Greenery in Baghdad

I'm Back!

2007-08-23T07:18:00.000+04:00

Profuse and humblest apologies for leaving you guys worried and wondering. I've been back since May. Its taken me that long to get access to my blog back after such a hiatus.

In Taji, it turned out - we had no reliable internet access. Then once my roomate and I found and paid a guy named Sadik to hook us up - my lap-top crashed completely. I got it fixed (memoryt lost) about two months later with the help of some very busy commo guys attached to our unit, but by then we were in transient housing - two weeks out from our bird back to Kuwait.

Since I've been home, I either couldn't remember my login or password, but with the help of some Google folks - somehow I'm back in. I hope I'm able to re-access it after tonight.

What have I been doing? Being a bum. A professional bum, plus some travelling - and of course - gardening. I've got oh . . . 5 months of photographs with comments to catch you up on - and I fully intend to get started on that herculanean task this week. (I'm off to the UK next week, (for pleasure, not business)).

I hope you all are well. I've still got my ten fingers and ten toes. My company back at the PRT all made it out safely, our battalion (about 330 persons) - scattered throughout Baghdad and environs suffered 9 killed and some 20-odd purple-hearts. Many of the injured returned to duty of their own accord. And of course some of them could not, (the more grievously wounded). My piece of the "surge" (myself and one other were sent to support a surge brigade in Taji) also went as well as could be expected. Our Taji-replacements are now leaving Iraq (they were on a 6-month tour), with no casualties. Although I've since learned our surge Brigade has taken some serious casualties.

My thoughts haven't changed. And I'll be able to more fully expound in later postings. Even with the surge working, it remains to be seen what Iraqis are willing to give/have/do towards a functioning multi-party democracy. It is certainly "not in the water" over there. I have never suggested pulling US troops out, except in jest - as a precursor to atomizing the entire country, but I still can't tell you what the end game is. CORRECTION: I can tell you what the notional end-game is, I just can't yet see how to get there. Pulling out is the worst of all answers. I guess the implication of what I'm saying is our presence might be required for the next 50 years or more, and if that is required - so be it.

That is not what any of us would have wished, but it is not the worst of outcomes. (I would also entertain any proposed partition).

I hope you all are well. And thanks for writing!

-Greenery

Moving

2007-02-01T22:38:00.000+03:00

Howdy Folks.

I was informed on Monday that I will be moving, along with one other soldier from my unit. Somehwere else here in Baghdad province, but out into the "suburbs". HA! As if there were any we'd recognize. I won't be too far from home, but I will be serving the remainder of my time here outside the IZ, and my comfortable abode.

With ten months served, and two to go, that went over like a turd in my coffee. But it is what it is. And who knows? We could always get extended!!!! Yaaayyyyy! Dump some ice cold water on me while I'm sleep-walking through my last 1/6 of tour. (Just as the NYT and the WSJ are to embed with the PRT. seriously. Beginning next week).

So be it. But I'm short on information for you. Where I'll be exactly. What I'll be doing. What will my living arrangements be like? All unknown at this point. But tomorrow we leave, and I'll get back on this blog just as soon as I can. In the unlikely event that where I'm going doesn't have any connectivity, this will be adieu . . . till I can get on somewhere.

Stay tuned . . .

And as for the previous post - What I forgot to "distill" - and thanks for reminding me "Thomas" - is the following. This war is awful, now. But try and contrast that with how bad things could get. How awful things might be along those funny contours and imaginary boundaries between Islam and the rest of the world. At the very least, we are drawing them here like flypaper. Good, old, reliable Arab pride being used strategically. (Ahhhhhhhhhhh). Now see what you can come up with: (taking fullest strategic advantage of cultural distinctions.)

Hello

2007-01-30T22:30:00.000+03:00

Many Thanks for all the kind words, and the dedicated readership and response. I am unworthy.

I'm also chuffed (British English I picked up in Britain - meaning happy and excited) to learn you guys are still on board, despite your misgivings. (That's OK. that's how we figure things out - and why we lead the world - freedom of inquiry married to dedicated delibertion.

War sucks. That's an understatement. Americans are dying here, and not in pleasant ways. That is the nature of war, it is an unpalatable choice. And if I must flog a dead horse I will: The world didn't have the stomach for war when Hitler annexed the Sudentenland. Many of our closest allies didn't have the stomach for much of a confrontation with the Soviet Union. And a whole heaping load of good it did, and lives it spared. Pleasant thoughts did not stop the Blitzkrieg, an unreconstructed neanderthal named George S Patton did. Wishful thinking did not stop the gulags. They churned unabated for eight decades, destroying souls who have effectively been erased from history. Liberty requires vigilance - a lesson lost, I think, after the howling-mad blood-bath of WWI. A war that's not talked about enough, because its overshadowed by the Second.

And as for this romanticized notion of the "Good war", lets not forget the mutual extra-judicial killings on the Western front in 1944, or the busy trade we had with Germany in 1915, or you want civil protest? Try the draft riots in New York in 1864. War is messy. War is failure. War is evil. War is whatever epithet you'd like to pin to it - but say it with me now: "War . . . is . . . sometimes . . . necessary." The best we can hope for is a quick victory. War swallows whole the good with the bad, the well-intentioned, the orphans, and the honorable with everyone else. We made it as "surgical" as technologically possible following the "stupid" bombs of Vietnam - and apparently even convinced ourselves that wars could be won without infantry (Bosnia-Serbia), or worse still - that great powers could choose to lose little insignificant wars like Somalia with no blow-back. (Does anyone need a history-lesson of Al Qaeda in Somalia? Did we all get that class? Ok, then.) This is war. It requires boots on the ground, and soldiers in those boots. Those soldiers, much more often than we'd like get maimed, shot through the head, cut in half, burned alive, captured and decapitated, or suffer brain damage, and horrific injuries that will plague them the rest of their natural days. Beautiful, young American boys and girls with their whole realised potential ahead of them. It is awful. Full-stop. It is horrid beyond measure. And we thought it was consigned to history, but our polling data was flawed.

This is what it looks like when people of little means decide they don't like what you're offering. It doesn't make them right, or rational, or intelligent because they're poor and brown-skinned. Nor does it automatically make your cause illegit. because your soldiers wear $200 Ray-bans, and are augmented by any number of private contractors doing everything from spying to life-saving surgery. We brought what we got. They brought what they got. It is abominable and abhorrent and unspeakably ugly in our eyes - and thus we are confused. We thought this had passed into history. Our adversaries think it is normal, and glorious and a triumph of their collective will - the ugliness, and are proud that it scares us. They seek to exempt themselves from history, by covering us both in blood. . . . And we've over-stepped the question. War is a contest of wills. And if we believe in the universality of the message in our founding documents - our collective will is stronger. Do you believe in the right of every man and woman to marry, worship, write about whom they choose? OK then. Step 2: If someone with alot of armed men decides he should arbitrate what you or your neighbors can or can't do or belong to - who lives or dies according to his dogma - are you willing to do anything about it? Because if you're not, or if you answered "that's a matter for the security council to arbitrate", then for all PRACTICAL purposes - you're for the armed man and his thugs. Or at least - not against him. It is that simple, (not easy). I see it everyday in Baghdad. Everyone LOATHES the terrorists, and are quite positive (these days) about the AMERICANS doing something about it. I mean, we're here - and most don't have the stones to inform on the bomb-builder down the street. What about when we're gone? (full disclosure: I'm not sure those "self-evident truths" are so universal anymore, upon my aquaintance with the middle-east).

In the aftermath of WWI, the West was sick of God and country (although it wouldn't attain critical mass till two generations later) - as it was under these banners so many rushed head-long into the machine guns. (such is the delayed-response of history - we are living in response to the 70's and 80's today in many important ways). So we birthed Communism, which mid-wifed fascism. God replaced by ideology. A more "scientific" means of ordering society. If you throw Mau's revolution in with WWI and WWII, collectivization, other communist revolutions, and fascist revivals- the death toll runs well over 100 million souls. Thats the history of the 20th century - and I'll put that up against any number of iterations of the "black death", or bubonic plague in the days of pre-modern western medicine.

Imagine that. Humans willfully murdering, raping, gassing, bombing, starving more human beings than the unchecked bugs could do in the pre-modern pig-slop of medieval europe. All for what? To improve their lot? The species? It's madness. But madness alone is random, unorganized, happenstance brutality. I call it evil, and I don't see it as random. In fact, I believe it has an author and a purpose. To devour humanity.

And it never goes away. Like some science fiction B-movie, the smoldering clod in the corner of the room which the camera pans to before the credits - it portends its own return. Its return is already well underway. Call it the "human condition" if you like. As authhors from Orwell to Solzenitzen have noted, it dwells in the human heart. We all have a piece of it - which is why it's never extinguished. And as a general rule, (if the 20th century is prologue), it takes the form of our ally-in-the-previous-conflagration. Yes, I realise that sounds like Orwell's 1984, and perpetual war - but take a gander at the history books. Japan was of great aid in the Pacific in WWI - they took (and held) many formerly German-held islands and bases. "Uncle Joe" Stalin was suddenly our indispensable friend after the Ribbentropp pact was broken by Hitler. And the glorious mujahadeen, whose exploits were celebrated in several Hollywood movies - broke the back of the expansionist evil empire (with our money and weapons). That's the point at which the script ends and the present begins. Unwritten yet.

Chesterton penned the unimprovable axiom, "There is one thought that stops ALL thought. That is the ONLY thought that ought to be stopped."

Evil in our generation has chosen its form. It alerted us that it was annoyed we were ignoring it on September 11. (It had tried before, but we just hit the snooze button). The smoldering clod was growing, and yearned for more blood after Afghanistan, while we partied away the 90's, celebrating the end of history. Is it our fault? Its always our fault. And who cares? Its our fault because we're engaged, and because nobody else can do more than pretend to care. UN peace-keepers? I'll have US marines, please.

And its our fault, because "their" children want to be American. That's why its our fault. I would have apologised for Madonna, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, Netscape, the New York Yankees, Jenna Jameson, Seinfeld, Pamela Anderson (British Columbian extraction), and Ipods - but now I'm not gonna. (Na-naaa!) What is there to apologise for? A youth culture that is happily and greedily imported around the world? You have to do a little research, but European proto-fascism actually has its roots in anti-Americanism. In the late nineteenth century, the one-way street that was transatlantic cultural exchange became a bit more of a "dual carriageway", with Europeans importing American technology, "crass" American music, "2nd rate" literature and New York haute couture. Some "avatars" of European tradition resented this change, and reacted. It got worse as time wore on. American culture, which everyone around the world characteristically presumes is imposed upon them, un-moors "their" youth. We'd feel the same way, (I guess), if we presumed our culture superior, insisted our youth received the same breeding we did, blocked outside influences, and generally not borrowed all that intrigues from the outside. That is key to understanding why we're hated. Why we've always been hated, and preumably why we always will. As the preminent nation that embraces modernity, we represent modernity to all these other Luddites I call "the rest of the world". All who hate "modernity" (define it how you will - its "what's changing now"), project that hatred onto us. How else could European Bon-vivants despise us for being too religious, while the mullahs hate us for being too decadent and a-religious? We are all things to all people. What do you hate? Pockey-mon? Auto-racing? Liberal jewish authors? Conservative neo-con Jewish authors? materialism? Nihilism? religiosity? multiculturalism? tolerance? in-tolerance? Because whatever it is, it has found it's pre-eminent manifestation in freedom-addicted America . . . Hate them.

I'm originally from small-town North Carolina. We've got nothing to do with whats known around the world as "American culture", which is basically an amalgam of New York/LA trends in showbiz, combined with Big Food (big Fast Food), except that we import it whole-heartedly. And yes - if we were a separate country - I could imagine us banning Madonna videos, Carl's Jr. burger joints and the like - in futility - as our young ones gobbled it up with all the more rebellious zeal. Kids in small town NC dress like LA gangsters, (and used to dress up like Sunset Strip Glamrockers). Whats that got to do with North Carolina?

We are an un-grounded, moor-less, wind-blown, amnesiac, young country. History has its advantages - as our European cousins never fail to remind us, but History can also be an encumbrance. --- Just ask the Irish, or the Indians, or Alabamans - for that matter. (excuse me - North Carolinians - for that matter).

That went a little long. I was working my way around to "the land that time forgot" - the middle east. Youth culture here is no different, save the Egyptian and Lebanese music videos (that ape their American parents). Yes, including Arabic-language "gangsta" rap. "50-cent" meet "Ali-Fresh". "Ali-Fresh", "50 cent". But selectively, and scrupulously - still Middle eastern. Music that apes the American is never "American" but a hybrid of host and hosted. Just ask the Beatles, or the Pizzicato Five. So what's all the fuss about? After all - we're not charging them royalties. (Note to self - write congressman and demand royalties).

The fuss is about the hand that rocks the cradle. And in this host - the Mad-East - it is about Sayyid Qutub. Qutub was not the first Moslem fundamentalist, but he was undoubtedly the 20th century's most influential. HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT: Go out and learn all you can about Sayyid Qutub. I don't have the space or the knowledge (yet) to hold forth on Qutub, but if you're looking for the origins of the Islamist idea loosed in our world now, all roads lead through him. Including one neat and narrow one back from UBL through Ayman Zawahiri - who as a schoolboy - joined the Muslim Brotherhood after hearing Qutub.

Which brings me back to bad ideas, and Chesterton. (Getting closer now). Qutub never killed anyone, (at least as far as I'm aware). He might have, but he spent his idealogue-years in Egyptian prisons. But hang on. Neither did Marx, nor Engels, nor Heideggar, nor Nietzche's sister. (who if memory serves, set off to Paraguay to found an Aryan super-colony - that collapsed - predictably - due to inbreeding and not trading, learning from the mongrel-race natives). I don't know why the founders don't do the killing (with the exception of mohammet) - I just know that the conceivers of the omelette, are rarely the same guy as the egg-cracker that invariably follows. Perhaps the progenitor is too stuck in his abstract mind-world, and the zealot that picks up his lance, has less scruples (and less marbles).

The point being - with Islamism, we are somewhere between 1933 and 1939. Or the winter of 1916, if you prefer the marxist template. We've had an Islamic theocracy for almost thirty years now, but only now is it going nuclear. Only now is it matching its bellicosity with the actions of proxies. Only now has it chosen Ahmedinejad. Thats where our template/comparison ends. Because, as I've said before, it doesn't end here - and Iran is no more its full measure and manifestation that Franc-ist Spain and Guernica was the full measure of the fascist threat. We have chosen to act (and it really didn't matter where - but Saddam was begging us) BECAUSE of this history, and because of the dearth of alternatives. If there was an Islamic "British Isles" we could bolster, defend and help - we'd have done that - as we did in Britain (albeit late - in 1942). They're too proud (Arab-pride - not to be easily overlooked), to learn from the "sons of monkeys and pigs" in Israel. So we had to create an Arab muslim Britain out of the (select-at-random) husk-state thugocracy. There are too many to choose from, but Saddam nominated Iraq early in the polling, way back in 1991, should this need ever come to pass. Moreover, because of the Baathists, not in spite of them, Iraq was thought to be relatively secular, and notionally pro-western. Hell, its what the Iraqis themselves thought. Just ask anyone of the educated, secular, notionally pro-western Iraqis.

What I'm seeing here in Baghdad today is the same elite/unspohisticate, urban/rural disconnect that bedevils us in the West. Baghdad today is full (well, not full - about 3/5 of them have already beat feet back to London, Toronto or Amman) of wonderful intellectuals and academics. They're liberal (in every sense of the word), pro-freedom of you-name-it, and sophisticated, worldly english speakers. They're forever holding conferences with other academics where they discuss the problems of Iraq, the potential solutions, and then they agree to hold more conferences with each other. The problem is they haven't been teaching or reaching your average Iraqi in, well - all of recorded history. And frankly I don't see how they can, unless they were given total control of the K-12 curricula, which won't happen in the forseeable future. I salute them for still having the guts to stay here. Academics ARE being targeted here. In ruthless fashion. (Our enemy knows who his enemy is, why do we still persist in denying ours?)

Before closing, (finally), I don't want to leave the impression I'm playing down what I've previously played up. I have a horrible opinion (thats best kept to myself - when me-possible) of Islam, its origins, and its apocalypse-hoped-for future. I don't believe it can reform itself. I believe that would already have happened, if it could. But there are other possibilities, and needless to say - I could be wrong. What our generation confronts is a conflict that could never be resolved in the span of time it took to destroy Naziism. I'm hopeful a cold-war length span is possible. (I'd like to see it off personally). What many brave journalists and brilliant writers are beginning to point out to us - is that for the contours and boundaries of this conflict - there is no template. NOTHING to glean from history. Soviet spies were generally readily identifiable by their chosen professions and activist history, (westerners who were recruited by the KGB - Alger Hiss, Kim Philby, Rosenburgs, the lot). Moreover, KGB plants always ran the risk of going native once they arrived in Sunny Florida and realised that in America they didn't have to wait two years for a new car - they could drive it off the lot. It was a terrible problem for the KGB. This is much different. What is a sleeper cell? Does it matter if they attended an AlQaeda camp or not? Does it matter if they attended a camp? Or visited relatives in Peshawar, or Yemen? Mohammed Atta not only attained a graduate degree from a Western liberla university - his degree was in city planning, and skyscraper-building. (hold the irony, please). And if he sleeps with an infidel stripper, or drives a brand new SUV off the lot - is he placated, or brought closer to madness by his insatiable envy, and esteem-righting doctrine of supremacy over that which he can't control, or clad in a burqa?

Islamic laborers have been imported to prop-up aging, post-christian, socialist, post-nationalist, nullity-nations. What is there to assimilate to - if they chose to? We're diddling about climate change, and the volume of this excahnge goes up (not coincidentally) as the Muslim threat broadens and deepens before our very eyes. Muslim immigrants are having more babies, by at least a factor of two - than the natives. And as recent history has shown - who needs jihad - when the democratic means to sharia are already in place; barriers removed, and populations inoculated to judgement and discernment by the siren-song of "multi-culturalism". (Which in my mind is short-hand for Western self-loathing.) The academics in Baghdad will continue to preach to their dwindling number of already-converted, until they find something as appealing to Arab pride, Muslim piety - as Qutub. Who, incidentally, was given the chance to renounce his views publicly, but chose death instead. And we will continue spinning on our heads until we can get the message through that freedom isn't Jenna Jameson and Kentucky whiskey - but Selma, Gettysburg, and Berlin - circa 1989. There's nothing quite like the transcendent martyr - for whatever creedo - including the American one. And the strange thing isn't the dearth of martyrs to free speech in the muslim world (ask any non-Koranic dissident - excuse me - "Scholar") - but that they aren't the martyrs who're celebrated.

Post-note: If I'm right about Islam - not even an academic breakthrough will be enough.

New Links

2007-01-24T12:25:00.000+03:00

The Pajamahadeen!

The ruthlessly-mocked-by-MSM, "guys in pajamas sitting in front of their computers in Minnesota," the antidote to the MSM and their dependable bias. These are the Blog-world media. The collective mind of the population of America that's paying attention. We are now in the information age - and this is the penultimate manifestation: Guys in their pajamas that have exposed MSM lies and distortions.

Broke the Monica Lewinsky story, (if you include Drudge as a fore-father Pajamahadeen), after Newsweek had spiked the story for "lack of material" - a dress with Presidential semen on it.
Broke the "Rather-gate" story, after CBS ran with the story, on "material" purporting to date from the early seventies that was forged with a Microsoft font .
Exposed plagiarism at the New York Times.
Broke open the "Trent Lott Affair".
Exposes Media bias and "news manufacturing" on a daily basis;
as when NBC's "DATELINE" bussed about a hundred muslims to a Nascar event intent on getting them killed. They were treated with incomparable decency and civility - exposing the TRUTH about America, (moral and decent to its marrow), and the LIE that the MSM embraces: (a nation of bloated, rascist, war-mongering, Capitalist pigs).

