PACK IT UP!!!!

After we loaded our MILVANs and packed up all our stuff, we eagerly watched the much anticipated "Obama's gonna get us outta Iraq" speech.

Kidding, we didn't load our stuff.

I wasn't surprised a bit. It offered nothing that hasn't already been out there, and (gasp) it's not far off of what Bush had been saying. It's a far cry from the "I'll have us completely out of Iraq in 16 months!" campaign rhetoric. Truth is, unless you have been here for more than a three day sightseeing trip like most of the politicians take, you don't don't understand the problem. You can't understand the problem in three days.

Not sure what America expected. I think there are segments of the population that think we can click our heels and POOF instantly redeploy, send all of the soldiers home, and everyone lives happily ever after. If we started backhauling today, we might make it in 16 months, not counting doing any operations. If Bush had put this out, he would have been blasted. But for Obama, basking in the glow of popular public opinion, this is a win-win for him. If the place reverts to violence, he can hang it on Bush and say, "well, this was his war." But if it works, he can lay claim to victory and triumphantly announce he brought a win home.

After the speech my interpreter Moe and I went up to visit my Iraqi Brigade XO for some chai and to talk about the speech. (He's an interesting guy, and frankly is lucky to be alive. He fought against Iran in the late 80s, was in Kuwait in 1991, was in Basra in 2003 (he does NOT like B-52s), and he spent two years as a Battalion Commander in Anbar Province from 2004-2006. He is no stranger to combat, and sometimes I wonder what can I really teach this guy about warfare. But then again, he's 0-3...) I shook his hand and told him we were packing up and we were waiting for transportation to come and pick up our shipping containers. He didn't let go of my hand and his eyes got big and he said "Noooo!!!" After the joke wore off, we talked about it. In some ways they are ready for us to go, and in others they are not.

I do believe this, though-- within 10 years they will go to war with Iran again.

Later this week I'll put a picture of our new bigger and even more stupid new trucks we got this week (AKA The Mobile FOBs).

Hope you are well-- take care.
Ron

How to know you won the war

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29439989/

This is a good news story. When the entertainment and social scene returns, you are well on the path to winning. Nothing like a little social deviance to highlight victory.

Unfortunately, there is likely an inquisition going on in the Brigade of 82d Airborne to find out which patrol is boozing it up outside the wire. Not such a good thing. But I bet they have no problems getting guys to volunteer for a patrol in that neighborhood.

I often wonder what the tipping point is that will allow us to get outside our super FOBs without huge armored MRAP trucks. The damn things are getting so big we may as well be rolling in tanks. Sure, we do lots of dismounted patrols, but the trucks aren't far behind.

Stay tuned! Next we'll discuss the Iraq drawdown!

Take care-
Ron

Going native

This thing is called a Shemog. One of my Terps, Moe, hooked me up.

Sunni muslims wear red and white (Moe is Sunni). Black and white means Shiite muslims. There's a whole heirarchy of how you tie it around your head; I'm not there yet.

Not sure if the two religious sects differentiate between Cheezits and Wheat Thins. Not sure you would want to; both are delicious.

Hope you are well- take care.

Ron

The fork is still in the road

The other day (sorry, our network has been crap lately because of a couple of dust storms) I sat in a smoke fogged room with 30 sheiks and a whole bunch of Iraqi officers. The sheiks basically peed on the leg of the Iraqi Army Division Commander, who heard all of their grievances. Many of them blamed the coalition for the problems today, and they pretty much expected to be coddled to because they were sheiks of tribes. Towards the end, Major General Ali (the Division Commander) finally snapped, and to his credit, he turned all of these grievances back on the sheiks. He told them they were the impediment to progress in Iraq. He said “if you are all such big and influential leaders, why don’t you solve your own problems? The coalition has given you security, and it has given you millions of dollars in reconstruction money. It’s your fault that you haven’t done anything with it!!!” This brought about a muffled quiet in the room.

Looking at this through western eyes, yes, Iraq has been handed a silver platter of opportunity. Coalition forces restored relative peace (well, ok, after we screwed it up the first time) and have set the conditions for a free government that Iraq elected. And here’s this sheik with his hand out, telling us he wants more. That’s the initial reaction I had, too.

But then again, it goes back to this fork in the road: What is the current form of government in Iraq? Is it representative government or this feudal tribal system?

The election results for the provincial elections came out last week. There are 18 provinces in Iraq, and in January the people voted in elections in 14 of the 18 provinces. In Baghdad province, the people voted on 57 seats. 28 seats went to the current Prime Minister Maliki’s party, (Shia) whose platform was national reconciliation and the restoration of law and order. The second highest set of votes went to a Sunni party called The Accordance Front, whose main stance is defense of this National project, rejection of sectarian violence, and Iraqi sovereignty. I won’t rehash all of the other six parties, but the non-sectarian nationalist parties did well, and the religious platforms (AKA: Sadr) did not do well. You could probably lump a good chunk of the sheiks in the latter categories.

