Terrorist Release+Federal Deficiencies=Poor Mental Health

I know this is supposed to be something of a masterpiece, my 100th blog post. But I simply don't have the time or effort available, let alone the energy to try and make one that way. So I'll do as I always have done with every other post, and write from the heart.

The military, in all it's glory, continues to disappoint me from the top-down. It's amazing to think how vulnerable a position we are thrust upon, and then how even more vulnerable we make ourselves through stupid mistakes. That's not even the worst of it though. The worst is the mass punishment, and lack of responsibility that those above myself, and others take. How quick someone will give you a lecture on how effed up you are, and the second they screw up it's no big deal.

Last night was yet another unnerving night for me in Baghdad. We had another terrorists release party, where we let go another 50 terrorists back into the wild. This all under the orders of our illustrious Prime Minister, Maliki. I learned some interesting things last night, though, anymore, the shock value is lost on me. It's all an opinion, and as another posed the question I had been thinking, it was made more evidently clear that we are certainly no longer handling this like a war. It was something along the lines of... 'what if, during World War II, before we reached Berlin, before Hitler killed himself, before VE day; what if they pronounced the war over. Told the men fighting in the Ardennes to stay put, to not do anymore, that it was all over. They had won the war, and in fact that the Prisoners of War they had just captured days before in fighting, could be released.' That is this war. So far from over, and yet proclaimed done.

Why do we release prisoners of war while we still fight one? That's a very good question. But it comes down to the shift in power. The war is not ran by Americans anymore, it's all Iraqi. It's all Iraqi. It's all Iraqi. They've drilled it into our heads, and it really shows. We go out of our way, actually put ourselves in harms way so that the National Police could have victories. They continue to do hardly nothing, but we put on such a good show, such a secretive process that in the end it appears that the National Police have done it all. That the transition is complete. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's perhaps why we stop outside of the gate, before the media can see, and cut the handcuffs, take the blindfolds off of the prisoners to be released. All for that show. Back to the very good question at the top of this paragraph, politics. Not even really our politics, although maybe.

Our terp Bob informed us of the thoughts and ideas behind it all. The reasons why the Iraqi government has negotiated the terms of more control, and that they are perhaps the best politician, liars and thieves in the world in doing so. He says that all these Jaysh Al Mahdi soldiers that we are releasing, these American killers, are being released by Maliki for the best reason of all, re-election. There are so many Muqtad al-Sodr supporters in Iraq, that a good PR move for anyone seeking election or reelection could release those who are in his militia. The ones who've been trying to kill us, who we locked away, and now are back on the streets free. The dangers are obvious to us in allowing the release of war criminals, as they will be let back into the pond of anarchy with better contacts with more terrorist knowledge. They now are more diversified in the ways of being a criminal due to spending the hard time around the leaders of JAM. The small fish have gotten bigger.

We continue to put on the show, that we are not in Baghdad, that we are out of the major cities, that we no longer patrol. All great media hype, bull-shit that helps to make the American public think that Iraq has come such a long ways. They still throw their trash on the streets, and wipe their asses with their hands. I don't think we are in it for the glory, but we all feel that our efforts aren't even recognized by those above us. That we still put our lives on the line everyday, and like we're supposed to, get no credit for it. We are not only forgotten by those in America who don't know there is a war going on, or by the media, but by those above us in our chain of commands who have allowed such atrocities to happen to us.

Those above me have seemed to earn their right though. And perhaps that's the way it is, but it shouldn't be. It's hypocrisy at it's finest. When those above me screw up, they feel a little bit of the backlash of it, but it's more of a slap on the wrist. Those who are really in the line of persecution are the ones underneath that individual making mistakes. They are very fire and brimstone when you make the smallest of mistakes, but when they make the biggest of them, they act like it's nothing. And perhaps it is nothing, but the hypocrisy is sickening to the point that all respect is lost. What little respect there was left anyways, as this wouldn't be a first time offense. I don't think the mail room clerks at Enron were indited, instead of the CEO's at the top. If they were in the Army, they certainly would have been.


Moral is at an all time low