The Religion of Peace.

Islam: Making a Difference Every Day.

This is the single, best compendium anywhere in the Information Age of the words and pictures, and reports of how the Religion of Peace makes a difference in our world. All across our world. Updated Daily/weekly. This site is without peer. Go there. It is Incomparable. No ideology for you to ingest, or swallow whole. Just words and pictures , (with a sprinkling of sarcasm), culled from Newspapers around the world into one source, for your to absorb. Visit this site at least once a week. That is a commandment.

A few items from this week, at random:

Prominent Armenian Turk Journalist who has been writing about the 20th century's first Genocide (1.2 million Armenians killed by Turkey in Turkey in the inter-war years) gunned down in Turkey to cries of "Allahu Akbar."
Two Saudi Septogenarian business partners wed their teenage daughters to one another.
Sheik Halili (Australia's "uncovered women are uncovered meat" imam) says on Egyptian TV that Muslims have more of a right to Australia, than Australians - as Aussies were brought there as criminals.
New CNN/Amanpour documentary dependably misses the point - but nonetheless airs hidden camera footage from inside a "moderate" Mosque in Britain of an imam and his breathless sheeple delirious over their future plans to introduce sharia in the UK, by eclipsinig the native population demographically.
Imam in Dublin banned from Mosque for speaking against terrorism.
Pakistan Honor-killing tally already up to 578.
Special, segregated swimming times demanded for Muslims at public pools in New Zealand.
Three more Thai Buddhists found decapitated, shot with predictable notes attached in Southern Thailand.
Libya to build a statue honoring Saddam.
Australia reports five stolen rocket launchers were intended to be used in attack on nuclear reactor.
Saudi terrorist-financier-money used in constructing Boston Mosque.
Judge shouted down by Islamists in Britain.
Spanish Muslims look to "timeshare" cathedral
710,000 animals to be sacrificed at Hajj this year.
and my personal favorite - The Iranian Burqa fashion show. This is not satire.

They also keep a running tally of Muslim terrorist outrages since 9/11. Go there and find out who and how many died for the crime of being an infidel on your birthday in 2004! 2005! Pick any year you want!

NEW SECTION: "Reciprocal Links" Please send me a note if you've linked to my blog. I'd like to return the favor - but lost track some time ago of the many kind folks that added me to their blogroll. The blame is all mine. Please help me catch up.

It's On Like Donkey Kong!

2007-01-24T11:01:00.000+03:00

Technical difficulties remain unresolved, but I have to break protocol here and blog from work.

It is on Like Donkey kong.

Things are KINETIC in Baghdad today.

Like nothing I've heard or seen in my nine months here, heretofore. Its a War again. Mortars, Counter-battery fire, Bradleys, 50-cals., Large plumes of beautiful black smoke. Ratatat tat of machine guns large and small, and unending stream of LARGE percussions, (I think I even heard a tank or two making its presence felt), There are no fewer than 2 pairs of Apaches doing what looks to be attack runs on the other side of the River. Its enough to bring a tear to this young, fascist warmonger's eye. God Bless the President, and God Bless the Troops. Methinks Sadr's balls are getting broken open and filleted. . . . Finally . . .

There really is nothing quite so dispiriting as a supremely lethal, deliberately surgical US Army, locked and cocked, with the combined firepower to erase a targeted people from history - boxed up and bent - like a coiled spring, and told to stand down while gangsters and death squads run amok around them. Today, I think I can confidently opine - that spring has sprung.

A word for Dirk and others - There are no Iranian "diplomats" in Iraq. There are, however, many Iranian intelligence agents here training lethal hit and run and ambush squads - and more ominously - starting, funding and training EFP-cells. I've seen this all on Yahoo now, so I feel I can safely discuss it on my blog.

An exceptionally well-trained team wearing US uniforms and driving PSD-typical SUVs attacked, abducted and killed 5 US soldiers over the weekend, in a brilliantly executed hit-and-run attack on a carefully-cased security planning meeting in Karbala over the weekend. They spoke flawless English to all they encountered. I'll wager next months paycheck that Iran was not un-involved, to put it at the most minimalist. Go here: http://www.pajamasmedia.com/2007/01/post_186.php

EFPs keep us all awake at night. Using the expertise Hezbollah has gained from decades of assymetric warfare against the IDF, Iranian agents are coordinating a Shiite Iraq-wide EFP operation. You need to know what EFPs are. (google this: Explosively Formed Projectiles). The ultimate assymetric IED. EFPs can penetrate anything, including M1A Abrams tanks. When one goes off, more often than not - it kills or maims (but mostly kills) everything in the contact vehicle. The survivability rate for your garden-variety IED (an idiot makes a bomb out a propane tank or mortar round) is better than 50%. Your survivability in an EFP attack - less than 10%. A team in my battalion was hit early in our deployment. One of the now-deceased was observed crawling around on his hands for a few minutes before he expired. He was cut in half, inside one of your new "where's the armor for our troops, Mr. Rumsfeld!?" up-armored humvees. (armor ain't the problem, people. Not in this case.) In another EFP case, the soldiers went looking for one or more missing soldiers down alleyways and streets - as there was so little left of them inside the vehicle, after the strike - the thinking was - they'd fled the scene.)

Here's one definitive link: http://www.afrlhorizons.com/Briefs/Dec04/MN0407.html

A single "array" of an EFP looks like a copper cookie jar, with a copper lid. Its full of explosives, and that copper lid forms a "super-bullet" in a few nano-seconds, travelling at an incomprehensible speed, and at an unbelieveably hot temperature. Its comparable to a naval five-inch gun going off at point-blank range. There is no armor than can defeat it. These "cookie jars" are usually found stacked in two rows of between 2 and 10 "arrays", and encased in concrete, or a concrete-like substance. They look like rubble, indistinguishable from anything in this rubble-strewn shithole. They are cleverly disguised and peerlessly lethal, but that's not what makes them fiendish. What makes them fiendish is the Passsive Infrared Sensor or "PIR" that triggers them. Its the exact same component, from the exact same manufacturers that turn your motion-sensor lights on above your garage. They are hard, if not impossible to defeat or detect. The UK-based "Mirror" newspaper has been reporting for a few weeks now that President Bush signed a clandestine order to target these teams and their Iranian sponsors. God bless him, but if that's true I wanna know why he didn't do it earlier! Iranian "diplomats" deserve death by Pig, a la that last movie installment of "Silence of the Lambs" - (I forget the name) - the one with Julianne Moore as Agent Starling.

I will toast the death and capture (but preferrably - the unbearably excruciating DEATH) of every Iranian found in Iraq - and you should too. It made the news about a week ago with the announcement of two separate captures of Iranian "diplomats" including some who were released, (an abomination). My angst and anxiety is "what have you done for me lately?" Every day that goes by without the death/dismemberment/ excoriation by burning gasses/death by flesh-eating pig - of an Iranian "diplomat" is a very sad day for me. We need to kill Iranians much, much faster. And our SF boys are up to the task. My fear is that their hands are being tied. And where are the flesh-eating pigs in next year's defense budget? We are fighting this war by University Dress-code committee. Flesh-eating pigs. I want them now!

Perhaps, as of this marvellous day - with the plan in place and the State of the Union delivered, there will be a lot less hand-tying. The death of Iranians, that is what restores optimism for me.

(Flesh-eating pigs would restore my sense of fun and excitement, not to mention righteous indignation - at a Mohammedan Horde intent on immolating themselves and the whole world with them. Imagine the treatises the Imams would have to pen guaranteeing entrance to their bordello-valhalla in order to get young "mujahadeen" to take on an American army armed with flesh-eating pigs.)

Experiencing Technical Difficulties . . .

2007-01-21T17:08:00.000+03:00

I am unable to blog from "home" at the present time - due, apparently, to new policies being implemented by our service provider under guidance from the State Department. I should know more on Monday, when alot of this gets decided (so my contact tells me). All kinds of sites and content are blocked now which must be some kind of crack-down on porn or opsec, or something. I can't unsubscribe from my annoying investment newsletter, "The Daily Reckoning", and I can't sign in to this site from my chuu (hooch). They say its to block "streaming video" which I imagine is used by some folks over here to have e-fornication with their wives back home (???) Or maybe its just a security precaution (streaming video and words spoken on it can't be edited - but then neither can phone calls?!).

So I am perplexed, and I am blocked. (from all but my workplace computer where I shouldn't be blogging from anyway).

Hopefully this will be resolved soon. If not - I'll have to start staying late at work and downloading my photos and words there.

I've got lots of new picks. "Groove Alliance's" Baghdad Tour was a SMASHING success, I've got lots of "silver linings" to point out in all the recent humdrum. (Gee, you think our media's against this war? Prominent Democrats were calling for more troops six months ago.)

And its planting season again! Well, not quite yet. But the days do appear to be warming. We're getting monsoons of rain and storms, which means mud. (It does rain in the desert). How else would you get mud? Mud is essential to the Middle-east, both as repulsing image and metaphor. "Rain" calls to mind cleansing and rebirth - so it is clearly not essential here.

Ill

2007-01-15T22:24:00.000+03:00

Apologies again for the break. I have been ill. With a head-cold/cough. And from reaching my threshold again with Iraq.

A few other things need addressing also, and I think I can cover them all in one post.

One, "Whither the freedom fighter?" This sort of deeply confused nihilism was first brought into the public square most noticeably by no less a balanced thinker and bien-pensant than Michael Moore. The question he begged, as dipomatically as I can put it is, "What is a freedom fighter?"

If you're a 19th century Slav fighting Ottoman or Austro-Hungarian Imperialism - I could understand your confusion. If, on the other hand, sharia's your bag and you like having four wives and preventing them from learning to read - I can understand borrowing the language of the free peoples of the West in order to co-opt the weakest minds among them. If, however, one is a 21st century bon-vivant of Europe - your confusion is inexcusable. Why one would expound on that confusion on a US soldier's blog likewise escapes me - if only for taste's sake.

Fortunately, the answers are at your fingertips. Several websites exist to explicate the differences between conventional armed forces of free nations and jihadist scum and one of them is Ogrish.com. The intent of websites such as this is expressly apolitical, but just as Ozzie Ozbourne is a walking anti-drug advertisement in spite of himself - Ogrish.com is one of many sites to which the truly ogrish exploits of these beastial men can proudly post their barbarity. Go there and stomach what you can.

Some men build hospitals and clinics and staff them with doctors and medical supplies. Other men come along and blow them up and assassinate the doctors and nurses. And it doesn't make anyone sound more worldly or sophisticated to anguish over the yawing chasm between the two as though it were nuance and "shades of gray." In light of the times we're living through, not only is it maddeningly silly - it is dangerous. In most parts of Europe nowadays - Islam is not remote and beyond the sense of sight and smell - unless you're avoiding it all together. I supppose they don't call it "Stockholm syndrome" for nothing. Malmo, I'm told, is 40% muslim already, and "honor-killings" in Sweden are now not unheard of. We're in Iraq fighting for the freedom of Muslims to erect a modern society, and its proceeding apace despite their best efforts. I fear the worst joke in history is on us. What we are likely to leave behind in any outcome is an elected government representing the public face of what we've been fighting and will continue to fight. A bit like a 1956 invasion of Hungary, and the citizens of Hungary elect the communists in our wake. This would not have been a futile gesture, whatever the outcome - as it will have expressed the genuine good will, and transcedant hope and brotherly love that befits our civilization. And in any case - it had to be tried before the next escalation (which will be occassioned by the next muslim-terrorist calamity that we all know is coming) - in the judgement and long-view of history.

One of the most intriguing and perpetually enthralling acts of displacement for me, is the semi-annual displeasure and protest lodged against Tony Blair and George Bush from the salons of Europe over their public pronouncements of faith, whilst from the sermons of some of Europe's grandest mosques - the imams bay for blood. "Europe's grandest mosques" - I can't believe I just said that. And I can't believe its real. What I won't do is pretend reality conforms to my desire to live a life of peaceful coexistence with everyone. That's called "denial", and it ain't just a river in Africa.

Which brings me to point number 2: YOU. Many thanks for all the kind words, well-wishes, and words of support. I accept greatfully on behalf of all who labor in uniform. But this epiphany occured to me just the other day. This war isn't about us. Its about YOU - the polity of free peoples of the free west - and how long you can stomach our maiming and deaths. I said before the soldiery is unflinching, and it is. But this war isn't about how many schools we can build and Iran-funded arms factories we raid and destroy. It is MUCH larger. Iraq is but a theater. There are several FRONTS that span the globe. This is about you discovering Western purpose again. I'm talking about the ultimate cure for your boredom.

The West is not an accident, and the way we live in America is not the natural product of things nor the natural evolution of the state. If we don't collectively decide that is worth defending - then we are all jihadist-fodder. Win or lose - this doesn't end in Iraq. And these are not Iraqi Vietcong - in a particular time and circumstance. These are desert warriors from the 7th century, liscensed to perpetuate any barbarity in the name of advancing their geopolitical project of 7th century Arab supremacy. (some call it Islam). They have surged and stalled for 14 centuries, and they are again surging - globe-wide - for the first time. Because they smell blood, and weakness. And there is weakness to go around. Because we decided history was over, history decided to stop by for tea.

The Jihadis haven't the knowledge, nor the desire for the knowledge, of the tehnological superiority that undergirds our civilization - except in furtherance of the goal of wiping us away - and with us - all the history that's transpired between the 7th and 21st centuries. They want jets and nukes, but not the society that produces them. Cavalry charges and scimitars would do, but one company of the 1st Armored Division would have the lot of them. So to hell with the superior western armies - they'll take the cities that support them - and that IS our achilles heel. (or so they think).

A conventional war between any muslim polity or amalgamated society and that of a western one is a foregone conclusion (see Israel). So this is war by other means. And in "other means" we've said alot. There are means we won't use. For Islam, the advance of Islam transcends all morality. (do some reading.)

And the biggest, yet curiously least talked about, FRONT is a demographic one. In Mark Steyn's peerless new book, "America Alone", he writes that history begins with a joke: "Knock-Knock." ("Who's there?") And apart from all debate, apart from the musings of anyone about the future, a fundamental demographic questions precludes all political ones. (Who's there?)Several European countries large and small are on trend to be majority muslim by mid-century, which I fear will cast all our "fiddling" about tolerance and multi-culti pablum in its starkest relief, in retrospect. European women are having something on the order of 1.4 kids per lifetime, whilst muslim immigrants to Europe are having around 3.5. Its not a foregone conclusion that all those muslim kids will turn out to be Khalid Sheik Mohammeds or Mohammed Attas - but what's our bet-hedge? Anyone care to bet 3/5 of them won't be named Mohammed and abhor pork?

There's enough in this paragraph requiring several posts to explicate - but I bring up this one because it struck me just the other day. I know Jews that eat pork. I'm not suggesting bacon-eating be a requirement for citizenship (not yet, anyway), just that I've observed that of all the "assimilated" muslims - from local Iraqi national-hires that notionally support the coalition to the most observably assimilated British, Canadian and American muslims - none will touch pork. Situations have arisen where I or someone else runs out to the dining facility (for American troops and contractors) to illicitly abscond with food for one of our translators or support staff (either wittingly or unwittingly including a roast or somesuch, or a dish that includes material from a pig) and the meal is impolitely refused by a "starving" complainant.

These things make an impression on you. I don't like escargo and bean sprouts, but if it was the only thing on offer . . .

And forget the multi-culti pablum. Pork sustains and has sustained innumerable human populations throughout the ages, much as rice has. It nourishes and it tastes good. The arguments for pork are legion - the arguments against - a religious edict.

The middle-east is expressly non-vegetarian, and I won't entertain arguments of cleanliness either - not from a people who eat lamb meat from an open, dry-air stall in 140 degree heat, with flies in abundance and rivers of freshly-slaughtered lambs blood running beneath their feet mixing with raw human sewage.

No, this is not on the surface significant. Its what the question begs that enthralls. What else have they not internalized? What else do they expressly reject, and why? Islamic civilization can never, has never, and will never produce an America or a Netherlands. So the question that plagues me is: "What do they reject in Islamic civilization?" That's not a ridiculous extrapolation either. Just an easily observable and undeniable phenomenon. Much easier to observe and judge than say their commitment to "freedom of conscience" . "Lip service" is cheap and easy, but not when it comes to pork.

Three: The new plan. It will pay dividends in the near-term. It has already. The Mahdi army has gone back indoors, according to reports. But we haven't fixed the polity that produces and supports them. Or the Sunni terrorists. The unspoken truth is, we'd settle for any strongman who could restore public order now. That's what its going to take. How long does anyone suppose a prime minister will sit atop the ship of state, without the US guarding the helm? My sincere hope is that the President's most optimistic projections bear out. But I wouldn't put any of my money on it.

I am heartened that Gen Petraeus is taking the helm - this is another correct step. Gen Petraeus is an out-of-the-box thinker, and a deeply conscientious man possessed of an analytical mind, by all accounts. That bodes well for "progress" in the next tour - but what then? We're not restoring French citizens to their pre-vichy rights and responsibilities - we are committing heresy in the eyes of Islam. There will be no progress here until there is progress in Islam. And I don't know how that can be accomplished or even if its hypothetically possible. This Iraq War's larger goal is to goad Islam down that path, I believe. But I find it increasingly difficult to accept the premise that change can happen WITHIN Islam.

More later . . .

Bipolar Bitter

2007-01-04T02:29:00.000+03:00

Longtime readers of this blog will note that I am somewhat bipolar. The optimism evident in the posting "halfway" has now yielded to its bitter phase - as Iraq always compels.

Nothing I said in "Halfway" was untrue, just that my aquaintance with the SCOPE of the problems in Iraq comes and goes. There are heroes, there are brave and good and decent people, there are morally upright muslims - but they are unto toilet paper floating on the surface in the flushing commode that is Iraq. We pour in more blood, sweat, and treasure - as it swirls down the toilet.

We did not cause this. We removed Saddam Hussein and his odious gangsters. What you see now is the Middle East returning to its natural state - without a benign/malignant Ataturk/Hussein. The concept of freedom is shallow here - owing to their moral dicta providing none. Islam requires absolute submission, everything else is liscense. Freedom of Speech is no more precious or worthy than freedom to drink licquor.

When we sit around in bull sessions and try and figure out what might work - our brilliant, out of the box scenarios quickly yield to observable phenomena on the ground, and the unwelcome knowledge that in one form or another - its already been tried, the rest is style. More specifically and importantly - all our benign/benevolent initiatives have been tried. What does that leave us - is the rhetorical I'll leave you to ponder. (I have my answer)

For proof of what I see on a daily basis that informs my cruel sense of irony - you have the Saddam execution video in which several of the hangmen and other sundry participants are heard to be chanting Moqtatda Al Sadr's name. Ini that video, you have everything you need to understand Iraq in 2007. Its significant for several reasons: I'll highlight two.

ONE - the most obvious - Why are these "professional" agents of the new, democratic government chanting the name of a renegade gangster wanted for the murder of the "moderate" Imam Al Khoei, leader of the largest and most deadly militia in Iraq, (with lakes and ponds of American and Iraqi blood on his hands), government obstructionist, (backdoor insider) and radical, Iranian-backed Shiite fundamentalist?

TWO: Failing that, after we all presume whats in their hearts - why would they shatter that and remove all doubt - in the FULL VIEW OF HISTORY???!!! Why in God's name could they not keep their mouths shut for pretense's sake as they led an old man to his certain death (and I DON'T CARE what he may or may not have said to badger them.)

