Just a short note to all.
Well things are still a little tense here but that is expected for the time being. I am amazed at how quickly the media dropped the story of the Khobar terrorist attack. Big news for one day! For weeks we saw pictures of the naked terrorists and how outraged the liberal media was at the ?humiliating treatment? of the terrorist at Abu Garaib prison in Iraq. Here we had the terrorist shoot a man and drag him behind the car for over a mile, again, yet no pictures of that. Picture this, 8 women hostages in the Oasis apartment complex each having their throat cut, one at a time. Can you imagine the shear terror those innocent women went through in that room waiting for their turn with the knife and praying for salvation, praying for it to stop? Not a word about that either in the papers. I am sort of outraged about this, not to mention the Swede and Jap having their heads cut off, 22 people killed and 50+ wounded in this incident and the media and US congressmen are more intent on getting in front of a camera to prosecute our own leaders and Armed forces than trying work together to win this war.
The Spanish gave the terrorist a win they badly needed and with the liberal media in the states they may yet get another big win. This is pathetic. So the next time you see someone who is outraged at the treatment of the Terrorist ask them to think of those people in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Ask them to think about the treatment Americans are subjected to when they are captured by the terrorist. Ask them to imagine what the Terrorist will do if they got a nuclear, chemical or biological bomb. War is ugly, to win a war is also ugly.
PS
It was reported that the Oasis was an oil workers living complex, wrong again. The majority of the people living there had nothing to do with producing oil. And if they killed a thousand expatriates here tomorrow the oil would not slow down one drop! This is shameful that the media is creating this hysteria and distorting the news for selfish gains, how come we do not have a congressional commission to investigate the ?yellow journalism? and expose them for what they are. So we have no intention of coming home soon if that action would give the terrorist even the slightest hope/appearance that they are wining this thing. Crazy maybe, but proud Americans for sure.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Letter from John ...
Things are going OK. Its a pretty dangerous place out here. Every day we probably experience anywhere from 5-15 attacks against our forces. The terrorists/jihadists/anti coalition forces/Mujahedeen/former Baath party loyalists/Iranians/Syrians/suicide bombers and every other Martyr out here comes at us. The difficulty is that our Rules of Engagement force us to use discriminant force. That's a good thing so we don't kill innocentr women and children, but it gives the initiative and advantage to the enemy. He doesn't care about killing innocnet Iraqis. They leave it up to God ("En Shalla"--God willing). So is a suicide bomber blows up a busload of kids, God willed it, so its OK in their book.
The enemy uses Improvised Explosive Devises like they are going out of style. When the regime fell, the Iraqis looted all the old Iraqi Army posts and ammunition bunkers. So there are tons of weapons out there and tons of artillery rounds. They use 155 howitzer rounds that they wire up with an explosive charge. Then they bury them along the side of road and detonate them when we drive or walk by. They trigger them with remote control devices, toy car control boxes, remote control garage door openers, cell phones, car batteries...you name it. They are pretty crafty. They hide the bombs in trash bags, in piles of rocks, starpped to bridges, strapped to road side rails, stuffed in dead animal carcasses. Its unreal. We find them everywhere. They bury mines too. I attached a photo of one of our vehicles that got blown up. The bombs can be very powerful as you can see. We had a memorial service yesterday. Unfortunately our Regiment has had 24 killed and almost 200 wounded. Sad that young men die and leave young brides as widows.
Well what good news is there? I'm not sure. Everything is hard in Iraq. The Iraqis are a broken people. After 30 years of dictatorship, they have no initiative and the entire society is built on graft, chronyism, and theft. In the old regime, initiative got you killed, so their nature is to align themselves with the strongest group. There are some brave Iraqis, but many of them become targeted as collaborators and are sought out for assasination. We have lost many good police chiefs to the anti coalition forces. The actively target our translators and try and intimidate and threaten those who work with us. They post handbills with names of Iraqis who are marked for death. They have done some heinous things to some Iraqis that I won't go into.
We are very busy every day. We are trying to rebuild their infrastructure, electrical grid, hydroelectric plant, schools, cement plants etc... The enemy blows things up just to discredit us. We try to tell them that if they want us to leave, just stop fighting us. The sooner things stabilize, the sooner we can leave. The more they fight, the longer we will have to stay. That logic doesn't get us too far with the extremists. Anyone willing to blow themselves up, obviously does not think on the same plane of rational thought as we do. Most westerners think that everyone is driven by rational thought, but that is not the case over here.
All that aside, the morale of the Marines remains high. They get angry about the casualties and want retribution. Its a tough situation. On July 1st, we are supposed to transfer authority to the Iraqis. They will be able to call the shots. Many fear that when we pull out there will be civil war. Different groups are making plans for when we leave. Some say that when we pull out, many will be assasinated. The police force, Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, Border police are all infiltrated. We never know if the people we are working with are plotting to try and kill us. Even the Sheiks an Imams preach Jihad in the mosques. When we talk to them and tell them to knock it off, they say if they don't do it, the extremists will kill them. Its all very decieving. You can't trust anyone, and neither can they.