Maybe we are at a turning point. There are still some knuckleheads out there, influenced by Iran, who is no doubt terrified of a stable independent non-sectarian autocratic government next door.

Stay tuned…

Hope all's well-- take care.
Ron

Book Report

So I read Malcom Gladwell's latest book called "Outliers: The Story of Success." He also wrote "The Tipping Point" which is about the causes of social epidemics (fashion, crime, trends,etc), and he also wrote "Blink" which is about how people make judgements and subconsciously form opinions. He is more of a social scientist, but the things he observes and concludes make sense.

Anyway, Outliers is about things that make people successful. It doesn't give any magic bullets of success, but it does identify some imortant traits. One thing the book highlights is an impediment to success, and that is a culture of pride and honor. Gladwell uses Harlan, Kentucky, and family feuds as an example of how a culture of honor has oppressed an area and kept it from developing. People spend all of their resources trying to kill their neighbors and in doing so never progress to anything. After a fashion, people are killing each other because that's what they are supposed to do, all in the name of honor.

This book is the easiest way I have found to explain how the Middle East is so jacked up from a western standpoint. Until tribes can reconcile, and religious groups can learn to get along, the whole region will be prevented from achieving its potential. A good chunk of the violence around here is sheik and tribe vs. sheik and tribe. The sunni/shia civil war was all about pride. The conflict of Iran and, well, just about anyone, is about pride an honor: Who is the rightful heir, who are the infidels that dare show disrespect to Persia/Islamic State of Iran, how dare they impose their western ways on us, the oldest civilization around. Oldest? Yes. Best? Not so much, but that's up for debate.

If you have never read one of his books, I'd recommend it. I'm not a voracious reader, and I am easily distracted, but I find his stuff to be pretty interesting.

Hope you are well-- take care.

Ron

Glacial Change

Had a really good past couple of days. For about the past week or so, we hadn't made much progress with the Iraqi Army (IA). They seemed set in their ways and weren't open to new ideas. So we let them do it the IA way; sometimes it worked in its own goofy way, and sometimes it didn't.

Last night the Iraqi Brigade Commander decided to have a meeting on little notice, which isn't all that uncommon. Normally on Saturday nights we have a staff meeting; sometimes he comes, sometimes he doesn't and the XO runs it, and sometimes it just gets cancelled. But this week he decided to have it anyway, he decided to show up, and he started off the meeting with an After Action Report (AAR) on the past week's Arba'een pilgimage. AARs are a very common thing to our Army, and they can get ugly in that people call each other out.

For the IA to conduct an AAR it is a pretty big deal, and they were even critical of their operations. I almost fell out of my chair. Seizing the momentum, later that night we also got him to realign his S2 shop (the intelligence guys) to make it more of an analysis cell. (IA S2s are still stigmatized as "direct action" guys: They go out and catch bad guys, where in the US Army S2s figure out who the bad guys are and then they make recommendations on what to go after.) Again, a huge cultural issue seemingly broken through. We had been holding this recommendation for a while, and yesterday the time was right, so we sprung it. We threw three more ideas at him, and they stuck too. I was on a roll. But I ran out of spaghetti to throw at him, so I ended the night with five big things we have been trying to implement in the "buy in" category.

I spoke with a very smart Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel today, who is also a MTT. This is his bread and butter, so I figured I'd pick his brain. He said MTT is four big things: Relationships, listening, patience, and timing. You can't pass anything with the Iraqis unless you have a relationship with them. You do it by drinking a lot of chai, listening to them to gain insight on their perspective, and you do your best to understand their culture and their limitations. New ideas have to be on their terms. Don't think you are going to make them do something. If they like it they will do it in due time.

He was dead on, and we proved his theory yesterday.

Here's a video of flying around Arba'een. There's a whole bunch of Arabs down there.

Hope you are well. Take care.

Ron

A whole bunch of muslims

Today the team followed the Iraqi S3 as he made his security checks. The fellas rode while I flew and observed the madness from above.

They are still coming.

What the pictures don't convey is the smell of millions of people walking and essentially living on the street. Sanitation isn't exactly the greatest to begin with here, but when you add 8-12 million folks all on the same route executing bodily functions (Business note: Port-o-potty contract for Arba'een) it becomes especially aromatic. Below is a picture of a Shiite mosque in Mahmudiya. You get a better sense of the people: The foot traffic consumed a four lane divided road, and it was this heavy from 8am until about 4, and it's been that way for 3 days.

Some of the folks today weren't too nice, but we think they are from Sadr City, which has a lot of wackos in it. We think tomorrow may be the last big day. IF they aren't through Mahmudiya by Saturday afternoon, they aren't going to make it to Karbala by the 15th.

So far so good for us; no big incidents, knock wood.

Take care-

Ron

They keep coming

They have been walking for three days now. The flow was like this all day, from daylight until 4 or so in the afternoon. They keep coming, too. Tomorrow through the 15th is supposed to be very busy as well.