THREE: (I lied) What level of competance do you think a Governement has that can't strip search the 14-odd participants for their cell-phones and cameras, repeatedly - if necessary, as that was their stated purpose (no cameras).

The answer to one: That is what has been elected. Expect more of it.

The answer to two: Easy emotionality of an unserious people. From guards lounging on duty (who are about to get blown up), to the "Insh'allah" attitude of virtually everybody - Iraqis by and large have the maturity and emotional stamina of a 12 yr. old 6th grader.
"Insha'allah" means whatever Allah wills.

TRANSLATION:
meaning #1 Whatever happened was fore-ordained.
meaning #2 Whatever's about to happen cannot be stopped.
meaning #3 if I still feel like honoring our contract tomorrow afternoon when I wake up - I'll be there.

The answer to three: I call this the "Iraqi touch". Unlike King Midas - whatever they touch does not turn to Gold - it turns into unadulterated SHITE. Expect more, not less - even if we train their police and troops for 2 more decades.

There is absolutely no accountability in this culture, yet everyone has a liscense to complain - including, and especially, those that prolong/foster/aid and abet the problem.

Saddam's unliscensed snuff video was not the only catalyst for this bleat. Just the recurring nightmare one regularly re-awakens into called Real World Iraq. Things are not going to be okay just because we mean well and we're honorable actors, and we're spending more US treasure than we'll ever be able to pump out of the ground at OPEC prices. There will be a new, democratically elected government in Iraq 2 years hence, there is one now. That's the problem.

The larger probelm I've barely even touched on, but its hanging out there. We must decide what the Muslim problem is, decide to see it off, and discover the resolution to see it through. In Islam, the West has found the immovable object to our previously-thought irresistable force. Our blindness is neatly encapsulated in Francis Fukuyama's treatise on the "End of History". I've polled many of my closest friends and confidante's and they do not see it. It tends to seague neatly with a person's religiosity - but not always. If a person tends toward the atheist/agnostic they tend to see the inevitable progress of history and ideas, blinded by the intellectual/secular/humanist conceit that all must yield before reason and rationality given time. If they tend toward Faith, (Christian or Muslim - I don't have any animists, Hindus or Hasidim at hand to poll), they tend to see 10th century stagnation as something entirely more ominous - by several orders of magnitude - as I do.

You, the reader, do NOT have my permission to read anything in this post or blog as defeatist, or with passing indifference to the Beloved, Hallowed Fallen. Nor may you rightly ascribe to me any angst about the justness or rightness of our cause. The cause is not lost, the battle is. The battle for hearts and minds was won 13 centuries ago by my reckoning - it was over before it started in Baghdad in 2003. Naivete' is always retrospective, and there's a helluva'n accounting coming to us. FOR MISTAKES NOT YET EVEN MADE - let alone the good-will wasted these last three years. There are no good guys in Iraq. In any case, NOT ENOUGH.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T00:15:00.000+03:00

I'd like to say a special word of thanks to all the new friends of this blog, and for suffering through my un-PC diatribes. Blogging does provide a vent for me, and knowing someone is reading is no end of comforting and reassuring.

And I'd like to thank all the folks back home that support the troops. Your words of support, and letters, and care packages mean a great deal.

I'd also like to say a special word of thanks for all the families sacrificing back home with loved ones over here. I know its not easy. It is easily the biggest topic of conversation and concern over here amongst soldiers - The wives, kids and husbands making do on their own - and fighting and struggling and winning many battles.

Killing Saddam won't make a bit of difference to the over-all level of violence here, but I have at least one Iraqi friend that I met with today who says that it will. He says the Shia finally have the monkey off their back and will begin to relax. I disagree, because I think the problem's much larger than that. Much larger than even our policy-makers are ready to confront. And it has nothing to do with reconstruction, or tactical errors, or diplomatic stances, or feel-good gestures of good will and empathy. My New Year's Wish is that everyone acquaints themselves better with Islam.

All in due time.

In the meantime, I wish all of you a Happy New Year. May the New Year bring you new babies (Dirk), new cameras, new goodies, new joys, new highs, new strengths, new knowledge, and new resolution.

We just tripped midnight here! Hooah! Now you are in the past, and I am in the future! Hey, 2007! How ya doin'? 2007 looks interesting . . . - and you look so . . . anachronistic.

(These are times of great portent we are living through). 2007 looks to be no different. Farewell Milton Friedman, Orianna Fallaci, Gerald Ford. Good Riddance Saddam, Zarqawi, Castro.

Oops. (not yet? - maybe next post.)

Saddam Expunged

2006-12-31T00:37:00.000+03:00

First off, sorry to be so long in posting. And boy am I back-logged now - the pace of events outstripping my ability to bloviate about them.

We knew on Thursday that this was going to happen quickly, but obviously couldn't say anything. There were rumors flying YES about a Sunni, or baathist die-hard, plot to capture and execute as necessary literally busloads of schoolchildren to prevent 6 AM today - amongst other fears and pressures.

About other "pressures": I am persuaded that its one thing for 7th century death-cultists to harbor nutzoid scemes and pathologies and strategems - and quite another when we begin to subscribe to them. Beginning with Clinton's Ramadan bombing pause - right up through our Gitmo guards wearing latex gloves to keep their infidel-paws from defiling the Holy Quran - I'm real jaded of late to qualms about "cultural sensitivity" - to put it mildly.

----Wait a sec! You're telling me we're handing out Ko-rans to these nutters in Gitmo? How'd copies of "Mein-Kampf" for German POWs sound? Thought not.

Either the Koran is the Holy Text these slavering dogs are unworthy of, or blue-print for a thousand jihads - in either case it should be witheld! Thats the trouble with cognition-repression.

There's a third possibility - and that is that the Quran contains in it the holy writ of Allah and his injunctions for the world - including our immolation. Which we could duly set about doing ourselves, or alternatively - cowering behind marines we force to wear latex gloves because our tacit admission is just that - we are indeed infidels worthy only of throat-slitting for our disobediance to the holy writ of Allah. Well, argue with that. What does our behavior SAY TO THEM. (and to our posterity, more importantly). Anyone else beginning to feel we're not much more worthy than slaves? No, LESS! For surrendering in abject prostration to a century already defeated millenia ago. For surrendering to nothing more than chutzpah and psycho-bullying. What the hell sucked the marrow out of our bones? How the hell do you exalt the Japanese Emperor while asking your sons and daughters to die fighting his adherents in the Pacific. This is a recipe for more than defeat --- for negotiated collapse!

Anyhoo - Saddam. Noone earned a beheading more, yet none died more humanely in Iraq in 2006. I am however, ashamed and surprised at my reaction. I wanted him strung up as much as anybody, or made to suffer endlessly - but all I saw up on the scaffold was a scared, frail old, bushy-eye-browed grandfather, suddenly human. Somehow dignified, somehow lucid and composed.

Its a running joke in Baghdad that Plan "Z" was always Saddam. If Iraq were losing 1,000 a day - we always had Plan "Z". Order would be restored within one hour under Plan "Z". The plan would take 30 minutes to transport Saddam from prison to Iraqi TV broadcast center. 15 more minutes for him to get dressed. 4 minutes for him to clear his throat and make himself presentable, and one minute to step to the microphone and utter one two-word phrase . . . . "I'm baaaaa-aaaaack."

I woke up this morning around the same time as Saddam, (assuming he slept), in the same city, upset over having to do maintenance on our trucks. (bummer). He faced the gallows. I couldn't help but transpose myself, to put myself in his shoes. (We know perfectly well what he'd do in mine - begin killing his way to the top). Un-controlled carnage happens everyday in Iraq - but rarely does anyone face the certainty, (not the likelihood - THE CERTAINTY) of the moment and exact time of your departure. Before and after. I knew Saddam was alive (and scared) when I awoke. I knew he'd be gone by the time we reached the trucks. Watching the video at lunch of the certainty that'd occurred only a few short hours prior gave a luster of wistfullness to more than just me. Plan Z was gone forever, along with the unwelcome assurance it provided all of us sick of the barking mad insanity in Baghdad.

And I in his shoes - I question my own composure. Then again it was TV. And TV's tricked me before.

I think this is all celebrity syndrome - if I were to diagnose myself. Saddam was larger than life. Reduced to just life, in an instant, when the the noose went around his neck - and the mind recoils from the incongruity of it all.

And more than a little bit is "Ozzy" syndrome. Thats what we call my Step-Dad. And he and I would sit outside and mockingly chortle of the "unfairness" Saddam was dealt. (Faux)-honoring him with the (faux)-respect which (wasn't) due him. It was our way of internalizing the clinically insane Arab (and Western - for that matter) press and the defense it offered him. In this inverted, mock-universe - Saddam's accusers were liars, all he ever tried to do was build a better country for his people, and in any case Israel and the US were worse. And for the Coup - We'd both vote for Hillary and she would set the universe to right. We euphemistically call Ozzy's new home by the River "Saddamsewee" both in mock honor of Saddam, and in mockery of the small size of Ozzy's parcel. ("Hoppsewee" is a legendary, palacial Plantation home in our neck of the woods.) And Ozzy, when you're reading this - know that our mock-hero stands and trials-by-media have changed forever - and I'm just as forlorn as you. Its probably good we're not together this evening, for our collective mock-grief would overwhelm us both. Just like when they got "Baghdad Bob" - our lives have never had the same entertainment since.

Anyway, there will be no return. "The Survivor" is dead, and good riddance. But I confess I do marvel at his departure. And if Mowafiq Al Rubaie's account is true, that one of Saddam's executioners (likely a Shiite shit-head, and thus utterly plausible) uttered the phrase, "Long Live Moqtada Al Sadr" - then we have cause to be truly wistful indeed. We are out of the frying pan . . .

(and we're gonna have to smash up the whole damn kitchen. Don't try and read my mind . . . We made Stalin happy when we ground Hitler into powder too. Didn't mean we didn't have the stones to see 'em both off. There's more than two games in town . . . )

Christmas Dinner

2006-12-29T18:20:00.000+03:00

Here we are dining on Christmas dinner. Papa Daddy P and I split a bottle of Welch's Sparkling Grape Juice, and were later joined by many other PRT VIPs.

Christmas Karim! And may the new year bring us slighlty less violence and carnage. (Its important when you toast to be realsitic).

Green(e) Bean Mystery Revealed

2006-12-29T18:18:00.000+03:00

"Honor First, Coffee Second."

Many of you have expressed confusion (in one form or another) of how and why I prize my "Green Bean drinks". Hint - there're no green beans in them. I wouldn't drink them if there were. This is Army coffee - if you like - in our new age. Well . . . not exactly.

If it were Army coffee - it would A) suck, B) be not available, and C) suck. This is privatized Army coffee, liscensed to operate at a reasonable profit (surely) on Army bases and posts around the world - particularly in undesirable places.

Like so much here - this effort to bring quality coffee to the troops is private sector. And it works - by simply getting out of the way. If you're looking for a critic of this element of our new appoach to war-fighting - you've come to the wrong place. I'm of the Libertarian/Republican stripe. Sorry to disappoint.

Green Bean Coffee works so well, and the coffee is so damn good, and available generally 24 hours - because the US Army/Government has NOTHING to do with it - except granting it the special liscense to operate on these wayward postings.

They are staffed by third-country nationals who are paid slightly better than average wages (for this kind of work stateside). - - - Which can feed a family of eight back in Nepal, the Phillipines, or Krgyzstan. These guys and gals are well-liked, well-tipped (we're Americans, after all), and generally fit right in with the rest of us infidels in this - the International Zone. They can usually be seen playing board games, sharing a conversation with other Americans, Coalition Forces, or third country nationals in their off-time. They are perhaps the most essential people here.

I can do alot of things. but I cannot make an Esspresso Chai Latte Triple with Irish Cream. The stuff dreams are made of . . . . and I wouldn't drink the stuff I concocted. Without these miracle workers - there'd be no Green-Bean Magic. ECLTs are my favorite - a blending of robust, dark-roasted, premium expresso with Thai Chai, sweetness, and love. It is the elixir of life, and sadly - often the high-point of my day.

And I will slake the ground with the blood of the enemies of Green Bean, (peace be upon them), his most holy, most merciful.

If harm were to come to any of the believers (of the green bean) or their supply chain - then the very gates of hell would be opened. US commanders would not be able to control their troops. You think you've seen "jihad?" Try an entire armored cavalry division separated from their only permissable libation. See, the Mohammedans aren't truly suicidal . . .

Love. In a paper cup. Surely Un-Islamic.

The Hookah

2006-12-29T18:13:00.000+03:00

Hookah 101. (Or Sheesha - as the Iraqis call it).

Here's the base. Pictured behind is the little grill in which one lights and tends the coals to be used.

The top: The special, invariably flavored tobacco is packed inside this tiny ceramic bowl and a perforated sheet of foil is placed over it. The lit charcoal is placed on top of this with metal tongs. The disc as bottom sits atop the vase or water-bong portion to catch the falling embers and ash.

Nakhla Tobacco is a popular brand - and there it is - box and (full) bag. This stuff is wet. "Pickled tobacco" is more like it.

Strange flavors, but it inhales effortlessly, and cleanly - with absolutely no burning sensation. What you exhale evaporates almost instantly like freezer-fog, leaving a distinctly fruity (in this case green-apple) flavor in your mouth. Not entirely unpleasant.

Christmas Day

2006-12-29T18:10:00.000+03:00

Beau-ti-ful day, in marked contrast to the weather we'd been having. Here's the view as you step out of the "Chuu", as I did - bright and early at the crack of noon. Now that's Christmas! Especially over here - giving a soldier what he really wants - SLEEP!

Bumped into Poppa Daddy P on his way down to the pool area to smoke his Hookah. Which he does here while on the phone.

Christmas Eve

2006-12-29T18:03:00.000+03:00

Here's where Santa and his helpers would sit for photos with troops in a few minutes time. We'd been to chapel services, and listened to the various choirs and musical performances in the open-air portion of the Embassy until well into the night.

Here's Christmas in the Hooch.

. . . And I with my Green Bean Expresso Chai Latte, and Phippsy in his Army Cap, were about to settle down for a long winter's nap. . .

Can't quite get the right pose.

Eh. That's not it either. I was aiming for Land's End, or J Crewe Christmas around the fireplace faux-homey-ness.

The Barber

2006-12-29T17:27:00.000+03:00

The Iraqi Barber. The Little Things are what I tend to appreciate in any culture. In Japan, haircuts run about $45, but the barber takes almost an hour, and starts and finishes the process several times until hsi perfectionism is satisfied. (They start cutting individual hairs, after they've cut, shampooed, dried and dusted off your hair.)

In Iraq, a cut takes about 15 minutes, costs about $3 and is likewise an experience unto itself. The most interesting part, for me, is how the barber cuts. He keeps his scissors flowing like an electric razor, never pausing. He cuts, cuts, cuts - swish, swish, swish even on the away stroke. The scissors are constantly opening and closing whether he's cutting or not. The hands are a-flurry, the hair falls to the floor in precise cuts. Then, for a finale, typically they defoliate your eyebrows and forehead by rolling these two, neatly-paired strings carefully woven across their fingers in precise angles (and yes, it hurts.) They pull the strings, (now rolled together) apart with fore-finger and thumb - and out comes the hair, (by the roots).

Arabs are caucasian, and like we pale-faces - they have more hair than they need, in places they don't need it. The rest is history. (I leave the editorial comment to you.)

So I thought I'd have this picture taken and throw it in for context.

The Fog of War

2006-12-23T02:58:00.000+03:00

Driving under Al Quds gate on the way to Prosperity.

An enormous, super-convoy, of more than 80 trucks lines up daily to bring Christmas goodies (among other things) to all Santa's girls and boys. Convoys run through "Indian Country" just as wagon trains did in their day, from Fort to Fort.

Here one of our trucks gets some adjustments from the fine maintenance company that's just "fallen in" on the previous.

Cliff drives ahead of me, with the fixed truck.

Into the Fog . . . of War.

This Morning

2006-12-23T02:27:00.000+03:00

This is the surreal scene that greeted us as we stepped out this AM. Old Hands who've been here three years or more say they've never seen fog like this. The camera actually penetrates further than the human eye. I could only see about 20 yards ahead of me.

Everything obscured.

Here's the Palace.

The good news is this'll keep the bad guys indoors, right? Pretty hard to deliver a mortar or sniper's bullet or car-bomb if you can't see around the next corner. No word yet on casualties today. (In the mid-distance at left are three palm trees that had their tops ripped off by that Fall Squall I blogged about earlier).

MORTAR!

2006-12-23T01:54:00.000+03:00

This one hit pretty close to us an undisclosed amount of time ago. (Well, I wouldn't like to give them targeting info. now would I?) This is the view from my window, about ten seconds after the very unmistakable boom. This is in the IZ, and not uncommon.

I don't mean to over-inflate this. As always, there are Coalition soldiers on other FOBs and bases that get a hell of a lot more than this, in a smaller area. But this is no less lethal. Had I been walking in that vicinity, or driving by when this thing went off. Odds are good I would be in Landstuhl Germany right now, (at best), and not blogging on this - my Eddie Award winning blogsite. Thanks Dirk! (I'm having difficulty getting the code to stick - the Editor stalls out in the "saving" process).

Fixing the World One Nut at a Time

2006-12-21T00:37:00.000+03:00

It was back to Prosperity on Sunday last. This is the sign some unit put up long ago over there, where we work on out vehicles, and where the maintenance support helps us. (They do most of the work, because we can't). I can't believe I hadn't photographed this until now. Hopefully the President will see it, now that "Stay the Course" has run its course.

Here's another one of those innumerable towers that dot the city-scape. I think Saddam used them to watch people, but I'm told most were tourist attractions. They're always found near these Palaces, in my experience.

SGT Kenner and SPC Tripp were helping out this day. Kenner's sporting the traditional "patrol cap," while Tripp's wearing the Aussie "Boonie hat" that I prefer. BOTH are authorized to wear, (thank God).

You'll actually hear people complain about the boonie hat, but it makes more sense in the Baghdad heat, (as the Aussies discovered in their desert). The US Army is "one-size-fits-all," and necessarily so - for an army to function. But I hope I don't have to explain to you the shortcomings of 2 million people thinking with one brain, (there are less than desirable manifestations of this at all levels across all functions of the Army, and we'll leave it at that). Most of the guys who've been in longer refuse to wear it, and berate the rest of us because who do we think we are? Those guys get sun-burn rings 270 degrees around their close-shaved scalps for their obstinance, and they say we "look silly."

Operation Desert Swarm

2006-12-18T00:01:00.000+03:00

Many Thanks, one and all, for the wonderful surprise in my inbox this evening. A Special thanks goes out to Dirk Star, who found my blog by some fortuitous "click", and for his kind words on his blog, and the love from the Good Old US of A provided by his blog-followers. (His site is exactly 200 times more popular than mine.)

And I'm just talking about the emails! Dirk made me feel ten-feet tall, (I'm un-worthy!), by devoting an entire post to me and my blog, and ORDERING his troops to participate in what he's calling "Operation Desert Swarm." To load my site with traffic, and well-wishes, and hearty "Merry Christmases" for all us folks over here. (Plus a number of "Happy Birthdays!" for me).

So family and friends of this blogsite, please go there and patronize him, and see what he wrote. Dirk's blogsite is http://jestersrap.blogspot.com/

A word on America. I believe it good to belong to something bigger than yourself. Not some rank ideology, but a purpose and love and respect for that which is greater than your ego. The defining difference is does it elevate the ideological over the interpersonal? And with America, it plainly does not. Our country celebrates and revels in the individual. Individuals like Dirk Star. Like Me. Like Marcus Hall. Like "Skinny Little Blonde", "Skeet", and "Kentucky Brat."