Well I'm going to hit the rack. Hope everyone is doing well
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well things are still a little tense here but that is expected for the time being. I am amazed at how quickly the media dropped the story of the Khobar terrorist attack. Big news for one day! For weeks we saw pictures of the naked terrorists and how outraged the liberal media was at the ?humiliating treatment? of the terrorist at Abu Garaib prison in Iraq. Here we had the terrorist shoot a man and drag him behind the car for over a mile, again, yet no pictures of that. Picture this, 8 women hostages in the Oasis apartment complex each having their throat cut, one at a time. Can you imagine the shear terror those innocent women went through in that room waiting for their turn with the knife and praying for salvation, praying for it to stop? Not a word about that either in the papers. I am sort of outraged about this, not to mention the Swede and Jap having their heads cut off, 22 people killed and 50+ wounded in this incident and the media and US congressmen are more intent on getting in front of a camera to prosecute our own leaders and Armed forces than trying work together to win this war.
The Spanish gave the terrorist a win they badly needed and with the liberal media in the states they may yet get another big win. This is pathetic. So the next time you see someone who is outraged at the treatment of the Terrorist ask them to think of those people in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Ask them to think about the treatment Americans are subjected to when they are captured by the terrorist. Ask them to imagine what the Terrorist will do if they got a nuclear, chemical or biological bomb. War is ugly, to win a war is also ugly.
PS
It was reported that the Oasis was an oil workers living complex, wrong again. The majority of the people living there had nothing to do with producing oil. And if they killed a thousand expatriates here tomorrow the oil would not slow down one drop! This is shameful that the media is creating this hysteria and distorting the news for selfish gains, how come we do not have a congressional commission to investigate the ?yellow journalism? and expose them for what they are. So we have no intention of coming home soon if that action would give the terrorist even the slightest hope/appearance that they are wining this thing. Crazy maybe, but proud Americans for sure.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Letter from John ...
Things are going OK. Its a pretty dangerous place out here. Every day we probably experience anywhere from 5-15 attacks against our forces. The terrorists/jihadists/anti coalition forces/Mujahedeen/former Baath party loyalists/Iranians/Syrians/suicide bombers and every other Martyr out here comes at us. The difficulty is that our Rules of Engagement force us to use discriminant force. That's a good thing so we don't kill innocentr women and children, but it gives the initiative and advantage to the enemy. He doesn't care about killing innocnet Iraqis. They leave it up to God ("En Shalla"--God willing). So is a suicide bomber blows up a busload of kids, God willed it, so its OK in their book.
The enemy uses Improvised Explosive Devises like they are going out of style. When the regime fell, the Iraqis looted all the old Iraqi Army posts and ammunition bunkers. So there are tons of weapons out there and tons of artillery rounds. They use 155 howitzer rounds that they wire up with an explosive charge. Then they bury them along the side of road and detonate them when we drive or walk by. They trigger them with remote control devices, toy car control boxes, remote control garage door openers, cell phones, car batteries...you name it. They are pretty crafty. They hide the bombs in trash bags, in piles of rocks, starpped to bridges, strapped to road side rails, stuffed in dead animal carcasses. Its unreal. We find them everywhere. They bury mines too. I attached a photo of one of our vehicles that got blown up. The bombs can be very powerful as you can see. We had a memorial service yesterday. Unfortunately our Regiment has had 24 killed and almost 200 wounded. Sad that young men die and leave young brides as widows.
Well what good news is there? I'm not sure. Everything is hard in Iraq. The Iraqis are a broken people. After 30 years of dictatorship, they have no initiative and the entire society is built on graft, chronyism, and theft. In the old regime, initiative got you killed, so their nature is to align themselves with the strongest group. There are some brave Iraqis, but many of them become targeted as collaborators and are sought out for assasination. We have lost many good police chiefs to the anti coalition forces. The actively target our translators and try and intimidate and threaten those who work with us. They post handbills with names of Iraqis who are marked for death. They have done some heinous things to some Iraqis that I won't go into.
We are very busy every day. We are trying to rebuild their infrastructure, electrical grid, hydroelectric plant, schools, cement plants etc... The enemy blows things up just to discredit us. We try to tell them that if they want us to leave, just stop fighting us. The sooner things stabilize, the sooner we can leave. The more they fight, the longer we will have to stay. That logic doesn't get us too far with the extremists. Anyone willing to blow themselves up, obviously does not think on the same plane of rational thought as we do. Most westerners think that everyone is driven by rational thought, but that is not the case over here.
All that aside, the morale of the Marines remains high. They get angry about the casualties and want retribution. Its a tough situation. On July 1st, we are supposed to transfer authority to the Iraqis. They will be able to call the shots. Many fear that when we pull out there will be civil war. Different groups are making plans for when we leave. Some say that when we pull out, many will be assasinated. The police force, Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, Border police are all infiltrated. We never know if the people we are working with are plotting to try and kill us. Even the Sheiks an Imams preach Jihad in the mosques. When we talk to them and tell them to knock it off, they say if they don't do it, the extremists will kill them. Its all very decieving. You can't trust anyone, and neither can they.
Well I'm going to hit the rack. Hope everyone is doing well
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