Here is a pic of Doc and Stevie (another interpreter) checking in with some of the IA medics on the route

If Arba'een were in America, it would be a race. People would get sponsors, and some foundation would make a bunch of Money. There would be a big prize at the end, and some hot girl would hang a medal around your neck when you finish. A Kenyan would probably win it. There would also be concessions on the route-- shoe selling, food concessions, Mohammed flag kiosks, everything you need to celebrate the march to the death of the Prophet. Soundtracks of wailing Imams citing the Koran. You could even offer the luxury accomodations package of the nicest tent, already set up at your destination with hot chai tea ready to go. you could even set up bars along the way and make it a drinking event. The possibilites are limitless.

But they don't do that. Everything is free, and everyone comes to the support of the people who are on their 'great walk.' People give away food on the route. Medicine at the aid stations set along the way is free too. At night, you go find a tent, or you go and knock on someone's door and eat. No need to make a reservation-- they have hot chow all set up and a room for you all ready, as they knew you were coming, and it is their duty to be hospitable.

What's even more amazing is they do it in sandals. Americans would shell out top dollar for the best running/walking shoes, custom teflon-threaded socks, a new iPod, some super lightweight walking gear, ergonimically correct water bottles, new sunglasses that exclusively filter out all of the unneccessary light which inhibits the full view of the road. You get the idea.

Kinda neat to see. Hope you are well- take care.
Ron

Arba'een

So this week commemorates the Shia Muslim holiday of Arba'een. From Wikipedia:

"Arba'een (Arabic: اربعين‎, means "forty"), or Chehlum, as it is known by Urdu-speaking Muslims, is a Shi'a religious observation that occurs 40 days after the Day of Ashurah, the commemoration of the martyrdom by beheading of Husayn bin Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad which falls on the 20th day of the month of Safar. Husayn and 72 supporters died in the Battle of Karbala in the year 61 AH (680 CE). Forty days is the usual length of the time of mourning in many Islamic cultures.
The occasion reminds the faithful of the core message behind Husayn's martyrdom: establishing justice and fighting injustice, no matter what its incarnation—a message that strongly influenced subsequent Shi'a uprisings against the tyranny of Umayyad and Abbasid rule."

In a nutshell, it involves a pilgrimage of an estimated 8 million Shi'ites to Karbala (south of here), and a good chunk of them will stroll down the street that is right in front of our compound. They started walking yesterday, and by many accounts last year, they had to close the road because there were so many people walking, which is good and bad. It is good because under Saddam, who was Sunni, you couldn't celebrate this holiday. It is bad in that it provides a nifty opportunity for some dumb disenfranchised AQI Sunni holdover to stage a spectacular attack in a poor intent to incite sectarian violence. I think the past week's elections showed we may be over the sectarianism hump, but time will tell.

The people will walk for around five days. Along the way, homes are opened and people set up tents and feed the masses as they come through. I suppose it's an interesting way to spend time with families and friends.

I took some pictures during one of our movements today (I broke the Sony one), but they didn't come out too well due to thick and dirty bulletproof glass. Here's some walkers:

Other than that, things are good. We are in a bit of a rut; I suppose working for going on four months straight with little change will do that to you. Off to the gym to try to break it.

Hope you are well.

Take care

Ron

Groundhog Day

Apparently yesterday was Groundhog Day.


I didn't notice; it was pretty much like every other day here.

Good news, though; we capped 100 days-- only 260 or so left...

Thanks for reading and take care.
Ron

Super Bowl

So for the Super Bowl, we were treated to BEER. Not supposed to mention that the US spent a bunch of money to move alcohol into a muslim country (even though there is no law prohibiting alcohol in Iraq, and stores sell it here. They do, however, get targeted by religious extremist nutjobs who try to blow them up).

As with everything in the Army, they found a way to kill the fun by directing the consumption of the brew by heavily restricting the place and amount that could be consumed, and who it could be consumed with, and who you could tell you consumed alcohol (FYI, you never read this, it never happened). The shipping container it came in had to be guarded, and accountability of said suds was, well... It's easier to get grenades. Residue had to be back-hauled and turned in, with every can properly accounted for, consumed or otherwise.

But we had it, which was a nice gesture. We got up at 2AM and had our allocated two beers. It tasted pretty good, but as with most things here, it was a bit of an anti-climactic letdown. We were still in Iraq. Things like beer and football are best enjoyed with family and friends in familiar places, and you just can't replicate that in the Middle East.

I went back to bed at 5. As we had consumed alcohol, nobody could have anything to do with the Iraqis for eight hours after consumption. Those who had duty got to partake later, during one of the several reruns of the game on AFN. Sadly, we missed all the commercials, as AFN does not accept outside advertising, and instead fills commercial time with various public service announcements.

It was good to see Pittsburgh win, and it was a close game, which is all you want out of the Super Bowl.

Only seven more months until our Fantasy Football draft...

Hope you are well-- take care.
Ron