This article really lays out all of the problems we’re facing in this war that don’t have to do with the inability of the Iraqi government to get their shit together.
Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq
The Americans he commands, like the other men at Sullivan – a combat outpost in Zafraniya, south east Baghdad – hit their cots when they get in from operations. But even when they wake up there is something tired and groggy about them. They are on duty for five days at a time and off for two days. When they get back to the forward operating base, they do their laundry and sleep and count the days until they will get home. It is an exhaustion that accumulates over the patrols and the rotations, over the multiple deployments, until it all joins up, wiping out any memory of leave or time at home. Until life is nothing but Iraq.
Hanna and his men are not alone in being tired most of the time. A whole army is exhausted and worn out. You see the young soldiers washed up like driftwood at Baghdad’s international airport, waiting to go on leave or returning to their units, sleeping on their body armour on floors and in the dust.
Where once the war in Iraq was defined in conversations with these men by untenable ideas – bringing democracy or defeating al-Qaeda – these days the war in Iraq is defined by different ways of expressing the idea of being weary. It is a theme that is endlessly reiterated as you travel around Iraq. ‘The army is worn out. We are just keeping people in theatre who are exhausted,’ says a soldier working for the US army public affairs office who is supposed to be telling me how well things have been going since the ‘surge’ in Baghdad began.
Mr. Fusion, being a real conservative like Ron Paul, I have been against this war from the start. I simply thought it was a waste of money and later a loss of life. I have always wanted to know what the real reason was for why we went into this war.
I have gone back to listening to Rush Limbaugh who is more pro-war than ever. His reasons have been so stupid and so varied that I know he is not telling the truth. Finally, he let it slip that Bush and company briefed him on the immigration bill that he was dead set against. The point is that he has been briefed on the real reason for the war and is therefore carrying the Bush company line.
We know now that Bush et. al wanted to go to war with Iraq way before 9-11. 9-11 just gave them the excuse to do so. For Bush, Iraq was a way to avenvge what his father did not do, get rid of Saddam. For neocons, it was a way of securing oil fields as a means of protecting and extending American’s greatness from China. For many Christians and Jews, it was an excuse to kill muslims. However, with most Amreicans, it was sold on fear. Saddam Hussein was coming to get you just like Bin Laden did.
Limbaugh is still spouting off about how we are fightiing al Queda in Iraq when he damned sure knows it is not true as your polling data shows. Al Queda is a Sunni orginaztion and is therefore hated by the Shia and Kurds, which more than a make up a majority of Iraquis.
In 1971, Kissinger told Nixon that Vietman was lost, but also that if he admitted defeat, he would lose his re-election campaign. Kissinger was right on both counts. And so thousands of Americans died so Tricky Dick could win in 1972,
One thing Bush Senior did was invade Somalia and leave Clinton a mess to fix there. That is what W is doing in Iraq. There is no way he is leaving. Whoever takes over in 2009, probably a Dem., is going to be left to fix the mess in Iraq. And so just like with in Vietnam, thousands of Americans are going to die for politcal reasons.
As an American what has happened in Iraq is an insult to the American can do spirit and individualism. Instead of smartly walking away from fighting these Arab lunatics and figuring out a way to get off their oil, our politicans have gotten into their faces and told them off. They want us out of the Arab world, and we are telling them to go f–k themselves and have been building bases. Getting angry at someone who is insane should make you question your own sanity.
When Brazil was faced with its own energy crisis, it figured out ways to drill offshore for its own oil. It fit its cars with engines that can run on natural gas, ethanol, or gasoline. And later this year, Brazil, which always used to import oil, has now started exporting oil. The American can do spirit is alive and well. It has just migrated to Brazil.
#30. Facts?!? Feh! You can use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true.
(Homer S.)
BTW, anyone seen the video of 1994 Dick Cheney talking about what a quagmire ousting Saddam would produce?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I
funny to think about him once being right about something, isn’t it?
#32, doug,
Ya, but that was before he discovered the true joys of pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger. It makes him feel like a hard man. It makes him real hard. Like a man. Ya, that’s it. Like a hard man.
That clip is always worth watching.
WOW you mean the soldiers fighting an ILLEGAL war in Iraq have a five day work week just like me?
Thats harsh. I know I’m tired at the end of the day, sometimes I fall asleep with my clothes on. I have to do my laundry on weekends too, such drudgery.
I remember when I joined the workforce I was all idealistic. I thought I was going to do something special; make a difference. Now I’m just happy if I can get 7 hours of sleep before groundhog day.
I bet those unlucky bastids feel a little bit foolish for signing that enlistment form just about now. I mean they have a shitty life like mine, plus people who hate them for the foreign invaders they are try to kill them with alarming frequency.
Now don’t get me wrong I think we need to do something for our soldiers. Perhaps bring them all home. But I guess that would let “al-Qaeda” get control of our… ahem Iraq’s strategic oil reserves.
Comment by nightstar — 8/13/2007 @ 3:09 pm
No nightstar, not at all like you, they do not go home to a family and sit and watch television while their clothes sit in a washing machine and then go into a dryer….the do not come home after an 8 to possibly 12 hour day and their weekends are not spent sleeping in or doing whatever they choose. A 5 day week can be a rare treat for most of them, but that is not to say that the 2 days the “enjoy” off is a fun filled event. Most FOBs do have some sort of MWR with activities for them, but that is the least that they deserve.
They are on call 24/7 and if something happens, as it often does, they could be back out of the gate in a few minutes or hours, whatever the case may be.
I do not know if you are married or have children, but if so, does your wife worry everyday that you vehicle will hit an IED? Do you and your family worry that a sniper is hidden in the trees or a building just waiting for his next target? Do you wonder everyday if the next man, woman or child that walks by you is rigged with explosives? Do you spend alot of time not seeing your kids grow? Do you watch your family change only in photographs and try to get in as many I love yous before the operator says, you have 30 seconds left? Just how many nightmares have you had because you had to recover a buddy who melted into his vehicle after hitting an IED?
I am tired of the line, they should have thought about that before signing the dotted line. Be thankful that someone did sign that line so you and others are not handed papers ordering you to do so against your will.
I am a military wife, my husband has been in the army for 20 years, he was suppose to retire this September but was stop lossed and had to go back to Iraq for his 3rd tour there since 2003. I doubt that when you are ready to retire that you will be told, no, that is not possible at this time. I knew what it could mean to marry a military man, but that was something I was and am willing to do just to have such an good man in my life. He works 7 days a week, not 5, he can’t call in sick if he is ill. I have never seen him go to sick call once in all of the years I have known him and he is up and gone at whatever time the army sees fit. There is no such thing as an 8 hour day and he is always on alert, whether in Iraq or stateside.
I am sure you work hard at whatever you do, and you should take pride in that. But please, do not compare your day or week to the life of a soldier at war, no matter how you or anyone else feels about that war. He or she did not start it, they are simply following orders and honoring the oath they took. But they do so away from all of the things they love and find comfort in.
You say, “don’t get me wrong, I think we need to do something for our soldier”….then how about we start with respect? My husband is not a bastard, he is a respectable hard working man that, yes, signed that dotted line and I for one am grateful to him for that, because if it were not for the volunteers, others would indeed be forced into this life and the draft is something I never want to see be brought back.
Blast me if you must, but I live this life and know what they do, what they see, what they deal with and what long hours they work and if I feel a need to defend them, I will do so.