I speak only for me, but I am not brave. I am fulfilled. Infused with meaning and purpose. If you took away my love of Country, there'd be nothing left. (maybe a bar-tab, and an ORA coin). It is my life-long love affair with America that leads me where I go, an unseen hand (I think I know whose) that guides.

Love of country is not a nebulous abstraction, either. Better men and women than I have gone before me, laid down their lives - so that I might live out my wind-blown, aimless "walkabout". And the shocker is they never knew me. They died for promise. A Promise. And I'm not OK with being indifferent to that.

America was founded with the best principles and ideals to hand. 220 years later, they still are. I will not shrink from them. I will not neglect the blood-debt I inherited on my birth. There's a reason they burn our flag. And its because its worth burning. Its more than a flag. To be born American is to have won the lottery on life. Pity that too many are unacquainted with the world outside our borders, and its history.

No sweaty, stinky, bearded zealot will ever come near the people and the country that I love. Not if I have anything to say about it, "By God", as we say in the South. Our fates are bound together, and that isn't said NEARLY enough in our rapidly atomizing, ego-centric West.

Fear doesn't go away, its never very far - but you've you've climbed all the little hills when you realize its irrelevant. A recent acquaintance of mine, said his old First Sergeant had taped this missive up in the lid of his own foot locker, to be seen every morning when he opened it. "Be Brave. You have no choice."

We err. We make mistakes and misteps, but the goal is eternal, the ideals unflagged, the Constitution un-sullied, and the soldiery unflinching. It fills you up till your cup runneth over - when bright, star-brilliant, outrageously individual folks (I call them Americans) send you anonymous love and gratitude from home. It recalls the promise.

And from Baghdad, we reciprocate fully, in spades. May the sun shine on all of you, and as the old Irish toast goes, "May those that love us love us, and may those that don't - may God turn their ankle - so that we may know them by their limping."

I'd like to leave you with the words of Pat Conroy, SC's most famous (adopted) son. After many years as a War-protestor, and exile and excommunication from his alma mater, the Citadel, he had an epiphany in the home of one of his old classmates, many years later. They had played on the basketball team together, and this friend shipped off to Vietnam and led a platoon in combat, as was the purpose of his training. Conroy lay awake at night, wondering of the nights of horror his friend had been through, as Conroy himself led war-protests in Beaufort. He pondered on the time and space between them, and how he'd wound up in this kind man's house a welcome guest after all that. In his speech to the graduating Citadel cadets of the class of 2000 (?), entitled, "Why I wear the Ring", he said he'd learned: "That America is worth dying for even when its wrong."

All the Best,

-MG

Friends

2006-12-17T23:11:00.000+03:00

"Stayin Alive!" CPT O-Town strikes the pose. I didn't realize when I took this shot how symbolic the gesture was.

Papa Daddy P checks his camera, before greeting the Senators earlier, without the aid of his glasses.

I had two more great pics of Iraqi friends, some made famous by recent documentaries. I just cut them, before publishing. I'd love to show them to you, but can't in good conscience. They're great people. But I can't do anything to jeopardize their lives more than they already are. A District chairman was murdered today, and three of his cohorts on the council were abducted.

"To what end?" I ask myself over and over. I remember the first time I asked myself that question - it was almost ten years ago when I was reading a Time Magazine piece on the civil war in Algeria. There was a picture of a six-year old boy with his throat slit and hung from the drop-bucket in a well. Nazis wanted to kill Jews, but they did it behind closed doors, for the most part. The Khmer Rouge killed people for the crime of being literate. Commies terrorized and labotomized in every corner of the earth. But killing an un-formed child, a mass of clay, a native son - not an "other" - and making a display case of your barbarity with his body - is a new rubicon we've crossed, I feel. Its an assault on hope, and faith in humanity. Every evil we've faced down in our history reached out with its forked tongue to the youth. Evil's not that stupid.

But perhaps this is the unvarnished, unmitigated, un-diluted variety. A rarity? This is the devourer of humankind, and the only place I find reference to it - is in the midlle east. And in - the Bible.

"To what end?" What kind of "new order" can you build on that much wanton cruelty and un-tempered barbarity? What "social order" do you hope to build on the backs of children slaughtered with less conscientiousness than a goat?

It took me awhile to work it out, and I understood why after September 11. When the planes hit those towers, my imagination ran through all kinds of ridiculous scenarios. I simply didn't - COULDN'T - comprehend what I was watching. (Like so many of you, no doubt). Its almost appaling, looking back at my initial impressions. Because I had not grasped the imagination of the killers. I had nothing in my background to aid me in understanding. No wisdom, or experience to aid comprehension. I don't devote any time or thought in my life to the depth of evil and its manifestations. The "Problem of evil" maybe, "serial killers" twisted sociopathy perhaps - but nothing on this scale. Nothing this pure, 200 proof. I think I'd go manic depressive if I did. It was so beneath bearing the thought, so far beneath my appraisal of evil in the world, so beneath contempt.

Its purpose is fear, and the will to power. Its means are atrocity. Its end is supremacy. There are no universal truths, they believe, no transcendant morality - if they can kill, conquer or cow all those who espouse those ideas. It's worked like gangbusters in the Middle-east for well on 1300 years now, and like everything else in our world, in our time, from SARS to Dell Computers to Latin Hip-Hop - its going global. ("Jihadism" is most definitely a pathogen - like AIDS or Avian flu. My intent here is not to liken Zarqawi to "Inspirons", or "Daddy Yankee".)

Sorry, the purpose of this post was not to veer so far off on a tangent. The purpose is to acclaim "friends", and wonder what we'd do without them.

Sunlight, and friends. The human mind is hard-wired to depend on them.

Dinner at Taha's 2

2006-12-17T22:44:00.000+03:00

We had another great Saturday night dinner at Taha's a few weeks ago. Here one of his house staff pats out the bread, for baking in a stone "chimenera"-like oven. Its just like an Indian Tandoori oven - you reach in (smoke and ember-heat overwhelm you) and smack the flatttened dough against the walls, to be peeled off in about 4 minutes by tongs. I spent a good 45 minutes using my old "Pizza Chef" technique. In that time, I produced maybe two good ones, and it was no end of enjoyable for this humble lady, who giggled and laughed and covered her face as I slung dough everywhere. She could pat one out - from ball to evenly dispersed pancake - in about 40 seconds flat, by swishing her hands from side to side, and letting it expand evenly as the radial pull of her seasoned swishing drew it out.

Chicken wings on the grill. These were the least enjoyable item on the menu that night - and they were good!

Masgouf - a Iraqi specialty. (Visible in previous picture as well). This is a flayed carp of some native variety, seasoned and spread in little "snow-shoe"-like wire cages suspended on little contraptions on the periphery of the fire. Dee-lish! The meat flakes off like white cake.

Here 1SG Winchester and the lovely, most gracious hostess Nadia practice making their own bread.

And the "piece de resistance", shwarma kebab - made that day. Seasoned meat, with layers of mutton fat between layers of spiced meats. Lemons, fat, spices, and some local seed (spice) pod called "hulls" are in this roasting heap, and they combine for an absolutely delectable meal with our homemade bread.

Here, the local lad on the kebab shreds some for me to sample. He works at a feverish pace in front of that hot, gas-fired roaster. The genius of middle-eastern meat dishes such as this is that everything continuously marinates vertically as it renders and melts - and the "tender" is there to slice off the perfectly delectable shreds as they reach perfect roast. Un-toppable.

Birthday Night

2006-12-17T22:15:00.000+03:00

After Dinner, Pappa Daddy P and I enjoyed a quiet cigar down by the CHRISTMAS (I say emphatically) tree and assorted decorations that KBR's added down by the pool. It was raining lightly, but we persisted.

Here I am riding shotgun in Santa's sleigh. I got the idea from some Italian soldiers (a few are still here) who came by and asked us to photograph them doing likewise. I'm sad the Italians are leaving, but encouraged that they were here at all. Its difficult to take stock of the world, the "muslim problem" (I'll say it), and the changes happening all around us. James Lileks said it best recently on his blog, "Everything will all make perfect, horrible sense in a few years time - in retrospect."

Marcus, (SGT HALL), happened to amble by and we were able to debrief him on his recent trip way up to Erbil, in the heart of Kurdistan. He said it looked more like Southern California than Iraq, and many others have said likewise. If the Western press isn't telling you, our best dreams did come true in Kurdistan. Outside of one suicide bombing which took the lives of upwards of 23 US Soldiers - we've lost approximately THREE in as many years, up there. All the news you hear about Kirkuk and Mosul are because those two cities straddle the Sunni Arab/ Kurdish faultline. Historically they didn't, but Saddam was about 55% of the way through his "Arabization" plan for both cities when we invaded back in 2003. (Think Milosevic in Bosnia). Now the Kurds, the ones that survived the "Anfal" campaign, want their homes back. Polls reveal their unwavering support for us. So take heart, Americans! Now its up to us not to abandon them, (again). The Korean contigent has the Erbil province, and they're doing a fabulous job by all accounts. Foreign companies are setting up shop there, and HIRING. A small taste of what Baghdad could be . . .

Oh, the PIC! (above) Here Marcus pulls security for Santa from the gunner's hatch in the sleigh. Not even Santa is safe in Baghdad.

Here's me trying to blow smoke rings to decorate the tree with for the grand finale of the evening.

What A Day

2006-12-17T02:32:00.000+03:00

Here Cliff demonstrates the proper Army decompression technique after ending a seven day week, (just before beginning the next seven-day week).

And here he demonstrates the proper response and Army discipline resulting from getting stuck (by me) four times up and down his arm. While they had to "fish" for my vein, Cliff only broke the skin one time in one place. I had to poke the poor bastard four times to get a "flash".

A flash is when the blood spurts up into the "flash chamber" to let you know you've hit paydirt. - - - That's not entirely true - I hit pay-dirt on my first go, only the tiny catheter, which is left behind after the initial stick - got kinked like a garden hose on one of Cliff's vein valves. We had to withdraw it, which did in fact reveal the bent kink, but meant that I had to stick my buddy three more times, from his wrist to his bicep.

Hands were shaking like a leaf. I would not make a good infidel-throat-slitting jihadi.

Cliff took these of me shortly after O'Reilly in my annual tradition of photographing myself on my birthday to provide a pictoral aging animation. I've done this for ten years or more, and in that time - I've aged twenty. Here I am enjoying a "Green Bean" Frappe. Green Beans are on almost every base, and provide a much needed luxury I'm quite sure the vetrans of America's other wars didn't have . . . But they could drink and chase women - so stuff it Russell, and Mann!

Regal, Conquering pose. Evoking Captain Morgan. Whatever is in my head?

The O'Reilly Factor

2006-12-17T02:09:00.000+03:00

For a Celebrity Week, this week didn't disappoint. After finishing up our classes at the PRT, I was detained by pertinent PRT stuff, including an informal briefing/bull session with some unannounced yet important visitors, a mission request, and an old friend who trained with me at Bragg and whom I haven't seen since. Major Longfield survived a near-death experience this week, and was waiting on my visitors downstairs. If seeing old "blood and guts" Longfield meant missing O'Reilly, then so be it.

As luck would have it, Bill was still in the "Green Bean" Cafe, well after his scheduled departure, and I was able to delay him 15 seconds more. He was also cranky, probably from the unending stream of last-minute soldiers like myself walking in for a photo-op that had detained him this long. But he was courteous and gentlemanly enough to pose for this one.

Birthday Morning

2006-12-17T01:40:00.000+03:00

This is how our morning began, with more Combat Lifesaver training. Here Cliff and I discuss the finer points of IV driplines.

And here's where you earn your paycheck.

That's Cliff inserting his first IV, (with CPT Olsen's Guidance) into his first living body (Mine). The sweat you see on my (ample) forehead - ain't from the heaters. CPT Olsen is an EXPERIENCED Trauma nurse back home in Wisconsin. He ultimately had to guide this in, after my notoriously-difficult-to-stick veins eluded Cliff. "O-town" was there for tutelage, and to step in if blood was spurting anywhere, and to berate us for being big babies. He was a joy to have around.

This IV thing is all-important, and an engaging yet simple process that needs fuller explication. I hope to do that when I get the other pics in. This kind of thing very easily can save a life out here.

What I Do

2006-12-16T00:17:00.000+03:00

First off, here's lovely picture of the morn'. (Smell not included). Sunsets/sunrises are pretty enough here, and the weather's downright chilly when we step out - as in this photo. But the smell of Baghdad - a whiff of burning rubber mixed with eau de overflowing septic tank - Yeesh! Kicks you right in the face.

NEW IN LINKS: I've switched over to beta, (upgrade - and easier for me to use), and I'm still getting back all my old customizations - like the "Clustrmap" which shows where everybody is. (Not yet reclaimed). One thing at a time, please bear with me. For now - I've created a new link to a public website - the Post Gazette - which reprinted Greg Jaffe's WSJ story. Please read.

For those curious about what I do - this comprises about 60% of it - attending District Council Meetings like this one recently.

Lively. This is Town-Hall democracy in action. Minus the action and accountability - but they're learning, (to do more than complain).

Not sure how much info I can/should include. This is sensitive. Where I go, who I meet with, and when. I'd love to tell you all the intriguing details, but I wouldn't like Johnny Jihadi to know.

Poolside By Night

2006-12-15T23:59:00.000+03:00

I took these photos a little while ago, apologies for the shakiness, I didn't have a late-medieval wall to prop the camera on as I did in Budapest. These are of my area, as some of my earliest posts were, though these are at night.

Our row, with sat. dishes and palms.

The sky, the trees sure are lit up differently when you time-expose them.

A Plug From The President

2006-12-15T23:45:00.000+03:00

These remarks were made by the President on the 11th, plugging our won little PRT. What a special week this is for us. . . Lots of attention. We had his representatives of his advisor, Stephen Hadley, here a few weeks ago, and I was able to brief them from the GOV team's perspective.

President George W. Bush
United States Department of State
Washington, DC
December 11, 2006

Released by the White House, Office of the Press Secretary

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all for coming. I just had a briefing with senior policy advisors here at the State Department. I want to thank you for your hospitality, Madam Secretary.

We talked about a lot of things. We talked about what's taking place on the ground in Iraq, particularly from the perspective of the State Department. I must tell you, there are some fantastic, brave souls who are heading PRTs, provincial reconstruction teams. These are our civilian components on the ground there in Iraq. And we got a briefing from Baghdad with one of our PRT leaders here in Washington about the challenges and the tasks to help this Iraqi government get a country that can sustain and govern and defend itself.

No question in my mind, there are some very brave State Department officials who are engaged in this really important endeavor. And I want to thank them and their families.

I appreciate the advice I got from those folks in the field. And that advice is an important part, an important component of putting together a new way forward in Iraq.

Like most Americans, this administration wants to succeed in Iraq, because we understand success in Iraq would help protect theUnited States in the long run.

We also talked about the neighborhood, the countries that surround Iraq and the responsibilities that they have to help this young Iraqi democracy survive. We believe that most of the countries understand that a mainstream society, a society that is a functioning democracy, is in their interests. And it's up to us to help focus their attentions and focus their efforts on helping theIraqis succeed.

I appreciate so very much the Iraqi leadership taking the lead in its neighborhood. After all, one of the things we're trying to do is help this government get on its feet so it can govern and it can conduct its own foreign policy.

But the role of America is to help this young democracy survive. I'm looking forward to continuing my deliberations with the military. There's no question we've got to make sure that the State Department and theDefense Department are -- the efforts and their recommendations are closely coordinated so that when I do speak to the American people, they will know that I've listened to all aspects of government, and that the way forward is the wayf forward to achieve our objective: to succeed in Iraq.

And success is a country that governs, defends itself, that is a free society, that serves as an ally in this war on terror. And the reason why that's vital is because Iraq is a central component of defeating the extremists who want to establish safe haven in the Middle East, extremists who would use their safe haven from which to attack theUnited States, extremists and radicals who have stated that they want to topple moderate governments in order to be able to achieve assets necessary to effect their dream of spreading their totalitarian ideology as far and wide as possible.

This is really the calling of our time, that is, to defeat these extremists and radicals, and Iraq is a component part, an important part of laying the foundation for peace. And so Madam Secretary, thank you for the briefing. I want to thank your team here in Washington for their good work, and I thank those out in thefield who have shown such incredible bravery to do the hard work necessary to secure our country.

Thank you all.

Senators at our PRT

2006-12-15T23:30:00.000+03:00

Sen. Lieberman chatting with locals over Andrew Johnson's shoulder.

CPT Olsen with Sen. McCain.

SGT Good, (whom I have to thank for most of these photos), with Sen. McCain.

Joe Lieberman with a local Iraqi Attorney who was part of this meeting.

John McCain with Ali, (Sadr City Econ. Committee Chairman), a local woman, and LTC Fink (Security and Intel. for our compound) in the background.

Senators

2006-12-15T23:03:00.000+03:00

Heres CPT Olsen and I yucking it up before the Senators emerge from their meeting.

Here's Joe Leiberman emerging first, right behind Poppa Daddy P.

Here's John McCain waiting on me to take a picture with Lindsey Graham.

Joe Leiberman, with us in the background (off camera), chatting to Lindsey Graham and John McCain.

This is me trying to take my own photo with Lindsey Graham. The trouble with Senators blowing through is there's so many wanting to take pictures with them - there's noone to hold your camera, and no time to get them all.

Slow Week . . .

2006-12-13T20:50:00.000+03:00

Its been a slow week. Our week starts on Saturday. Friday's a day off (for everyone except our Company). Saturday's usually a half-day, (for everyone except our Company).

So Saturday started off by getting mortared up in Khadamiya. Tuesday I was quoted in the Wall Street Journal. For those that missed it . . . I will repeat . . . Tuesday I was quoted in America's best paper - The Wall Street Freaking Journal. I'm working on figuring out how to post it, copyright issues and whatnot. I can probably post a portion of it, (to view it online requires a subscription). For those with a subscription, like Markus McCarthius Maximus, you should search Tuesday's section for Greg jaffe's story called "Army Crunch".

So then Today, Wednesday, rolls around and I get to bump elbows with Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, John Thune, Susan Collins and OUR OWN LINDSEY GRAHAM!!! BOOYAH!!! They came right to our PRT! (There's a President and VP in their somewhere).

Of course one of the staffers I handed my camera to took some shifty pictures. So this is all I have today. Hopefully I'll have better pics in the days to come.

Saturday's the big 33. Slow Week so far.

The Prodigal Son Returns . . .

2006-12-11T22:05:00.000+03:00

. . . to blogging. Apologies for the hiatus. I took a break after the halfway point. The real reason is I've been busy as hell. Lots going on in the Governance Section, (and seeds to plant).

Thanks to Engie, Ma, Amander and everyone else that sent packages and seeds!

They will be put to great use I assure you.

INCOMING MORTARS . . .

OK, just one.

Jihadi fires mortars, and I don't care.

Jihadi fires mortars, and I don't care . . . (to the tune of "Jimmy Crack Corn").

Indirect Fire's become boring. Its so Summer 2006. I want a chance to shoot the bastards that launch them. And yes, kill them, and watch them bleed to death, (if I'm lucky). Don't think I'd lose sleep over it. Now, or in the future. And I've thought about it. (you know me.)

That's not unchecked braggadocio. Its personal. You need to have it happen to you. And I haven't seen or experienced any fraction of the worst of it. But its meant to terrorize you. Which it effectively does for maybe the first 5 months. My attitude used to be, "Holy Shnikes! Head for the hills! The Sky is Falling! By the beard of Zeus!!"

