Wow. I normally don't pay much attention to the news, but I read something today that sparked my interest. According to the news article, the prime minister of
There is part of me that says, "Screw it! Let me go home!" which is a feeling that is shared by a majority of us who were called up to serve or has had the unfortunate experience of seeing a buddy hurt here. If Maliki thinks he can run things, well let him have it. We'll take our soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors home and try to get on with our lives without thinking about this place any more. On the other hand, there is a part of me that is enraged that he would publicly say something like that when we all know damn good and well that his country is in no condition to stand on it's own yet. Don't get me wrong, there is progress here, albeit very slow progress, and it is measured on the ground in inches earned by sweat and blood of American soldiers. Without coalition presence to keep the pseudo peace, all of the efforts of the past 4 years, all of the money and lives that were spent to keep things moving in a positive direction for this place will be for naught.
Part of me isn't surprised by his statement. In our cultural training we received prior to our deployment, we learned that it is custom for Iraqi's to always say yes. Regardless of what you ask them, they will always try to please you with the answers you want to hear, even though they never intend on fulfilling your requests.
"We have a shipment of new uniforms, weapons and body armor for your police forces. Will you have people there to receive the truck?" Of course they say yes, but when the individuals never show and $250k worth of equipment shipped on a $50k convoy risking the lives of the military escort has to be re-routed to another location, it puts a sour taste in my mouth. When we try to find out why this mission failed on the Iraqi end, we discover that they never even had the number of people, the right type of equipment or inkling to do their part in the first place. And to rub a little salt in it, they ask us to deliver again the next day when they know that they won't have the assets there to receive the gear. This irks me. They (being the Iraqi's that we work with) say that it's an honor issue. They refuse to appear that they don't have the answers or the ability to do something. I can understand the concept of pride, but how can they be too proud to say "no" when they are not shy about asking for more of whatever we give them? In the whole "give a man a fish - teach a man to fish" analogy, they don't seem to want to learn and they complain if you say you're cutting the fish supply off until they start trying.
Didn't mean to get off on a rant about all of this. Normally I try to keep the political viewpoints to a minimum as I'm sure you can turn on the news or pick up a paper and read someone more official than me blabber about what he or she thinks regarding this whole war thing. It's just been a bad day. I don't mean to generalize and say that all Iraqis are anti-fishermen. There are some good people here, but it has just been my experience (in the small microcosm that I work in) that with the exception of a few, the good ones are either not in charge, or they’ve fled to somewhere else.
Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need to go back to my hooch to do some packing since the Prime Minister doesn't want me here anymore.
By the way, here is the article if you feel like doing some extra credit reading. This is not testable material.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/07/14/iraq.military.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
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