Another Sunday and another week has passed without incident. I'm not complaining by any stretch, but it makes for crappy reading. It also makes for slower passage of time. There was a little excitement last night. For the second week in a row, the night before our big weekend started with our power going out... meaning no a/c, no lights, no water pumps. We really are spoiled and we can tell because everyone gets cranky when the a/c goes out. They get a little stinky when the showers quit and as for the toilets... well, they'll flush if you dump enough water bottles into the tank and there are plenty of port-johns around.
I'm reading a book about the liberation of the Cabanatuan prison camp in the Phillipines. It's the place where soldiers who survived the Bataan Death March stayed for three years. A group of Rangers (who were brand new at the time) is about to liberate the camp, but the Japanese know that it's about over for them and the race is on for the Rangers to get the prisoners out before their captors execute them. The conditions and trials the prisoners faced are beyond description here. It really helps put our relatively comfy confines into perspective, yet the mistakes made in WWII leading to that tragedy, which were repeated in the Korean War and Vietnam, and are being repeated again, are what really makes our luxurious war tough to take.
I was reading a NewsMax magazine the other day, and even a guy in there (a carefully selected "fair and balanced" interviewee) says the boss dropped the ball on this by forgetting or ignoring all of the lessons learned. Issue number one, hammered home by the dissent over Vietnam, is entering a war over ideals as opposed to necessity. The case for ideals has been repeated in various forms since it popped up as a major campaign issue, but there has yet to be a convincing argument for how our operation is protecting Americans.
What gets to most of us here isn't the inconsistent internet connection, or the com blackouts after another "protected" American has been killed, or even the frequent power outages due to poor performance by contractors who make ten times as much as we do to provide power. Hell, we're used to that... well, we're actually not because we are usually self-sustaining and we're much better at it than anyone here, but even that capability was taken away from us on this trip. Anyway, it's not the intermittent luxuries that bother us in the least. What frustrates us is how this bad decision making has trickled all the way down to our own levels.
Many of us feel in the dark as to what our priority missions are and when we guess wrong, the second and third effects of our own "bad" decisions affect the mission that we never knew about in the first place, but only the people at the bottom of the chain ever have to answer for that. It almost makes me sympathetic for those sad excuses for soldiers at Abu Ghraib. As if that's not bad enough, add to it the appearance of other priorities like proper hat and PT gear wear, and who's allowed to visit whom, and what we're supposed to be worried about gets really confusing. How untucked PT shirts merit attention over bright red shorts and logo t-shirts is beyond me. How either of those merit attention over a firm return date, clear, specific daily, weekly, or even overall objectives, or consistency in implementing the rules that do matter is just plain beyond understanding. Why people here have time to keep track of who visits whom, but no time to communicate clear mission objectives baffles me. We're tired of trying to guess what's important. We're tired of being wrong. We're tired of being given little or no input other than being chastised AFTER we've done the best we could with no guidance. We're tired of the little shit being swept under the rug until it effects someone higher up the chain, and then being blamed for it in spite of all attempts to correct and make the problems known all along, and then being told it's our fault for not fixing it even though the power to do so is several layers above us. In a nutshell, we're tired of being blamed for being here.
The frustration level that can build up under that kind of bullshit over 6 months will take a while to go away. Sure, living conditions are great. Luxuries even abound, but the frustration level is beyond repair in the time we have left here. For many of us, it's beyond repair within the time that remains in our military careers. After nearly 20 successful years of accomplishing great things with great people, this trip has been a dissappointing and unfortunate chapter.
I was looking over previous posts last weekend and was actually surprised to see so much hope in most of my posts. In spite of the constant sand being kicked in our faces, I frequently assumed it would get better as we went on. It pains me to post this conceit, but when reality hits you enough times, you have no choice but to face it. My room is comfy, my buddies have remained around me and we've all been relatively safe. The food is good and plentiful. My family is safe at home and doing fairly well. I have a lot to be thankful for still, and I am thankful for that. BUT in the absence of any clear objective, mine is simply to keep busy, dodge both the literal and the figurative bullets, and get home. We'll hand our operation (loosely used term) over in much better shape than we received it. There's nothing else left here to work or hope for.
Smile!
Luth
6 comments:
Hang in there. You have more support and love at home than you can possibly imagine. There is a great life waiting for you. Be strong and don't let this thing change you. Be safe. Occupy your thoughts with something other than the reasons that you are there. You cannot change that. Think of more positive thoughts such as those sweet lovely daughters of yours waiting on your return.
As an academic, I differ from some (perhaps most) of my colleagues in that my first reaction to an idea or argument is to put myself in the position of the person advocating it. This is, if you will, an attempt to try on the shoes before you pronounce them unfit for walking in.
The problem with the case for the Iraq conflict vis-a-vis the "war on terror," though, is that it is so difficult to assemble that it is more like strapping strips of cloth - most of them thin - to your feet.
But the best possible spin on the whole thing has to be that it just might run counter to something that I have long criticized politicians, particularly but not exclusively republicans, for: acting for the short term gain of a few rather than the long term well-being of the many.
The best argument for the Iraq conflict now is that it is a test case, a plan to seed the region with freedom. A nudge in the direction of free markets, equal representation under the law, and other things we Americans like to consider our national trademarks.
Trouble is, when I put on this pair of shoes...and try in earnest to say ok, let's assume that is the game plan...well I just don't see any logic to the way we've gone about the whole thing.
For one thing, we saw no deliberation about whether Iraq was the most fertile ground for growing a new democracy. Does it seem to you like the best way to start the ambitious effort of launching a democratic movement in the region is to occupy one of the more oil-rich states? And what about the length of occupation? If Wolfowitz's estimate of a 10 year occupation is even close, does this seem like the dawn of a positive movement towards Iraqi sovereignty under a democratic system?
All of which, of course, makes one believe that the "seeding freedom" argument is a post-hoc rationalization rather than a motivating influence undergirding a plan. Whether this is the best possible spin on a series of unfortunate and ill-planned moves, or one of a parade of stories that will become shameful tales of American policy in a theoretically endless war on "terror" - a tactic, not an entity - reamins to be seen I suppose.
I am reduced to hoping for the former. I don't want to believe that my lifetime will coincide with what history will recognize as a period of American colonialism sold to a free people through tales of fear on the one hand and tales of heroism on the other.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"
Santayana
Beautifully put Dr. Bill, and I couldn't agree more, but I have given up on any rational argument for the big picture here. I'm just looking for an answer to "What should I do today?" that doesn't conflict with what I was told yesterday or what I anticipate being told tomorrow.
Luth
President Malaprop
It was interesting to note, during President Bush's May 31 press conference (``Bush says he'll keep pushing agenda,'' Beacon Journal, June 1), that he described the word ``disassemble'' as ``(to) not tell the truth.'' Apparently, he meant the word ``dissemble.''
Here's an easy way to tell them apart: ``Disassemble'' is what Bush and his cohorts have done to America's national character, moral values and world reputation; ``dissemble'' is what he does whenever he's asked about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and his motives for instigating that war.
I don't remember now... in fact, I'm not sure I ever knew who posted the previous comment, but it's beautiful. One of those rare moments when words are captured in writing and actually result in truth being recorded. I only wish it were recorded somewhere more meaningful than my 'blog.
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