Now, its an annoyance. A hindrance. A time-waster. A provocation, and an impotent gesture of self-hatred. A finger-poke in your eye by an ass-clown 3 miles away.

You spend some time here, and like anywhere else, you get to know the characters. These jizz-buckets will shake your hand. I've probably shaken a few with blood on their hands. They're not terrifying nether-world creatures from a dark nightmare. They're fat, lazy double-y chromosome, inbred retards. Most are illiterate, and would agree with you if you could talk to them. They're balding, failed businessmen, with limps. They watch Manchester United Soccer games (a clear sign of evil). They have hemmhoroids, and wear reading glasses. They beat one of their wives when the chores aren't done. (ALL THE CHORES - THE MEN DO NOTHING) They think nothing of the carnage they launch from a tube. They're not strategists, and not effective. Just grocery clerks for a mad-blind incoherent dogma. "Launch a rocket or two today?" "Na, I'll get around to it tomorrow. Big games on tonight."

Its no more important than the impish, punkish, childish sense of insecure bravado they get, and the money they're paid to do it. These pre-cognitive homo-limpoids do not qualify as human. They are dingle-berries. Silly. Playing a lethal game of paintball.

Unconcern for their own lives is merited. I reccomend ritual suicide out in the desert. Complete and comprehensive lack of concern for other lives . . . others who might be evolving opposable fore-fingers, might be dancing, might be taking off the hijab for a minute in front of the mirror, might be - I dunno - learning to read, or practicing for school, teaching their young son how to ride a bike, playing soccer in the back garden - - - the lack of concern for these lives, (not to mention the Great Satan's soldiers who are laboring mightily to get just one toilet seat working in this whole G-D country before some ass-hat comes along and blows it up) - that's what's MADDENING.

I don't think the creature exists, or has ever existed in the world or in history - that is more contemptible, that represents more comprehensive a failure and regression - than the (Arab) Mohammedan franchise jihadi. If ever a group self-nominated for extermination - THIS IS IT, people. They are begging us . . . .

Thanksgiving

2006-12-11T22:03:00.000+03:00

Go to Pappa Daddy P's blogsite, ("Major Mike"). His pictures are way better then mine. I took mostly video, which I can't post. It was, by the way, SPECTACULAR.

Econ Confab

2006-12-11T21:18:00.000+03:00

This is a peek at the kind of stuff we do. This is what has become a regular meeting for the Econ guys and the Econ. Committee Chairmen of District Government. We're selling "micro-finance", and they're buying. That is to say, the idea of us giving money to individual Iraqis via the loan officer of their choosing - for small business ideas, is popular with the recipients. Microfinance shows great promise, and we're expecting nothing less here. (In many other countries where its been tried - its the access to cash for women's business ideas; small seamstress shops, and tailories) that are transforming whole economies from the ground up.
The distinguished panel and speaker.
From another angle.
Myself and Jabar Duleimi, former Chairman of Mansour District Council, (now Vice-Chair), and friend.

Sleepover

2006-12-11T21:06:00.000+03:00

Sometimes our work requires a little more than is required. In "making things happen," often a little extra is required, such as when one of our new terps comes in well-ahead of anyone being able to receive him. He has to sleep at the office, and therefore SGT Morris and CPT Olsen do too. It's nobody's fault - just the nature of the biz, and the nature of this environment - as if it needed saying. Problems arise when someone in the "making things happen" chain doesn't go beyond the call of duty, and takes their lard-ass home without helping you. Its generally a collaborative effort, with bloated bureaucrats, State Dept. wienies, Military dunderlings, and contractors helping each other out. It all comes back to you. But rare is the day that you don't meet someone that doesn't belong here, doesn't belong outside their pool-hall lounge-act back home, much less a warzone in Iraq.
Here's CPT "O-Town" on a cot watching a lap-top movie shortly after quittin' time - at the office.

Marathon

2006-12-11T20:50:00.000+03:00

There was an IZ marathon one morning, (rare morning that I was driving to work). This is the same route I take walking. The runner's are tiny blips and the photo quality not so hot - I include these mostly to show you what the IZ looks like. Before coming, I'd assumed it was a bustling city-center.

Hardly. This was mostly Saddam's private retreat and its environs, GOVT Buildings, Palaces, etc - off-limits to 99.7% of Iraqis.

And you don't want "bustling" in the Mid-East. Trust me. The city outside our T-walls teems with gnarled traffic, street commerce and sewage and trash. As you can see, the IZ itself is criss-crossed with T-walls. Not so much suburban as much as a labyrinthine white-collar prison. You have environs - you just can't see them - until you pass through the particular security gate.

Pappa Daddy P

2006-12-11T20:24:00.000+03:00

Pappa Daddy P is now Peerless Emperor of the Econ Section. Here he sits in one of his characteristic poses.
. . . And limbered up - ready to discuss the merits of micro-finance, top-shelf cigars, New Hampshire, subversive liberals, the time he crashed into Ringo Starr in Charles DeGaulle Airport, how my humidor needs regular maintenance, or how retaaaded your accent sounds.
MSG. A little flava. MSG Garcia. These guys all round out the Econ Section. Not Pictured are the ones who go home at the appropriate hour. These night-owls all stick around as I do. More productive after 1PM than before it, (perhaps), like me.
Jack Zacharia. The Legend. Jack's the scion of a very successful, Christian Iraqi Business Family. He knows absolutely everything, (or he makes it up).
The ever camera-shy MAJ Lawson. New to our team. We breakfast together regularly.

Prosperity

2006-12-11T19:43:00.000+03:00

SGT Barini, or "Barney" as we call him, after an illiterate SPC mispronounced his name back at Bragg when we were in some line for some kind of shot. Barney's head hit the floor, cause he knew Clifford Phipps heard it - from the wails of laughter that belong to Cliff alone. That's the kicker with nick-names. Barney's our token Fijian, who supports the coup there. He's also the only one I can talk Rugby too, and for the guys back in "the ATL". - he knows Sidi! (small Island).
Prosperity's a camp here in the IZ where we go to get the real work and upgrades done to our trucks. This is one of the innumerable palaces that got acquainted with the JDAM munition on the night of "Shock and Awe."

A pity, because as I've learned - they'll all have to be demolished. You can't plaster the cracks and hang new "Blood of the Martyrs of American Aggression" drapes on an Arab-built stone and concrete monolith after its foundation's been cracked and the door's blown off by the Air-Force.

But make no mistake - if we leave without demolishing them - they'll be standing ten years hence with squatters and vegetable markets in them.

THE DESERT ZAMBONI. We found this one in another lot near us, and had to preserve the wit for all posterity. (see below).
Desert Zamboni. I love all that that connotes.

Halfway

2006-11-15T22:03:00.000+03:00

Halfway. Wow. Feels like I've been here a lifetime, yet I can't recall more than two or three days here. Perhaps thats memory suppression. Perhaps it'll all come back when I'm elsewhere.

The weather is soo nice. I didn't know Baghdad could be this hospitable, livable. It heats up to about 80 at 2 PM, then cools to as low as 40 now during the night. We started using the heater this week. Mostly because Cliff's a woman.

A Milestone, and yet . . .

In spite of all the bad news, maybe because of it - some glimmers of hope have arisen in Baghdad. I can't eleborate for several reasons, but maybe CNN and FOX and others will in the months to come. Its so enticing, thrilling, seductive to be so near the center of the world's attention and to be two weeks to two months ahead of the news cycle, (on some subjects they're ahead of us - I get alot of my Baghdad news from the same sources you do). But on other subjects - the media has no way of knowing. Either its "secret-squirrel shit" within the Army, or some insider information from the State Dept. And a very rare sometimes - it develops within your grasp and runs out between your fingers like water.

Hope springs eternal . . . Its every bit as human, every bit as axiomatic, the twin - of morose pessimism, desperation, emotional exhaustion. Every action, every pebble-drop in the big pond reverberates. Its never all bad or all good. Just as when the news seems all rosy, an unseen actor - our next and future enemy is sowing discord, exploiting, crouched and waiting. Invariably, and intuitively - when the news seems all bad, it isn't. And it can never be.

The enemies of evil bide their time, lay careful plans and wait. . . For history to call. The call to unite and overcome goes out, touches every broken human heart - and the exhausted and exasperated villain-curs recoil, in a horror that is singularly theirs.
Fear and sorrow comes to us all, and soon they will know it too. They own this brand of sorrow. For all eternity. The sorrow of Judas.
. . . it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Acts (ch. IX, v. 5)

Suffice it to say, (I can't help myself). There are folks who are fed up. There are folks who are discovering their voice. There are folks who have abandoned fear. When gluttonous fear overstays his visit, over-indulges in the heartache of millions, he becomes irrelevant and unwelcome.
He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. Proverbs (ch. XVI, v. 32)

Halfway.

All the best to all who suffer for truth. Best regards to those who labor in obscurity for love of brother; humanity. Health to those who draw lines in the sand.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Psalms (ch. I, v. 3)

God save the heroes of Iraq. May you all get to be acquainted with them. May history forget their enemies.
Remember Lot's wife. Luke (ch. XVII, v. 32)

May peace reign.

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; . . . Ephesians (ch. II, v. 14)

They that sow in tears shall reap joy. [Psalms 126:5].

Vegetable Garden

2006-11-15T21:48:00.000+03:00

Encouraged by previous successes, Abbas has asked me to solicit vegetable seeds from you.

Here he stands in the plot he's having the guys clear of weeds. Its got a dedicated pipe and hose, and its already subdivided into several paddies. Anything YOU CAN SEND will be appreciated. These guys can/will eat anything that succeeds, and in this plot (with full sun most of the day), and in this soil - I imagine they'll grow like weeds. And of course "Greenery in Baghdad" will be able to post to you your growing contribution to winning the hearts and minds in Baghdad. There's something like a food shortage here in places, owing to decreased agricultural production, inaccess to markets for farmers and such - and any of the myriad problems you can imagine with 47 security checkpoints and three car-bombs between a given farm and the produce markets in the city.

Here's myself and some of the guys on the same plot.

As always:

Mastin Greene

US Embassy Annex

MNFI PRT Baghdad

APO AE

09316

New growth, Old Garden

2006-11-15T00:15:00.000+03:00

Fans of this website will remember the Marigolds which sprouted first in the first "Garden" posting. Well, here they are at about four weeks.Lovely color, growing strong.
Lillies, which hadn't sprouted before, now litter the bare area.
A Black-eyed Susan taking shape.

More lillies, of at least three varieties.

Garden Expansion

2006-11-14T23:47:00.000+03:00

Regular readers will recall the beginnings of a garden at the PRT. Well, Alex from Britain came back from R&R with more seeds so we expanded it to include another lanscaping plot. Here's a row of sunflowers shooting up about three days after we planted them.

About three inches tall now, they've been growing for about 12 days now.

A sprig of corn shooting up.

Some kind of creeping vine that Alex planted.

Another view of another vine.

Saddam's Apartment

2006-11-14T23:28:00.000+03:00

Folks will recall from previous post, this apartment was burning after the invasion. (Still haven't gotten to the bottom of that).

This is the way the place has looked since we got here. Scaffolding and "under repair."

And here it is one fine morning. Work complete, scaffolding gone.

Those are two Brits going to work, in the foreground. Noticeable for their different camouflage patterns.

Shiny and new . . .

And then here recently, amidst some of the Iraqis turning up for work, a low cloud - barely visible behind the blue dome.

It was a neatly shaped and peculiarly dark cloud. Peculiar too, that it was all alone.

My worries proved true. This was the wafting smoke on a cool morning from a car bomb that struck near the IZ.

Radio Check

2006-11-14T22:55:00.000+03:00

These photos are courtesy of Easy T's cell phone, taken over one month ago!

Sorry for the hiatus. We haven't had a proper day off in three weeks now. When the PRT's not using us, the company is.

Things are getting busy in the Governance section of the PRT. So my freetime is devoted there, often till 8 O'clock at night or so.

Here's the view from inside, doing a radio check during one of our systems checks one Saturday morning.

Halloween in the Hooch

2006-10-31T22:55:00.000+03:00

Phipps took this photo where he was today. KBR staff and its subsidiaries and their staff go out of their way on Holidays. Halloween's a pleasant surprise. I can't wait for Christmas - (mostly to see what we're allowed to do in a Muslim country - versus what the ACLU allows us to do in the US).
Candy-corn and water, mmm-mmm. Halloween in Baghdad.

Our Iraqi hosts could not be more accomodating. They all dressed up . . . . and did a frightful impersonation of ghouls today! A wedding party, a police station with a five-yr. old girl in it, and another crowded market. All blown to bloody shreds as entrance fee to the self-detonators' Bordello-Valhalla. "72 Vestal Virgins at the Will-Call Window . . . ?"

Carnage. Mayhem. Zombies. Ghouls and Goblins. Howling (barbarity). The Specter of Death. You call it Halloween.

We call it Tuesday.

Fun With Trucks!

2006-10-26T22:35:00.000+03:00

This is what truck day, (Saturday), is sometimes like. (not usually this involved.) For the past two weeks, we've been gutting the catalytic converters, to add more juice to our over-burdened engines. The converters strangle air-flow, and they could hardly make Baghdad air better or worse - so they're getting some "modifications." Mack and Phiss are grease-monkeys, so they led the way and perfected the technique.

Here's Mack doing what we usually do, giving the truck a once-over to check for any abnormalities, called Pre-combat maintenance services check . . . (I think thats what its called).

Here's Jimmy Rogers and I, after doing some of the same stuff (with tutelage). This process developed some of its own rituals under Mack, Phiss, and Olsen. No singing till a part was off (not before). No cursing when a wrench fell on your face. And proclaiming how you liked eating Baghdad mud - when the inevitable occurred - a pile of crud gunked onto whatever space you were fiddling with fell right on your teeth as you were grimacing. These were some of the ground rules.

Here's CPT (he's been promoted) Olsen and Phipps underneath showing how its done. Using a stretcher for a head-board.

And here's SPC Eatman cleaning out one of the converters, still attached to the tail-pipe.

Hooch Life

2006-10-19T22:51:00.000+03:00

Here's Cliff, burning the Midnight oil. (the Old Man regularly knocks off at like 9:30) These pictures were taken about an hour ago. This is a typical evening. No "incoming" so far.

This is myspace, where I blog from - surf the internet, watch movies, play freecell, ruminate and answer emails from, (notsomuch, recently, on that last count. (sorry)).

To my left is Europe, which I dream of. Places I've been marked with colored tacks. A Guinness coaster. Beauty. Pure Magic. To keep me focused on what's really important.

To my right is Angela Marcello, Miss October. Who sent me this calendar anyway??!! (thanks).

Claustrophobic? I occupy 1/6 of a trailer (caravan - for the Brits) that's about as big as an on-set movie-celebrity cocaine station. B-list bands have bigger tour-buses. Its about half as big as a grand old single-wide back home. Unpictured is all my clutter, which makes it smaller still.

Ah, my clutter! This is my bed and personal space, all fifteen cubic feet of it. At the back you'll notice the un-needed headboard. (Thanks KBR!) Which I've been moaning about for months now, to no avail. You can see the flimsy, inadequate pillows I have to contend with this medieval iron torture device.

And here is my plea. This is the monster. You want to help a soldier in Iraq? You want me to email more? Send me a pillow stout enough to instill the courage necessary to face this beast for any length of time!

(aaaaah, stout. Oi Love Guinness, Aye.)

CAR BOMB!

2006-10-19T22:20:00.000+03:00

This was also today. We never did work out if it was in fact a car bomb, (or a trash fire at a local FOB), but this is what one looks like from afar), I've seen plenty.

There were three very audible ones today (by my count), and if this is one - its close, (if not - its a surrogate Car-bomb for purposes of illustration). Fire raging, smoke wafting - and for what? If this was a bomb it's at one of the checkpoints here to the IZ that we use regularly. Like most things - you don't find out till the next day, (unless, God forbid, you happen to be there). When one of these goes off, there's a horrible sucking - swishing sound produced - no doubt - by the extreme air-physics at work. PUUWOOOOSHBOOOM!!!! Like throwing a boulder in a lake, only with sharper percussion - and audible for miles around.

October is on course to be the worst month since the invasion, with 69 killed already. TEN Yesterday. Eight last Saturday, Six last Monday. I'm talking of course about American Troops. Baghdadis are being killed at a clip of around 110 per day. A female gynecologist was executed yesterday in Basra - don't bothering asking. Pick the most psychotic motive you can think of - and you're probably right. Remember these photos. They're probably building a mosque in your town as you read this.

I expect it will get worse very soon, and will likely include a big Tet-style offensive on some target - probably here in the IZ. All part of Moqtada Al Sadr's attempt to get you to vote Democrat.

These guys here. this tenth-century death cult already operates defacto press-censorship in Europe. Sways elections in Spain. They couldn't even organize an onion-gathering! - as one of my Poli-Sci Profs. at Sheffiled Uni. used to say - and here they are exercising jurisdiction over large swaths of the earth with their howling beastiality. This is surely as weak as the West's ever been (on the inside). This can't continue . . .

Faith Restored

2006-10-19T22:04:00.000+03:00

Here's two photos of the plot, taken just this morning. They give you an idea of the layout. The building we're in, I'm told, was one kind of courthouse or another under the previous regime. There are ample spaces for landscaping; set-asides like this one - where everything has died except the date-palms. Its coming back, in fits and starts, largely through the efforts of foreigners like myself and Alex. Over by another building where the Brits work - its amazingly green and manicured - with creeping vines and flowers all around. Takes you back to "Old Blightey", which I think is the point.

There's our big date palm, which litters the ground with dates as fast as any oak does with acorns back home.

PROOF OF LIFE. Germination. There's hope yet. These are the marigolds (the hardiest of lots) coming up first.

Here's hoping they make it . . .

Black-Eyed Susans. My mother's favorite. Probably because she's called "Susannah". (Call her "Susan" and she'll throw you out the house.)

The Garden

2006-10-19T21:28:00.000+03:00

This photo is from a day or two after I sowed this plot behind our building with seeds sent from the states, and these are the guys that helped me.

Unpictured is a British fellow named Alex, who's away on vacation, but who has struggled mightily to get something growing back here. When he gets back we'll probably plant the back 40. Back during the summer the murderous mid-east sun and heat killed everything we planted. In Baghdad, everything must be watered EVERY morning - and we just weren't getting the help. With these guys looking after things, and the weather about 20 degrees cooler - there's hope.

From left: Abbas, me, Ali, and I think - Ali. Both Shiites. (Ali is a Shiite name, for the uninitiated) And from Sadr City, like most of the guys that work here. They're probably spies for Jeish Al Meidi, which is Moqtada Al Sadr's militia. We had some guys from our IT help-desk - (IT HELP DESK!!) test positive for explosive residue during a routine check a few months ago, and they were quietly dispensed with. In Arabia, the outsider soon learns that nothing is as it seems. Notice these guys aren't smiling in either photo . . .

Ah, there's that smile! (Once the American is removed!)

One of the problems we had growing stuff here, (one of the complications) is that these guys would dump their mop buckets right here into the soil. They had already succeeded in clogging the street-drain nearby via this method. I bring this up because its so emblematic of Iraqis and their approach to problems, (which is itself emblematic of yet larger problems). They're hired to clean this building, and some of them are only responsible for keeping the plants alive. The gardeners care nothing if a cleaner dumps his poisonous buckets on the plants, and the cleaners think nothing of dumping their trash somewhere else. (We've had instances where Baghdadis who weren't getting their trash picked up (usually because trash-collectors were getting shot) dumping their trash in other neighborhoods where the trash was still being collected, by some miracle. To drive around Baghdad is to marvel that any trash has ever been picked up.

