me to help her in one of her classes. The class is called “Democracy” which replaced Saddam’s “National culture” that referred to the Ba’ath teachings that we had to take in the 1st years in college (I failed once in that class). This sounded great, to replace the Ba’ath twisted teachings with teaching democratic values, and I told my uncle that I was more than happy to help as much as I can. However it wasn’t what I thought. Their teacher had asked them to prepare an essay on the relation between democracy and the revolution of Imam Hussein! And that was not just once, as he told me that most of their study was actually about Shiite Imams and how democratic they were. My uncle couldn’t find a book that link the two together and thought I could find some references through the Internet since I have a home connection and have more experience in this field. I told him that I can’t help him, as we’ll probably need a million dovetail joints to connect the two and they still won’t fit, and that she’d better just say that Imam Hussein was great and beautiful and liberal and supported gay marriage and that he studied the values of democracy at the hands of his father Imam Ali who studied it at the hands of the prophet Mohammed who studied it at Harvard…Yes he couldn’t read and write but back then reading was optional in universities.

You can’t make much progress when you’re busy trying to rewrite the history of democracy to fit into your existing worldview. However, I am encouraged by the thoughts expressed in Ali’s Sectarian Violence Spreads to Schools.

After all, if at least one Iraqi is thinking about gay marriage, how far behind can the United States lag? Maybe one day we’ll all catch up to Ali and realize that gay people who want to get married aren’t really a threat to those of us who happen to be heterosexual and married.

But wait, there’s more!

Both sides are definitely responsible for feeding hatred and distrust to their kids. The only difference is that Shiite now control most of the media and government offices and that makes the effect of any sectarian message they send more powerful. Sunnis certainly did a similarly bad job when Saddam was in power but it shouldn’t be pay back time or else we’ll never make it to a real democracy.

The same thing Ali said about Shia versus Sunni could be said about gay versus straight in the U.S. However, there are significant differences. The U.S. has a broad base of moderate people from all walks of life who don’t teach their kids to hate anyone for being different. Iraq, not so much. In the U.S. it would be unthinkable to mortar a gay neighborhood. In the U.S. there are no organized squads of straight guys snatching gays off the streets, binding their hands behind their backs and shooting them in the head. In Iraq, these things are happening daily.
America is not Iraq, but we do have Fred Phelps and others like him. And lots of states recently passed anti-gay marriage amendments to their Constitutions. Faulty memes aren’t exclusive to the Muslim world. Everyone has memes they can improve on or replace with better memes. It’s all about the memes. Change the memes, make the world better. This applies to America as much as it does to Iraq.

If you caught my Talk Radio News Interview, you’ll hear me mispronounce the word meme. SGT Jeff Lowry, my roommate here in Iraq, was kind enough to correct me. Here is the history of the word; it’s interesting.

meme MEEM noun