It is all so sad. Our American government always has good intentions that get lost in the mud of war. I spent close to 3 years in Laos and Nam in the 1970s during the war years. I witnessed the same events as we have experienced in Iraq. Some things never change and we never learn from out own history. 50,000 American lives lost in Nam. Now we are trading partners and it's all hug and kisses. In Iraq, we attempted the same deal of forcing democracy into a country that was not ready. Democracy comes from withing not from external sources. So we have lost over 5000 fine young men in Iraq whose voices we can listen to and feel the horrors. But we go back to our TVs as usual and let the government continue its' misguided policies of saving the world at great cost to we Americans. It only becomes a reality when someone in the family is blown to pieces by some terrorist in a foreign land. Keep our boys home to protect our land. Keep our boys home to protect our families. There is very little we can do when fighting in the terrorist own backyards. Too many to deal with and ultimately our Military will take the brunt of our governments misguided policies on how to wage a current day war against terrorists. Israel seems to be the only country to get it right. Eye for an Eye!!!
Things Fall Apart
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[ ... ] We were raiding a place reputed to be where one of the Shia militias stores rockets, IEDs, and small-arms weapons. We were the Shia's saviors when we arrived in 2003. Back then, only disgruntled Sunnis who were loyal to Saddam attacked us. Now it's kind of the other way around.
Shia militias kill Sunnis. Sunni militias kill Shia. Foreign terrorists kill them both to incite more Shia/Sunni violence, hoping for a civil war. All of them target U.S. forces, but the Shia and Sunni aren't bold enough yet to admit they do it. [ ... ] It's annoyingly complicated [...]
So what does all this have to do with you? Well, in my sleep-deprived frame of mind the other night, not knowing if we were about to get into a fight, I thought it was going to be very important for your mom and me to help you through the moral and ethical ambiguities in the world. Everything seems to be more complicated as time goes by. It's probably hard for some people to not just throw up their hands and go with whatever "everyone" else thinks on a complicated moral question. It's our job to arm you to know the right thing to [do], in all situations [ ... ]
But how do you live those things in a place like this? Being gentle gets you killed here. [ ... ]
Army Maj. Michael Mundell
Sept. 1, Fallujah
The question has been asked, by many of you, what [this place] is like. Try to imagine this: If you go out in your front yard, take a weapon with you and stare REAL careful at all the neighbors' houses. One of them may be on the roof, trying to snipe you. Also, don't stay out too long—someone down the road just might lob a few mortars at you, or drive by and fire some machine guns, or perhaps shoot an RPG rocket. So, if you are outside, be armed and know where the closest cover is—all the time. If you get in your car to go to the grocery, you can never ever go by yourself—you gotta have at least two cars and at least three people in each one. And make sure that at least one of your passengers is a medic. [ ... ]
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