Seeds sowed, ready to grow. (In rich, history-laden, fertile, POISONED Mesopotamian soil). Still, these are AMERICAN seeds - and I have faith that they'll find a way.

SUBTEXT - if you want democracy to work in Iraq - you're going to have to move in Mormons . . . by the boatload.

RAIN!!!!!!!

2006-10-14T15:30:00.000+03:00

No pictures, sorry. Left my camera at work.

It has rained twice in 24 hours! The sky is overcast. I never knew I could be so happy to see English weather! Well, South Carolina weather - to be exact. It rained so hard, and the wind blew so fierce - it knocked the tops off many date palms last night. The scene looked like a hurricane aftermath when we went to work on vehicles this morning. Decapitated palms, banyans split asunder and all. And it rained again this afternoon. Its raining now! Ah, the smells! (not all bad). That makes exactly the second and third time it has rained since we landed here in late April. Imagine that. A few weeks ago, we fell back into double digit weather, every third or fourth day. Now, maximum temperatures barely crest 95 - each and every day. Baghdad weather has become a good deal more hospitible, as far as I'm concerned. I'll take the wind, and the trees blown down - as long as I don't lose a pint of sweat walking 300 yards down to the Dining facility. Bliss! I can handle this!

I hope to post some more pictures soon.
All the best to everyone! I'm a bit behind in my emailing, and I apologise. Cliff's back from R&R now (he went home and married his fiance', KIM) so I have to SHARE my internet connection again. To all who are waiting for an email response from me - in due time. In the meantime, with all those care-package solicitations - send TRISCUITS, and peanut butter. I don't need any more toiletries. Thanks, but I have four tubes of toothpaste, five tooth brushes, and stacks and stacks of baby-wipes I'll never get rid of. We have access to toilets and showers here - baby wipes are more useful for guys out in the field who can't do either (properly). Wherever I go in Baghdad, I way my wittle head down on my piwwows in my hooch every night. (OK, my head's not so little).

Speaking of pillows - noone's sent me a giant back and arm-rest pillow! For one of my next posts I plan to photograph and post my e-mailing arrangement. Its vewy uncomfootabew. I have a few paper-thin pillows to stand upright to buffer my back against this twisted, useless, needless iron headboard behind me. Ouch, I'm getting back cramps right now . . . I guess thats why we get hardship pay.

All the Best,

-MG

Miscellaneous (more from iraqinsider.com)

2006-10-06T23:45:00.000+03:00

I found this one and loved it. Sums up alot of the resentment. Navy guys are here for 6 months, most of them. Air Force guys are here for FOUR. FOUR MONTHS, no typo. The guys that moved in opposite myself and Cliff, after we moved in, ARE HOME ALREADY. Navy and Air Force have different (better) facilities, different rules, and different expectations. We saw that first-hand back at Bragg, training with these Air Force and Navy guys. The belly-aching, moaning, and complaining. The lack of bearing and professionalism - in my opinion, and of course - the undisputed lack of shooting skills, (married with their UNCONCERN for said inability), speaks volumes about the different cultures in each branch. Perhaps if we were forced to fight a war at sea, and man positions normally staffed by the Navy - we'd behave with equal flippancy - but I DOUBT it.
At least the Navy works with us in the PRT. The only time and place I see Air Force personnel here is in the gym, and in the chow-line. I think they run the Post-office, and some of their personnel staff hospital positions, and the IZ police.

This one I couldn't pass up. A "Piss-take" for all "me" British "mates" out there. Fabulously condescending, and so shopped-out now as to be trite and boring. A new formulation, perhaps, of the decades old resentment. That GIs were "Over-sexed, over-paid, and over HERE!" Is what our cousins used to say. What many don't know (I've done a poll) is the retort given by the "Yanks" to the Brits: that Tommies were "Under-sexed, under-paid, and under-EISENHOWER!"

Hahaha. Have your laugh. Now get back in formation, Limey!

This is one of the refineries on the edge of town. Burns like a giant Roman candle 24 hrs. a day. If you're ever flying over the middle-east (and I don't reccomend that you do) you'll see these burning bright all over (especially at night).
Choppers are everywhere, all the time. This is how we arrived in the IZ, and how we come and go, now and again. There is nothing to compare with a chopper-ride. And a chopper-ride over war-time Baghdad - bristling with guns and leaking testosterone - well I just don't think I'll ever be able to top that.

Found this one. Looks like a dusk (or dawn) patrol. Images like this one will become iconic of this war. And its a peculiar feeling to know you were there, wore the uniform, performed many of the same functions (and others). Its like seeing yoursefl in a movie opposite a celebrity, I suppose. To have such a close connection, and personal - to a chapter of history that unfolds before your eyes. To know that the photos in your personal album could conceivably wind up in Time Life magazine as emblematic of the era. And to understand instantly - how TV and magazines magnify. Because my day to day here is no more than that, my day-today. Any given day, however, my day to day might be the focus of the camera lens and the media's fleeting attention. Suddenly MORE important than the day before, (and perhaps less important after they leave).

ROCKETS!

2006-10-06T23:05:00.000+03:00

I don't know if these pictures are real or photo-shopped. (They too come from iraqinsider.com)

But these are real pictures of Baghdad taken from the air (most likely a chopper), and I have to believe this is what a rocket streaking through looks like.

Al Faw

2006-10-06T03:12:00.000+03:00

These are some pictures of Al Faw Palace, not far from here. There are Palaces EVERYWHERE. Some two blocks apart.

This one's particularly striking. Like a few, surrounded by water.

Al Faw at night.

A well-apportioned lavatory. Many of them look like this. As for Saddam's Palaces - the wood-work, stone-work, fixtures like chadeliers - all seem as though they were done by the same contractor, with the same supplies, (which they likely were). Stunning at first - then tired, trite, and shop-worn once you've seen a few.

And paper-thin. Because of the damage to many of these edifices - inside and out - you see just what a thin veneer, a thin gloss these things had on them. Shoddy workmanship, poor materials. And tacky as only the Arabs can manage. Style over substance. Ostentation over class. These Palaces are to Versailles or Vienna, what a "pimped-out" Lincoln is to a subdued Rolls Royce.

The ceiling above a chandelier.

The Heads

2006-10-06T02:34:00.000+03:00

Here's a look over the front of the Palace, (a few years ago). This is where those heads came from - the ones face down in an earlier post! Here they are posed above the Palace, gazing down on all visitors. Imposing. This scene is right over the "Promotion Ceremony" sight. Who'd have guessed that that's what those sandstone boxes, (above the entrances), were constructed for?

And here they are being REMOVED . . . .

All Pictures from www.iraqinsider.com.

The Palace

2006-10-06T01:43:00.000+03:00

This is a panorama of the front of the Palace. I found these and all the pictures to follow at www.iraqinsider.com Regular readers will recall this "Promotion Ceremony" venue.

Chopper's eye view. This is looking East across the Palace (now US Embassy) grounds. We live right behind it, sandwiched between this monstrosity and the Tigris.

And like so much at "Iraq Insider", I found pictures that answered lingering questions in my mind. This is a view of the back side. If you stood here taking this photo, you'd be about 100 feet from my hooch. I walk by this area several times a day. There is scaffolding covering it now, and restoration work has been ongoing since I got here. - The Story I was told - was that this was Saddam's personal apartment in this palace (he frequented this one, the "Presidential Palace" most often). And that the night of his impromptu departure - a mysterious fire erupted here, where many of his persoanl effects and papers were stored. Well, this picture begs that question. For if all that is the case - what are contractors doing setting up camp here, while the apartment burns? -Oops (?)

Dinner at Taha's

2006-10-04T21:16:00.000+03:00

Shortly after returning from R&R, 1SG Winchester and Jack invited me to go with them to dinner at the home of Mr. Taha, President of The Taha Group. Mr. Taha's businesses are instrumental in rebuilding Iraq, and he braves a considerable amount of danger by just being here.

He and his employees do a good bit of charity work as well, have donated monies for life-saving surgeries, and have hired a few people at our behest that were looking for work. They are VIPs for our "Econ." team, on which 1SG and Jack serve.

Here's me, a few seconds after the most "scrumptrulescent" meal I've had since arriving in Iraq.

Mr. Taha has an incredible pad here in the IZ, and he had a bunch of us foreigners over for dinner. We sat around on a little manicured and neatly landscaped lawn, Mediterranean style - munching on appetizers and smelling the fragrant, wafting smoke of the well-apportioned hookahs all around. They had these "swamp-coolers" - which look like industrial fans, (a horizontal, wide-diameter cylinder with an exhaust near the bottom). They blow across cool water in a water-hose replenishing reservoir, dampening and cooling the dry, Baghdad summer air as it disperses across the garden.

Here's Jack and I, savoring the moment. This was the first time since arriving at Frankfurt airport that I felt a profound and unimpeachable sense of peace. I suspect its that warm, fuzzy comfort that only civilized life provides. Unfortunately, its muted . . . till you spend some time in a war zone - and you notice its absence. Which makes this doubly ironic - as I was back in what's now being called, "The Battle for Baghdad." But here was an oasis. A redoubt where civilisation has not retreated, and made no apologies for it. What magic and graceful majesty, what potential - in Baghdad.

1SG Joe Winchester, Taha's HR chief Nadia (the most gracious of hostesses), Mr Taha and myself. Mr Taha's a cad, making jokes incessantly. Nadia's vivacious, a pleasure to be around, making everyone feel right at home. Both speak English fluently, and of course Arabic, (plus a few other languages -I'd wager). They are an absolutely deadly business team. Could you imagine saying no to them? I couldn't.

1Sg Winchester and I with the Chef. A man who I'd nominate for the Nobel Prize in culinary salvation for soldiers in war-zone. He was a splendid chap who was too gracious to accept much (well-earned) praise. The man who first taught me what Iraqi Cuisine is - AND ITS Fantabulastic! If Pops, Papa Ed or Bill Blakely are reading this - The food I ate was so good I said to the guy next to me - "Anybody 'at doesn't like this is a summ'bitch, how's yourn?"

For any Russells or Manns or Taters or Wilsons out there - if we brought this guy out on "Rendezvous" - you'd all convert to Islam to eat this good.

We spent a few hours watching the 200 plus channels on offer in the Middle-east (The number of channels was a shock, the themes and the variety - not so much.)

That's when I got my 2 million dollar idea. A 24-hour belly-dance channel!

We thanked the Chef and our gracious hosts profusely, and departed.

Assorted ignored

2006-10-03T23:14:00.000+03:00

These are some of the photos I either took before leaving - or since I've been back. Blogging those 27 odd R&R posts meant that these took a back-seat 'till I could get through that blog-athon.

Here's Major Mike, myself, and Johnny - looking tough, (or trying to).

Yes, that stuffs as heavy as it looks. Body Armor, full ammo load, rifle with accoutrements and assorted extras adds about 75 extra pounds. Almost all of it to your front - giving considerable lower back discomfort - to put it mildly.

Did I mention it was hot over here?

This is SGT Fregoso. I didn't have a picture of her earlier when I introduced Sgts Moore and Kangas, but she's part of the same team - usually the LEAD vehicle in our convoys - and she's the commander of that vehicle. A tough cookie, with a gentle, endearing spirit. Often seen waving from her vehicle to Iraqis hither to and yon. Spreading good will.

Kangas, Moore and Fregoso and their teammates tours are up. they'll be rotating back to the world soon.

Tala, graciously translating for me when Johnny wasn't available, on this day in Karada. With her is the Karada District Council Chairman Mohammed Al Rubaie, and two local kids that always seem to be there.

These guys always have a few words to say to me in English. Like most Iraqi kids, they're usually selling something, (entrepreneurship needs no introduction here among 8-16 yr. old demographic) And like most kids everywhere, as Psychologists and neurologists tell us, they sure seem to aquire foreign language faster than the rest. And with terrible, funny, and terribly funny street-slang!

I suppose this will come as no shock to any American veterans reading this, like the Charlotte Russells and the Chattanooga Manns, but for everyone else - nothing really prepares you for the (pleasant) shock of pulling up somewhere in Baghdad, "un-assing" your vehicles, and 4-20 Iraqi kids amble up, "What's up, dog? Hey, man - buy my CDs!" "Two for 3 dollars, Mister", and should you bid too low - you might be met with a, "You're killing me, man!"

We've been here only three years, and 8-yr olds are already conducting sensitive financial transactions - in English!

I had planned to do a post devoted exclusively to these damn towers which seem to be everywhere, but never got around to photographing the others. One good thing I can say about them is that each one is different - a different architectural statement. But they're so plentiful. And plenty useful, no doubt, for Saddam to watch his public. Although I'm told many were open to and used by the public.

By some odd, inexplicable coiincidence - I also found alot of these in the former Soviet union on my trip. Prague, Budapest - had bunches of these in - and mostly outside - the city. Surveillance towers, (?) Interesting . . .

A close-up.

DONE!

2006-09-25T02:16:00.000+04:00

Aye. It's 2AM and I'm finished. At last. That was the last one from my R&R. For thse who haven't been tuning in recently, you may have to go back and search the archives. I've been blogging up a storm - which means most of these posts have scrolled quickly into the archives, (in less than a week). I think the maximum your browser will display is usually ten posts (the most recent additions) - and I've done about 24 in ten days, so if you've been gone awhile - start digging.

Now hopefully, I can resume photo-blogging Baghdad.

All the Best,

-MG

Bahrain

2006-09-25T01:29:00.000+04:00

This is the last one of joe's back balcony. Bucket, mop, rusty grill, 29 empty beer bottles.

Good Trip.

Flight Back: These are some of the guys I flew with to Germany. Then 15 days later, there they were again - to accompany me back to Kuwait via Bahrain.

This is Chief (WO3) Freeman. Downing it in one. Bahrain has drinks. One of two countries in the muslim middle east. But the clock was running out. Here, the Chief and I downed two or three in about 40 minutes.

Michael Freeman had just a few months left to go in his tour, whilst I was just starting mine.

Tearful Goodbyes. How lucky was I that Guinness was waiting there in the Sky-bar to see me off?

Guinness had to stay here, in civilisation. (Well, a mock-up of civilisation, anyway). I had to return to duty. Building sand castles at high-tide.

Parting is such sweet sorrow. Fare thee well, Guinness . . . We'll always have Sheik Ali Malouf Hassan Rubaidi Alaladh Jubari Mohammed Bint Sultan Abu Saleef Mustapha Achmed Al Sadiqi International Airport.

SSG Lissa. Lissa's a helicopter mechanic from Minnesota, stationed in Afghanistan. He rendez-voused with his wife in Europe for a trip around the block. He had about 4 months to go in his tour.

"Gloom, despair and agony on me,
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery.
If it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all,
Gloom, despair and agony on me."

Self-pity gets you nowhere, and if you haven't learned that by the time you enlist, you will.

One of the curious things about military life, which draws numbers from every single walk of life - is that you're never suffering alone, (which is a different kind of trial). You're together, bound by hardship. The guy next to you might not have anything in common with you. But he was there. In that proud memory that you grow fonder of with time, as its singularity uncoils through the mind-years. If you could have chosen, you might have picked your buddies or blood relatives to stand with you, to wile away the bored hours that stretch into months. But they weren't there. We were. We "happy few".

Joe's Apartment

2006-09-25T00:34:00.000+04:00

This is Sweizer Strasse (Swiss Street) in Frankfurt, which Joe's apartment (now formerly Joe's apartment) fronts. This is the view from his front balcony looking left.

Front View. One of the many little sidewalk cafes in Frankfurt. This one's called the "Taj Mahal", an Indian/Italian culinary fusion run by a friendly immigrant family from India. We ate here a couple of times. They've got a great Chicken curry Pizza. Ah, what I would give now . . . Indian and Italian - how long has the world waited for that !?

This is the view looking right. More cafes, bars, commerce. Lithe, platinum Blond, 6 ft. German Amazons are frequently seen strolling, shopping, cavorting on Sweisser Strasse.

There's a tram, an underground, "public" bicycles that are remotely unlocked via cellphone. A River walk, music, and beer. Breezy walks, warm sunshine, cool breezes. Peace. All very swell. All not to be seen in Baghdad for at least another thousand years.

This is Joe's back balcony, much more accomodating - about 25' by 10' - that opens to the sunshine. This is the courtyard behind in which there's a small primary, or pre-school, where "kinders" are regularly heard laughing or playing out in the courtyard.

This is the rest of the back-patio. Great for hangover-recovery.

The Wall

2006-09-24T23:00:00.000+04:00

From Checkpoint Charlie, I walked a distance to a point on the map where there's a section of wall left standing. (near Potsdamer Platz, if memory serves). And this is it. That's all it was, (the wall itself). About three and a half inches thick, reinforced concrete. It rose, in sections, to about nine feet high where it was capped by a cylinder of concrete that fit over the ends, linking them together.

This "all it was" was augmented by guard towers, dog patrols, searchlights, barbed wire, fences, barriers, mines, booby traps, and a rapid reaction force - 24 hours a day. There was a hundred foot section inside the wall, (between an inner ring of fences and barbed wire - and the wall itself) known as the "death strip". Here was a free-fire zone with an easy line of sight for GDR guards to shoot their own people.

Behind this section of wall, as it turns out, was the former Gestapo headquarters. This is probably the reason this section was preserved - the confluence of both the 20th century's totalitarian nightmares. A developer and city planners want to build a museum here called "The Topography of Terror." But its tied up in a land and funding dispute. Nevertheless, as with the Checkpoint, vistors can gaze at many placards and weather-proof billboards out in the open, listen to push-button recordings of Class-A war criminals answering charges at Nuremburg, (with translation into English), and the like. most haunting were the photographs and entry records (the Gestapo were exceptional record-keepers) of ordinary Germans and Jews who disappeared here. Photo graphs that hung in front of you and were suspended on wires above, blown up to about a 6 by 4 foot portrait. Mug-shots for such crimes as "attending a labor meeting", and "associating with known Jewish subversive agents," and such. You can imagine the rest. What staggers is that the Gestapo felt the need to lie, in their own internal records.

And here, on a neighboring building, was this relief. Time-honored German craftsmanship. Clockmaking. Perhaps a father and child. Or Guildsman and apprentice. It brought back to me my first impression of Baghdad - peaceful, serene. There's no evil in the land. No crazy in the water. It criss-crosses every human heart - as Solzhenitzen said. Like the Berlin wall, only mobile. Retreating and advancing across the heart's topography. Unless that's what they meant, there's no "topography" to terror.

And here's the backside, facing Potsdamer Platz. The heart of Berlin nightlife - the most renowned in Europe in the 20's and 30's. It was also a large, open-air plaza. The nerve center of the Third Reich was built all around it, which guaranteed its destruction, and the Cold War divided it into.

It has since undergone a renewal, restoring it to a new shine, (and height! The buildings around it look almost like Manhattan)

Checkpoint Charlie (Pt. 2)

2006-09-24T21:48:00.000+04:00

On the morning of the 28th of October, 1961, the sun rose over this scene: Soviet Tanks faced US ones across checkpoint Charlie. In a tense standoff that foreshadowed much of what was to come, the West demonstrated its resolve. And didn't blink.

Tensions reached this level because the Soviets began restricting passage to and from East Berlin, harrassing and detaining diplomats, and shutting off traffic through other checkpoints. The wall had been completed a scant two months before.

The Soviets had to erect barriers and barbed wire, poles that would stop speeding East Germans from crashing through to freedom. All that ever stood on the US side was this humble wooden shack.

[Giant, life-sized billboards like these run a good 100 meters in all directions away from Checkpoint Charlie, telling it story.]

