From Kurdo’s World:
Moving on to Fallujah.. I think this current event has dramatic events about the American dream of a model Iraq.
Perhaps Iraq will be a democratic country, but not the way the Americans want.. Following the killing of about 650 people in Fallujah it will not have a good reaction from the other Iraqis.
Look at it in this way, say you are a man with no interest in politics, you once hear that an occupation army has killed 650 from you in your neighbouring city, it makes you feel angry and pushes you to do something about it..
That is what is happening across South and Middle Iraq (Sunni and Shia)…Anti-US and occupation feelings are very tense and high at this moment.. This is not in US favour.Now if there were any elections in the future, Radical Islamicists and far right Iraqi Nationalists will definitely win ! And this is not in the US favour either !
What the Americans are doing is that they are uniting the Shias and the Sunnis against them, something that Al-Qaeda was trying to do for ages. But the Americans have done it by themselves..
Instead of usign heavy military to attacka town like Fallujah, what they could have done was using intelligence to target specific people, like leaders of the resistance or radical clerics. What they had to avoid was to create mass-anti-civilians military operations…at the same time, providing jobs and education and entertainments to ordinary civilians..
From Boots on the Ground:
For us, it is not about fighting for the glory of America, it is fight for each other. It’s all about the men next to you, and that’s it. America is still suffering from her wounds she received in Vietnam. I don’t want to have to deal with a new one. We are kicking the hell out of the insurgence, and yet it seems like we are losing the war. It is really hard to understand. Other times, I do really wonder if American lives are worth losing trying to save Iraq from herself. I don’t know how this situation will be resolved with us being there. The militias and terrorists, who are now desperate, and taking hostages to stop the onslaught. If we negotiate with them, it only allows them to get more time to re-organize and prepare for more attacks. I don’t believe negotiating with them will work, I think we should just go in a crush them. However, we win militarily, but we lose politically no matter what. The only hope that I have right now that the nation I love and care for so much, to not be sent home in disgrace is if Bush stays in office. I think that will be really hard. Anyone who thinks Bush is real popular is delusional. Alot of people are upset with him. I want us to stay there and finish the job, and if we do not have the intestinal fortitude to crush this resistance, then I fear we will have to pull out in disgrace. I don’t think Americans are worth losing if you’re not willing to go all the way.
Unfortunately this gentleman’s weblog was pulled by his C.O. however, he does keep his fans informed via email. And here, a more positive take from my warrior friend:
Iraq right now is not unlike the early American wild west and all of my Indiana Jones-fueled boyhood fantasies have come true for the most part. We live a pretty primal existence. We have to be creative when it comes to everything. We build what we need by hand from available materials. Even when it comes to combat readiness, we have to use a lot of ingenuity and elbow grease to make things work. Humvees are being kept together with bubble gum and bailing wire half the time, weapons are covered in duct tape to keep pressure switched in place, and recently a slim jim was constructed out of a wire oven rack taken from a home we raided to open a car the owners could not seem to produce keys to. And despite all the high tech bullshit we carry, personal defense is still the most primal act. Everytime we leave our forward operations base (FOB), we lock and load. In the old west, gunslingers went everywhere strapped because they never knew when they’d be in their next gunfight. There is nothing different about being in Iraq. It’s an oddly exhilarating way to live.
But when something does happen, there is excitement. If you are there for the event, there is a certain intensity and elation. If you weren’t there, you absorb every word of the recounted stories. I feel like I need to apologize constantly for enjoying myself here. They say that morale is incredibly low in Iraq among soldiers. That sucks for them. I’m having the time of my life.
And I’m not enjoying myself just because of the G.I. Joe factor. The culture here is fascinating. I feel like I’m in one big Bible story. When I was four years old living in Spanish Fork, the shittiest hick town in Utah, my recently adopted father would read me these illustrated bible stories. Add AK-47s and shabby cars to those stories and you have Iraq 2004. As a child I didn’t understand Charlton “I loves me some rifles” Heston when he cried out to Pharaoh, “Bricks without straw??!! How can we make bricks without straw!!!” Bricks need straw? I had never seen bricks containing straw. Well, I have now. And the story about the temple that needed the exposed bricks of its exterior wall mended? I’ve seen that wall. Men’s fashion hasn’t exactly improved over the last three millennia either. They still wear man-dresses, just like they wore when Jesus was still a teen hangin’ out at the local Haji-mart and later in his life when people were touching the hem of it. I’ve seen kids on donkey-drawn carriages in place of bicycles and men wipe shit off their asses with their bare hands in place of toilet paper. I also was perplexed as a child by a Bible story when someone washed Jesus’ feet when he came to visit them. Never having worn sandals in my life, this seemed like a totally random thing to do. Now I understand it.
This place is so harsh and backwards and perpetually stuck in the fucking stone ages in most ways, but you just have to love it for it. There are no shining new strip malls or housing development here, no Super Target, no Starbucks, no Jiffy Lube. It’s full of people that will die twenty years earlier than Americans and who can’t help but understand that life is survival first and owning a Playstation second. Although there’s nothing special about people that live in poverty and squalor, there’s something genuine about these people and their life that I can’t help but admire. I wish to god I spoke Arabic because I have a thousand questions I want to ask them. Tyler Durden would love Iraq.
I probably should have posted this one first…Now this is what I call a modern day Beowulf.
It’s an unusual concoction of emotions I’m feeling tonight on the eve of what will be the longest flight of my life. I keep thinking I should be dreading my departure, but I feel oddly eager to get there. On a basic and immediate level I’m fairly nervous, but I also feel an inexplicable excitement and undeniable optimism about the future. It’s hard for me to admit that most of what I feel is positive for fear that I’ll later regret my naiveti. More than ever I find my unremarkable life to be sublimely precious. And it’s also hard for me to admit that the rest of what I feel is a sense of incredulity at how colossally absurd it is what I’m about to do. There are people who are going to try to kill me and I’m going to try to kill them. (Don’t these assholes know that all this killing stuff is dangerous? Someone could get hurt for chrissakes!) But fighting is something so basic to humanity that ruing it is just plain futile. Duality is intrinsic to mortality, so as motivated as we are to preserve life, we still succumb to the lust and necessity to destroy life. To transcend this cycle would mean to transcend our own mortality– not a trivial feat. I don’t assume to know so much as even the first step in this process. But I suspect a good start would be a simple sense of compassion and determination.
My heart is full and my weapon is clean.
Foster and polish
The warrior spirit
While serving in the world;
Illuminate the Path
According to your inner light.
THE ART OF PEACE, Morihei Ueshiba
Rina,
We’re right in the middle of reading Conrad so these examples you write in are perfect. With Conrad, Beowulf comes full circle, and Romanticism shows its modern reach: the first is Romanticism, the second a meditation/ preparation for the unknown, a strengthening call, a push for readiness again the first principle of war: chaos!