Good Riddance: This picture of a picture shows the wall finally being torn down, and in its place a two-row brick line that marks where the wall once stood, which runs uninterrupted along, across and through modern united Berlin - so that noone forgets.

My sneaks, and the marker found at various points along its length: "Berliner Mauer 1961-1989."

This one brought me to tears, and it always will.

"Nowhere else is the division of east and west more visible than at Checkpoint Charlie. Here, a single wall cut through an entire city. And it was here that the people of the United States of America bore testimony, in impressive fashion, to their unconditional commitment to fundamental values such as human rights, democracy and freedom. Over the 28 years of its existence, Checkpoint Charlie was visited by many statesmen, giving the people hope that their wish for freedom and peace would be fulfilled.
It was here that Ronald Reagan realised the scale of the situation and resolved to tear down the Iron Curtain."

That's damn right.

I didn't think they'd mention the Gipper . . . but they did. History is having its say, and the din of the Anti-Reagan ideologues is about as audible now as a mosquito's wings flapping. This bit makes me misty-eyed because it contains gratitude. Which is all we've ever asked for.

Checkpoint Charlie

2006-09-24T20:49:00.000+04:00

I broke this one up into two posts owing to its importance. This is Checkpoint Charlie, "Ground zero" during the Cold War. This was the place of maximum drama of that war, where two diametrically opposed systems eyed one another from the fall of Berlin.

This sign which everyone who crossed saw, has been preserved, (in perpetuity - one hopes). You are looking from the West into the newly revitalized East. When the gig was up, and East Berliners started fleeing en masse for the West, the Soviets put up the wall where some 169 people were shot on sight. Guards were given bonuses and extra vacation for such murders.

Here is a typical American farmboy, in the uniform of the period, who guarded this post for all those years in that "Long, twilight struggle".

Here are actors, (I have to assume - no decorum or military bearing) representing the UK and the US. Allies which, not for the first time, (nor the last time), found themselves on the right side of history, and not coincidentally.

SCOREBOARD:
US/UK Alliance - 6
Evil - 0

Here is their counterpart, the farmboy from the Urals. This view is the flipside of the previous billboard, looking West. I hope he's well and had many children. They're free now.

The View

2006-09-24T19:57:00.000+04:00

This is the awning leading to the balcony. It was automated! And would roll out on cue in the morning, fully extended. Retracting late in the afternoon.

This is the view directly left of the balcony across the courtyard, and other identical balconies on the fourth floor.

My sneaks again. This is the view straight down, and the feeling that you're suspended in air.

This is the lovely little Hotel courtyard bar and restaurant, neatly landscaped, immaculately maintained. There was a light drizzle in the air, as I surmise there often is, so the glass semicircular enclosure is where one eats brekfats on mornings like this. And it was superb! Bagels, cheeses, hams, fruits and Nutella! (I'm back in the Nutella club after this trip.)

And here's the courtyard, where you can just see the kinder milling about and yammering.

Accomodations

2006-09-24T18:56:00.000+04:00

For about 100 bucks, with tax, this is what you get in East Berlin. This hotel was formerly an elementary school, and the shape and environs were preserved intact. The block and neighborhood this hotel was in was interspersed with new businesses and hotels and a mall. Mixed in with this were condemned buildings and apartment blocks that had one or two die-hard tenants that refused the Gov. buyout and move. Over time, these will fold and developers will transform the former Soviet eyesores into attractive improvements like this one.

This is the bed, and the bathroom - visible through the glass.

The bathroom, (the other side). These fixtures and accomodations are all modern and new.

Desk, or writing table. (You can smell the newness, yes?)

The room number, reminiscent of Star Trek. Or perhaps a mocking look back at something more sinister.

This was the art work on the walls in the hallway, (there were many more) evoking the graffitti on "thee wall."

The Reichstag

2006-09-24T18:37:00.000+04:00

Look at this River walk behind the Reichstag. How did the Germans, who resisted order and civilisation so long, evolve into the people who define both?

How do they control the water level?

German magic, that's how.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Reichstag, of the new and unified Germany.

Aah, Berlin

2006-09-24T01:45:00.000+04:00

Capitol Beach! This is the scene just outside the new showpiece mega-station in formerly East Berlin. East is West and West is East. Griping I heard at the time, and in articles since - is that West Berliners are quite anxious and envious over the rapid advance of East Berlin. When the wall came down, virtually everything was up for sale. And with no development and improvement during the Soviet period - East Berlin was a blank canvas for planners and developers to re-invent. The new station (Hanau Banhoff?) has most of the Berlin traffic routed through it now - showcasing the change and robbing many West Berlin vendors of their tourist patronage. My hotel (in East Berlin) was 4-star, (as you'll see) and relatively cheap. "Go East Berlin!", I say.

I found Berlin to be a city like no other, with most everyone English-capable and very warm, friendly and cosmopolitan. Its very ancient/modern like London, and like London - a spirit of fun prevails. Here's the menu at the Capitol Beach.

Here's a piece of children-friendly, easily understood, and functional artwork leftover from the World Cup, recently concluded.

The River Valley, (Revisited)

2006-09-24T00:43:00.000+04:00

Back through the River Valley for a fourth time, I remembered to shoot some of the spots I'd missed. This time from Vienna, through Prague, and onto Berlin. This shot captures my awed sense of history, which the soil of Europe is replete with.

This was an ordinary stop. I don't even remember the town - given that all of them were so post-card picturesque. What a wonder it would be to spend Christmas here. This stop was otherwise unremarkable but for this construction project that reveals a wall or foundation beneath its surface, (in center of photo, between the corrugated metal sheets). Its contruction, (stone size and arrangement) indicates significant age. When was this built? Was it a Foundation? A Wall? A large manor home? When was it in use? When did it fall into disrepair/disuse? With so much history, Europeans have the luxury of ignoring it.

Look at this yellow hotel, (probably formerly a manor home), up on a hill on the far side. How'd you like to spend a summer here? A Christmas?

Here are the cliffs, and the homes and hotels built into its side and in its shade.

And this is the only photo I have that captures the very ugly and very out-of-place Stalinist housing blocks and edifices. Mercifully, generally well outside the heart of the town or city, but generally also up above and in the hills, looming over it.

This is a particularly picturesque place where the River diverts. A meeting place and trading hub today, as it must have been for millenia.

I must have a beer in that pub on the right.

Churches

2006-09-23T23:48:00.000+04:00

Not yet replaced by mosques. Churches. Grand churches. This is St Stephen's. Ground Zero for Vienna, stading since . . . I'm not sure, but it was the center of town back in the ancient mock-ups in the museum. This place is still an active Catholic church, and is simply humbling inside, where an air of reverance and quietude prevails.

Here is her roof and towering spire. You can just make out the double-headed eagles - symbol of the Austrian state - tiled in mosaic on the roof.

Here in closer relief, along with her structure and buttresses and a statue of what must be St. Stephen.

This is another church. (I will have to research it and update/edit this post - I don't have the name.)

And here is her roof and buttresses . . . Stunning.

I also took the elevator (installed for renovationist work along with at least ten stories of scaffolding) inside Karskirche (Karl's "kirk" - or church). An unrivalled example of Baroque architecture and beauty. The frescoes inside approach the beauty and majesty of the Sistine Chapel, surely - though I've never been.

Alas, again, I evidently took no pictures. Must have been entranced. (or shaking in my boots from the height).

This is a crucifix on a wall (the same wall as the graffitti in the previous post, which runs for a good distance) near my hotel. Glad to see HE's still here.

Wiener Shnitzel (Miscellaneous)

2006-09-23T22:30:00.000+04:00

Wiener Shnitzel. I finally know what this means. Wiener - of Vienna. Shnitzel - a tenderized, (pulverized), breaded pork chop. Dee-lish. And very un-Islamic.

Anyway, on to cruel irony. A very disquieting irony emerged on OUR side of the iron curtain. In Vienna and Berlin I found monuments to the Red Army. Monuments to the "liberator". This was by far the largest and most guilded. Now, I have no problem with a nation honoring its war-dead. Especially the losing side. The Yasukuni shrine in Japan, Confederate memorials in every single Southern town. I think its necessary - to PREVENT revival of that which was rightly defeated. But here we have a different animal. The sacrifice of the Red Army indeed drove the Nazis out, but it was Churchill and Roosevelt that LIBERATED them at Yalta, whilst consigning their neighbors to Soviet penury and Stalinite TERROR, starvation and death. How this could have escaped the very FORTUNATE denizens of Berlin and Vienna (and presumably others), escapes me.

My own wish is that we'd unleashed a secret weapon we had called "George S Patton" on the ragtag Red Army (which we'd been supplying), and not cynically consigned central Europe to the worst experiment in the history of human life on this planet, but that would have set a different and unpredictable chain of events in motion. Not the least of which would be the cheerleading and sanctimony of our modern left regarding the "premature demise of a great and noble enterprise." Oh wait, that happened anyway . . . .

What most don't know is that was Stalin's plan for us (as early as 1938). To allow Hitler to wreck the West, while maintaining neutrality or splitting the spoils as with Poland, and the Red Army would sweep in and ultimately "liberate" the rest.

Also, at Yalta, it was understood that newly liberated nations would have elections. Haha. Where they occurred, Stalin's monkeys won Saddam-like elections, to the astonishment of many self-deluded liberals. Many of whom are still deluded, astonishingly.

This is a preserved remnant of Vienna's famous walls. Where the walls that ringed Vienna once stood, is now a street, named "Ringstrasse".

Here's the etching on the wall remnant, with important dates and terms that need no translation: "Turken Belagerung 1526-1680", "1683 Wien vor den Turken".

I found this graffitti on a park wall near my hotel. (I suspect these nimrods may be in league with the defacers of other American monuments, but I can't prove it).

Easy, meaningless sentiment; and symptomatic. Its in English, oddly, but it still requires translation.

Belvedere Palace and Gardens

2006-09-23T00:10:00.000+04:00

After the Museum I found this lovely place where I found a beer, and toasted the health of the West. I found out later that Austria, forever "neutral", in June sold Iran 500 50 caliber rifles, a certain quantity of them - sniper rifles.

In recent weeks the number of sniper attacks has gone up in Baghdad, and most of them are kills on US soldiers, penetrating their helmets and armor. SO - I'll still toast the health of the west, but I regret doing it in Austria.

A very un-Victorian winged lioness guarding the Gardens.

VERY un-Victorian. These gardens were immaculately manicured. With little trees shaped into perfect cones, alternated with ones shaped into perfect cylinders and terraced, bubble-like coifs. (alas, not photographed, and thus not pictured).

Here's a great idea for a cocktail garden. As one walks closer to the Palace, the gardens separate and deviate into a labyrinth of smaller, private, landscaped sanctuaries like this one. Between the pairings of trees are hedgerows linking the two that you can walk behind. (You could change clothes behind these.) Park benches and grassy areas round out the ambiance. Viennese were camped out here reading, picnicing and couples enjoying each others company. I envisioned an elaborate cocktail-party with A-list guests strolling around, getting lost - and not wanting to get found.

Vienna Museum (and Siege)

2006-09-22T23:20:00.000+04:00

The City museum is devoted to MUCH more than the TWO sieges the Turks laid to them, but that was all I cared about on this visit.

Here are some captured Turkish standards with their unmistakeable crescent (seen in Franz Josef Square).

This is an enormous painting of the second siege of 1682, visible in the background of the previous picture. In the center is Vienna, fortified like no other city I've seen, with walls ringing the city, a river diverted as a moat around those walls, and triangular fortresses built beyond that. They had a mock-up in the museum, but evidently I didn't photograph it.

The Turks brought gunpowder, from their conquests in east, which the Viennese didn't have yet. And Janissaries, young blue-eyed, blond Balkan men forcibly surrendered in youth as blood tribute. Brainwashed and indoctrinated into Islam as slaves, they carried little cannons on sticks and were feared for their ferocity. Defending the city were Venice's garrison plus some Swiss pikemen, that would shove the Janissaries back through the walls, when they breached them, with their 10-ft. pikes.

It was a damn-near thing. The Turks laid siege to Vienna (the second time) in July, 1683 - with 250,000 men. By September, Venice's defenders, never numbering more than 80,000, were exhausted, starved, and despairing. The Turks had tunnelled under her walls by now, and set off charges that brought whole sections down.

Not a moment too soon, The Polish King arrived with 80,000 and routed the Turks, for good, which is captured in this painting.

The date: September the Eleventh.

(The Turkish commander was subsequently beheaded in Belgrade for failing to take Vienna as they'd done Budapest. )

Odd un-PC piece found in the art section of the museum. "This one's called "The Islamic Project-Vienna". There's a mosque (which doesn't exist - yet) in the city center with goats, donkeys, and other trappings of 10th century life in the heart of one of Europe's finest Capitals.

This is EXACTLY what i see in my nightmares - which is why it was so shocking to find in Vienna. Perhaps its a subtle PC piece mocking us for our un-PC "Islamophobia". If it is, its not so funny now.

Here's the write-up beside it, in German, with Huntington's seminal work and name cited. I'm unsure of the intent. Better get this translated.

Wien, (Vienna)

2006-09-22T21:32:00.000+04:00

Franz Josef Square: Forgive the historical ignorance of this and many other posts. I simply didn't have the time to learn all the essentials. There was TOO MUCH history. Time permitting, I can edit these posts later and include all the pertinent and vital info. Perhaps with links.

Franz Josef square is surrounded on all sides by the palaces of the Austrian court, which are now various museums. It was simply the richest I've seen. The detail goes too deep. Any pictures inside these palaces would have done their subjects a disservice. The least conspicuous wood and marble-work inside was more elegant and graceful than the most ostentatious I've seen elsewhere, particularly in the "Polished Turds" Saddam built. That's Class. Only "accessible" to those that appreciate it.

I snatched a photo of the statue previous, because the hero (Franz Josef?) is trampling over an Islamic (Turkish) standard bearer, and here's the close-up. How is it that this statue hasn't been torn down and replaced by a "Crescent of Friendship?" OPEC's in Vienna, after all. Mystifying . . . AND EDIFYING!!! I suggest here is where we should have our Western Resistance Meetings.

So nothings in dispute, here's the muslim and Turkish standard, being bounced out of Europe - for four centuries. This was as far as they made it in the east . . . until now. If anyone's curious what Austria would look like if they'd succeeded, see Bosnia.

The front of one of the Palaces, from the view of the Turkish standard bearer.

Budapest By Night

2006-09-18T00:21:00.000+04:00

Aha! I learned the delayed shutter function of my camera, in Budapest! What a break . . .

And also how to balance the thing on a wall or mailbox, (or some obstacle) to burn the requisite exposure time for an exquisite beauty like this one. And all that with a good "buzz" goin'! Pub-crawling as I went. This is the bridge upriver from my hotel that I'd just walked across, coming back from the Pest side, (the Park, the Heroes Square, and the Magnificent mile of Embassies - sorry, no pictures).

This is the Bridge just downriver from my hotel (about a block) - featured in other day-time photographs.

This is a beautifully illuminated church on the way back to my hotel.

And this may be the masterpiece of the tour. Capturing the moon playing coy behind the clouds, appearing to illuminate the Magnificent Hungarian Parliament building across the River.

Park, (with Statues)

2006-09-17T23:33:00.000+04:00

Look who's here again! This park is a city park, a well-frequented one, and here Churchill has his own corner.

Know who this gentleman is?

How 'bout now?

"TO THE MEMORY OF WASHINGTON. THE HUNGARIANS OF AMERICA. 1906"

The graffiti was supplied by someone else. It took us two hundred years to go from fighting for our freedoms to mocking and debasing them. Maybe the Hungarians have done it inside of 15.
Somebody call Craig Radvansky and put him on the case.

Lenin's statues went un-defaced because the defacer faced gulag-time, or worse. Washington gets tarred and feathered because he wouldn't.

Was this statue standing through the communist period? In this spot? Dunno. I suspect the graffiti post-dated the secret police

Synagogue

2006-09-17T20:40:00.000+04:00

A Jewish community rebuilding? The synagogues of Central Europe are tourist attractions now, mostly. But the visitors centers assure me that the communities are rebuilding. Every Capitol has at least one "Old Jewish Quarter" with at least two grand synagogues. Budapest has seven, with gravestones that date back centuries, (quite common). Budapest claims to have Europe's oldest Jewish community. And here is one of her Synagogues.

Street level view.

A sculpture, a "tree of life" in the courtyard behind the Synagogue.

The Star of David on the gate.

Statue Park

2006-09-16T23:15:00.000+04:00

Moving on from the "cemetary", a good ways further outside of town -AND THAT AIN'T NO ACCIDENT - is "Statue Park", where they put all these horrible 20-th century mistakes out to rust - for all centuries to come. I took many pictures, multiple ones of everything in the park, and there were many. I decided on these five as emblematic of what fare was found within the Park's walls. If I were to include them all, it'd run about 4 more pages - and here, at this point, I'm only half-way through my R&R pictures. So this'll have to suffice.
There's old butter-nuts himself, urging on the "worker-soldier vanguard" to throw out the baby with the bathwater. This is one of the first that greet you as you enter the park, and its large. Its difficult to tell from this photo, but the shiny ones are metallic sodered cutouts, while the dark grey ones are solid bronze (or tin - in the cases of communists). Why the difference? I'm not sure. It looks like to me the original piece probably contained all bronze statues, and the tin ones are replacements to help the viewer capture the ful scope of the piece. As to what happened to the original piece, I'd have to guess. Perhaps the people conscripted to compose the "worker-soldier-vanguard" for over 50 years dropped the statue while moving it . . . 60 or 70 times.

These works come from all over Hungary, and the process is repeated in all the former Soviet prison-states. None of these towns, cities and villages - scattered all over the countryside - wanted to keep their piece of Soviet Realism-crap. They all sent them here, that much was explained in English.

Why would that be, Mr. Stalin? Why, Mr. Lenin, (You summ'bitch)!?

This was a monstrosity, over 30 feet high. A Budapester would have to tell you where it was originally perched. I don't think the Commies had Gay Pride Parades, but this fella's feeling fabulo-obvious! Fab to be free of the yoke of Capitalist-pig oppression, war-mongering and yankee imperialism!

(At the Communist Museum in Prague they had these post-cards, I bought a bundle. My Favorite one said, "The Communist Museum. We're right across from Benetton, upstairs from McDonald's. VIVA LA IMPERIALISM, BABY!")

This one was particular for its drab, irreducibly soviet, dull, coercive, anti-individualist, pedestrian lack of beauty that defines the Commies. This one assaults you if you look an inch deeper.

There were others like it. This one may have been in a train-station, on a street corner - wherever - reminding the trod-upon that the revolution trods on. Which has at least two implications. 1) The Revolution's uniformity of purpose: Get back in line, ant, and we will eventually make the world as miserable as we are, and 2) This is the army that will march over you if you can't "win the battle against yourself" in Orwell's phrasing. As if A) Hungarians invited in communist rule, (or spontaneously became communists), or B) they had a choice.

What Statue Garden is complete without this ass-hat? I have always wanted one, and fear most will be melted before I can get my hands on an authentic piece. I will have one one day. He will stand in a recessed pit, like a box, or cage in a gulag where so many millions wound up beacuse of this no-account, slippery, soul-less slut. This inhuman, heartless whore.

Also I'm a southern male. And we piss outside. You do the math.

American Cemetary (?)

2006-09-16T16:39:00.000+04:00

So, looking to find my way to the "Statue Park" outside of town, I find this bit on the English map in the same quadrant as the Park: "American Cemetary". I had to go. So I asked the concierge, and he called and told the taxi-driver. This took some time. We drove around the place, through the neighborhood asking the locals, and noone seemed to know about it. So I walked down the Highway, and found this unmistakeable sign on the wall outside.

Here's part of the gate, which was chained and locked. I eventually found a way in, (over the eight-ft. walls).

This is the Centerpiece, where the path in the previous picture leads. There are some very old wreaths laid here, (6 mos. old? 12 mos. old? Older?) with Hungarian colors and messages in that ancient language. I took loads of pictures - far too many to post here, but to the left of this is a large Christian cross, more wreaths, and three flagpoles. (Perhaps the ACLU found out about it - and thats why its disused and pad-locked now).

This is the view looking down the length of the centerpiece, and slightly away at an angle. Flower-pots, terraced rows, a statue of a Saint with a latin inscription - but where are the grave-stones(!!!???) markers, crosses, stars of David? (again, I'm thinking the tentacles of the ACLU) Who fought here? Who was buried here? Were they ever buried here? Budapest was "liberated" by the Red Army, to the best of my recollection, but the markings on the gate clearly state 1941-1945. Were these OSS guys? Downed bomber crews? US-naturalized Hungarian spies sent back in? The mind reels . . . . I have yet to discover the truth.

The place was overgrown, well-over ankle-high, as my sneaks here illustrate. If it had to be overgrown, there couldn't have been a prettier variety of flora - pinks, reds, purples and yellows. In this patch, you can see the clover (that I identified so closely with in my youth - forever foraging for a four-leafed specimen in my Nanny's back yard).

If you spot one in this pick you win the Grand Prize. A souvenir from Iraq.

Your choice, lamb's blood from halal-butcher mixed with fetid Baghdad open sewage running through any street - or a severed head. Both HAZMAT wrapped, and delivered to your door by a guy called "Achmed". We will bear the postage fees.

Archaeology

2006-09-16T00:01:00.000+04:00

At the top of the hill/castle complex, in the center, stood what I have to imagine are the ruins of the old castle. Lying here in this state for I don't know how long. Good news! Archaeology is under way, excavating/cataloging everything they find. One must imagine that this will all be part of some exhibit or museum or perhaps they intend to restore it to its former glory, and then put the museum inside.

On the riverside, well up from the first or outer walls, yet down below the tourist area, these guys are hard at work. This is an excavation.

This is a closer view, about 20 yards down the ramparts. This work is taking place all over the walls, in teams of 5-10 laborers. They excavate in sections, and haul everything out by wheelbarrow.

Here's a lateral view. You can see a few gangplanks here for every other team to use to wheelbarrow the stuff out, and at the very end a red shack.

The red shack: This is where the girls sort and clean all the pieces they find. Looks like mostly bricks. Digging for Indian pottery in South Carolina - I know exactly what this is like. The real work starts when you have to catalog and group these pieces.

The Walls of Buda Castle

2006-09-15T22:07:00.000+04:00

This is a look over the walls and down onto the River and the Bridge nearest me.

This is a look along the walls downriver. This place is up there about 500-600 feet and it drops - straight off, almost.

From a crenellation: This is a close-up of the bricks, their large and unusual shapes, which date to ????

Here's one of the arrow-slits. Note the oak about 25 feet away, and you're looking down into its upper branches. I thought this pic'd help mark the steepness of this perch. How anybody ever took this place, I'll never know.

Budapest

2006-09-15T21:28:00.000+04:00

Striking up the cliff-face (virtually), right behind my hotel on the Buda side of the river, sits the castle, environs and this cathedral. On the right-hand side is an elborate raised promenade overlooking the river and city. Its built in the old style, (perhaps a re-creation), but its of modern concrete construction, (and charges a fee to walk it).

Here's that cathedral, at its foot. It is undergoing a very expensive, very thorough restoration that is about 75% complete.

That restoration includes these original ceramic tiles on the roof, arrayed as they were - a very Hungarian touch.

This is the view down the very steep hill to my hotel, on the left, in the alleyway. Just down the alleyway from me was a Belgian-alley themed restaurant and alehouse. "Pater Marcus" if memory serves. Apparently its a franchise of some 4-6 restaurants in Europe. The beers were varied and outstanding - but the food! Good Lord! Most of it was abbey-monk made! Cheeses, cured meats and hams - I don't know that I ate better during the whole trip - and I had some fantastic meals!

Train Travel

2006-09-15T16:39:00.000+04:00

Here's this massive earth-moving project that loomed out of the distance. I have no idea what or why it is, and haven't since found out. I haven't a clue. It would appear to be some kind of mining operation, but who piles it up like this? This picture doesn't do it credit. This thing is really far away, which means it is MASSIVE. Giza Pyramid massive.

Here's this cozy little river valley again. Strange to know that history has interrupted its splendid isolation. Somewhere up here, between East Germany, Czech and Austria were machine-gun towers out in the wilderness, that shot on sight. Policing this little valley would have been easy, I imagine.

More pictures of the neatly organized and landscaped river valley. In many cases, homes and hotels were built right into the unique contours on both sides, (craggy cliffs not captured in these photographs). I found an endless sense of wonder during this long leg of the trip wondering what life was like here 25, 50, 100 years ago.

Travelling by train is contemplative, and relaxing. Its wonderful, until some french hippies on their way to a music festival get on with you, load the car full of their camping crap up to the rafters, smoke cigarettes incessantly, play bongo drums and inane Busker stick tricks - and eyeball you like you're cramping their style! I'm comforted that the muslim authorities that take over France in the year 2032 will find them equally contemptible. Though they will do a better a job of motivating them, make no mistake.

Top of the Hill

2006-09-15T15:32:00.000+04:00

This is the cathedral at the top of the hill, whose spires are vible in the first picture of Prague looking across the bridge. And this is as far as you can step away from it in order to take a picture. This church, some military buildings, court buildings and such (now mostly museums), are cozily bunched together on the hill behind walls that would have formed Prague's last redoubt, presumably, although I haven't done my homework on that.

This is a close-up of the "gargoyle" on the left. A man dressed in period costume.

And this is the one on the right, a woman. They both would appear to vomit water when its raining. And I've just never seen this before. Nothing like it, and certainly not on a church. There must be some intriguing history behind this style I need to research.

A few blocks away, on the hill, the cloistered streets open up to this magnificent courtyard with more statuary and significant dates, but where I apparently took few pictures. I took videos instead. And while those are great, I can't upload them.

What's New!

2006-09-12T17:27:00.000+04:00

ADS! (top center) that should generate revenue (for me) if you click on them, like this one for Katrina Relief!

HITS COUNTER! (top right, between "profile" and "links"). So I can see how much traffic I'm getting.

SPACE! (all over) I finally figured out how to manipulate the code to expand this tight little space that was mincing my words and pictures. Now all I have to do is figure out how to stop the auto-format function from contorting them into these viewer-unfriendly configurations. (Look for more changes as I learn more about personalizing and customizing this Blog.)

FOOTNOTES! (bottom) I figured out how to add quotes at the bottom. And my current fav. is that of British Brigadier General Sir Charles Napier, who beautifully and sublimely anticipated our age and its multi-culti morass.

Thats' all for now. Be on the lookout for more Europe pics! (I'm only 1/3 of the way into them!) And a political Blog, with my thoughts, coming soon. I can't do it here as I officially have no opinions, to be displayed in public, as a uniformed service member. I'll have to write under a pseudo-nym, and email you all the site. (For the same reasons, I don't think I can link it to this one, without potentially getting in trouble.)

Please keep the "Comments" coming, as often as possible. And if you haven't left one yet, you must. It helps me keep a record of everyone I need to notify when the aforementioned changes take place.

-Mastin.

LUNCH

2006-09-09T01:23:00.000+04:00

This was my lunch. At least part of it. Fresh Bread, Artisan cheeses with a salad, and a giant Krusovice beer. All cost about four bucks.

I took this picture knowing I would look at it in Baghdad, as I am now, and think of that day I took cheese and beer for granted.

This was the cathedral, under whose flying butresses I ate my lunch. A little side-walk cafe tucked under its ancient shadow.

The relief above the doorway, depicting most of the stations of the cross.

This was the medieval archway to my immediate left, as I ate. Long since filled in, yet not erased.

King Wencelas' Square

2006-09-09T00:05:00.000+04:00

Good King Wencelas. I don't know the particulars about this King, but will endeavor to find out. This is the Czech "Times Square", where every revolution, political event of any import, celebration of a national nature has occurred, (and will occur).

Up-close.

The Czech Parliament, which is situated directly behind King Wencelas.

Statues of ?? - I'll have to find out. Impressive, and the center of the buzz downtown, where horse-drawn carriages and tour guides whirl tourists around the "Old town". This plaza is full of expansive sidewalk cafes and festivity, and is guarded over by the clock tower in the next picture.

Visitors can pay a fee and go up in this tower for a spectacular view of Prague. (Sadly, I didn't have time - it was getting late and there was Guinness to be drunk.)

Museum of Communism

2006-09-08T23:06:00.000+04:00

Fellows like this Distinguished Gentleman have replaced those of Lenin, Marx and Stalin. (Wonder why, in a country so far from Britain?) This one happens to be in "Churchill Park", happily a short jaunt from my hotel. I'd LOVE to know what it was formerly, "Blood of the Martyr's Marching Forward to the Inevitable Worker's Triumph Guided by the Spirit of Comrade Lenin Square", perhaps?

Cue the "Death Star" theme from Star Wars: "Dum Dum Dum Dumdaddum DumdaDUMB!" (or a Socialist Worker's anthem in any Slavic language, if you prefer). This is a recreated workspace typical of the period.

AND LOOK AT THIS! posted by the time-cards: "Timely Arrival to Work Deals the Decisive Strike Against the American Aggressors."

This is one of my favs. An actual Olympic propaganda poster. Note the healthy Aryan socialistworkerathletemartyrherovanguard, with a token black man and Asian thrown in, to connote world-wide revolution. Look how stereotypical the caricatures of those two are, despite the artists best artistic intentions (worst ideological intentions). I'd wager they'd never met a black or Asian man and had to base it on the last remaining copy of "Little Black Sambo" in the Soviet sphere. (just look at those two!) What these other healthy specimens must have looked like to a starving population . . . How did that escape the censors notice? ( . . . dumb question, for an historical calamity of the magnitude of communism.)

Inspired

2006-09-08T22:45:00.000+04:00

Architecturally sublime

2006-09-08T22:20:00.000+04:00

No Comment

The Streets of Prague

2006-09-08T20:19:00.000+04:00

These are the sidewalks you walk on. (My Asics sneaks, stars of this blog, make a reappearance). In Prague, its the little things you notice; a richness in detail; a refinement that spirals inward, drawing you nearer and more curious at each level - the deeper you look.

Or at least it did me! . . . Stop laughing! There's 2,000 years of uninterrupted history, deliberate refinement and ART in these streets. You'll see what I'm talking about in the pics to come!

This is a view up the sidewalk near my hotel, well outside the city center. Stop and think about the work involved in building a patterned sidewalk out of little, 2" x 2" square stones, let alone their upkeep!

So you never laid a brick patio before? Deggie knows what I'm talking about. . .

This is a view up that same street.

. . . . And down it. Note how the cobblestones that compose the street itself are arrayed in overlapping, ascending arches. This serves several purposes that I can think of - but again - what city bothers with this stuff! (2 miles outside the "historical district." ) Prague is an art display! A history museum! Look at the irregular and mishappen stones themselves, among the newer-looking refurbishments. How old do you suppose the oldest ones are?

Same street, (same dead-horse being flogged).

Rainbow Row, eat your heart out! (Charleston, SC's famous, colorful, battery-side promenade - for the uninitiated).

to Praha!

2006-09-08T17:14:00.000+04:00

Travel By Train; the ONLY way to go. Here, I'm somewhere between Eastern Germany and Prague. A scenic, tranquil, isolated little river valley seems to be the only way through western Czech. I took loads of pictures of dubious quality from the train, (pics I'll post later). The valley was a spell-binding place, the pictures will fall far short, I'm afraid.

Which makes this picture selection a little counterproductive, and perhaps . . . well . . . stupid. Somewhere before entering the valley, (or after?) this pic was taken . . . with a nuclear cooling tower in the background. I look like a poster-stooge for nuclear power in communist Russia. "Nuclear power- YA!"

Michaela Vesela was my travelling companion, for most of the way. A Czech Doctoral student, returning home from her university in Bremen, Germany.

Praha: This is a view up the hill toward Prague Cathedral and its environs. This is the bridge I crossed, up-river from the world-famous Charles bridge, in order to photograph it.

This bridge probably has a lengthy pedigree as well, but for tourists like me, (and the rest of the world), it is the "bridge upriver from the Charles Bridge."

And there it is. Full of artists, street performers, and the tourists from as far away as Korea. The Charles Bridge is to Prague as the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. The history of this iconic bridge is the history of Prague.

Imagine a foot bridge of medieval construction, sturdy, lenghty, pedestrian, cobble-stone lined; linking the old heart of Charleston, with the old heart of Boston, and you have something like 4.2% of the living history and pageantry this bridge connects. I could live as a bum on this bridge, and count myself lucky.

Here's the view of one end of it. It meanders a good length. Slowly yielding to the city on either side after a few hundred meters, as opposed to abruptly ending at the waters edge.

Night Out

2006-09-04T00:21:00.000+04:00

My Reunion with Guinness. Sweet indeed. Here's some of the locals. From Right to left: John, (English expat banker in Frankfurt), Joe, (Irish expat banker in Frankfurt), Martin Hind, (Scottish Resident scholar and pub intellectual), and Un-named, (ubiquitous English drinking fellow). Martin I'd met last trip. He's a gentleman and a scholar, with an unbelievable memory capacity - who can name all fifty state birds, mottos, and nicknames - for starters. Only this time he was hosting trivia instead of participating on our team. We lost by two points, in the end.

John took the camera so I could jump in. It was a good "Craic" as the Irish would say. That is, a Crack-ing good time! Many Guinness disappeared.

Sheisse! What I would give for one now!

ES RATZT!

On the way home we found these Cardinal Ratzinger placards, either celebrating his election to Pope Benedict XVI, or welcoming an upcoming visit from him. These were the dumbest faces we could make, (in no way meant to disrepect Il Papa, and the joy faithful Germans feel at having their first Pope). But after about 16 Guinni -the correct plural form of "Guinness"- everything's funny.

John, not particularly religious, feels the faith too.

Frankfurt

2006-09-03T22:47:00.000+04:00

This is the view of one side of the River looking south (?) You can see the spire of the Frankfurt Dom, or "dome" which stood in some form since the 10th century. We bombed the roof off it, along with everything else in Frankfurt circa 1945, and it was rebuilt to its former glory after the war.

(The shnazzy, stylish Polo tee is courtesy of Engie.)

Here you can see the other bank, with its equally inviting promenade, full of blonde, German amazons on roller-blades. Here I am closing my eyes and meditating on the Prophet Muhammed, to avoid any un-Islamic thoughts.

This is Joe Mernagh, most famous sometime resident of Kanaya-cho, Shizuoka-ken. This is the view north from the same bridge, and you can see some of the buildings that make Frankfurt the European Banking Capitol.

Joe - known to some as

"Shmoe",

"Sleepy Joe"(cause he passes out in pubs),

"the Fluffy Roy Keane" (cause he's got fluffy, boy-band hair and dainty little ballerina feet which usually allows him to nudge a few by the keeper),

"the Strawberry that shouldn't" (maybe when you're older I'll tell you that one),

and other monikers known only to the tribesmen of upper Tibet - relaxes in front of the city he's conquered. Joe's recently been promoted - TWICE! The first one he earned, the second one was a liile early - a front-office mistake - which STUCK! He's moving to London now and into the Jet-set. We'll miss him back here in "reality".

Germany

2006-09-03T22:12:00.000+04:00

My feet on German Soil. Had to photograph 'em. Had to leave the airport, before gettin' a taxi and just breathe the cool, moist, unpolluted air of civilization.

I musta spent a good 45 minutes here, just taking it all in.

Signs of a new Germany? Jurgen Klinsman took the host team all the way to the semis, and German flags were suddenly and unabashedly everywhere. Its about time . . .

This ad was for a Korean electronics company, reminding me what an interconnected world we all live in now.

Nobody knew what I was talking about! This is the grassy lane on either side of the river, (it was MUCH grassier before the world cup throngs trampled it). And THIS is the little kebab boat, selling drinks and food up and down the river to folks strolling by, or picnic-ing.

Martyr's Memorial

2006-09-03T21:14:00.000+04:00

This is the Martyr's Memorial, or Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as seen from the sunflower and vegetable patch the soldiers that guard the place have sown. (I assume it was them - ?) Its a bizarre, UFO-shaped monstrosity that is very much not out of place in Baghdad. Getting out of a space or time-ship is the first sensation one has when entering the Middle-East. Really, someone needs to write a book (or a series of books) about these Arab potentates and their garrish and confused sense of borrowed styles. I'm sure the place left a better impression before it was looted clean.

This is one of the works of art atop it, viewable in the previous picture. I believe its meant to evoke the Tower of Ur, an ancient Babylonian landmark, if I've got the place correct.

This is a view inside the space-ship. This piece beneath space-ship hatch represents the blood and sacrifice of the soldiers, if thats what I remember the guards telling us. It consists of identical cut sheets of aluminum, terraced or shifted to one side or the other, atop red plexiglass. Same on all four sides.

This is a time-delayed exposure, which accounts for the messiness. There is NO LIGHT down inside the Space-ship, and these faux-swords mounted to the center support, are all that remains un-looted apart from some various and sundry broken display cases. I couldn't validate what used to be in the display cases. They were the size and shape of a man . . . . . Hey! - - - I wouldn't put it past 'em!

The view as we strolled back down the gang-plank to the top. Lt. Olsen and CPT Boulais in foreground.

The Grandstand

2006-09-03T00:57:00.000+04:00

The Longview: This is the view from one end (underneath one pair of swords) to the other. At left in the middle-distance, (beneath the largest light-array) is the grandstand where Saddam would review his lackeys. Many famous photos and clips were shot here. Most notably, the one with Saddam in Western attire (trench-coat, tie) firing his shot-gun in the air.

This is the state of things now. This is the view looking back across the walkway to the speaker's platform which is front and center and prominent. The graffitti is American, of course.

In the complex to the rear of the grandstand is a labyrinth of stairs and interconnecting hallways and VIP rooms - well past their former glory - looted and in ruins, (and DARK - without any light!)

This is one of the chairs (unlooted) that sit row upon row behind the speaker's or Reviewer's (read "Saddam's") platform. There are small lap-desks that fold up and out, and if you'll look closely on the right-hand side you'll see a black-tube emerging from under the seat with a partially viewable exhaust vent. These are individually dedicated air-ducts, blowing cool, air-conditioned air on each of the seats occupants. (This is all OUTSIDE, if the pictures don't make it clear . . . I should've taken one from the ground level, but the stands are so high, the angle reveals nothing but a wall of concrete).

The Crossed Swords

2006-09-03T00:22:00.000+04:00

The hand holding the sword.

DETAIL: These hands were modelled on Saddam's own, we're told. The chain attached links to the next picture.

Behind the hands: Here's the idea; attached to each is this netting that evokes a fishing trawl. Spilling out of this cornucopia are hundreds of Iranian helmets, (fixed in cement).

Up Close: You can see the hodge-podge of different styles, (looks like WWII British and American mostly, plus some others I've never encountered - assuming these are in fact "Iranian helmets".) In any case, the GI's in '03 made them forever theirs, (read the graffitti).

This is in the road - to be driven and marched over. Showing someone the bottom of your feet is a supreme insult in arab culture, and this is surely the purpose. Most of the helmets have caved in/worn away. And you can see the reinforcing re-bar within them.