Quote:
Originally Posted by Rikao4
May you sleep in your own bed soon ,
you need anything ?
Rika
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Rika,
Thanks for the offer. Only one thing that we have trouble with in our unit is the mail. I haven't seen my mail in 7 weeks. Just our unit for some reason not a theater thing but it is irritating.
As for what I need? Just more time to stay engaged on this thread. FOG has hit on some great points and I am involved directly in infrastructure. So you guys are hitting some essential points at least from where I sit. Many of the thoughts and experiences expressed on this board I see as well. The "kinetic" phase of this war (That is the new term for head knocking) is actually for the most part over. This is not to say that engagements are going on, but the nature of those engagements are, at least in my opinion, related to the politics of Iraq and the region as they currently are at this time.
Many discussions center around the "phase four" part of the conflict. This is the part of the war that is for our exit. I have, and much to my dismay, come to the conclusion that this plan is nonexistent. That is not to say that we, the US and Iraq are not moving in the right direction, but the big push is to do the deliberate planning as we are executing the plan. The alignment of effort that is currently going on is moving in the right direction but it has been due in large part to the hard work of many folks, Iraqi and CF, to do the heavy lifting. The lack of that plan just means the recovery phase of the Iraqi economy will take longer than it should have, had we had a plan. This phase of the war is an engineer's war but it also is the rule of law (stability) and the economists as well.
I also believe after being here two months that the agriculture is very very essential in the immediate next phase for putting the country back on its feet. This is something that I did not expect or even imagine, but reality has a way of screaming at you and the obvious is sometimes as simple as listening and looking at things for what they are, not what we preconceive. The engineered facilities here are equal to that of the west. The many years of war and economic sanctions have taken a heavy heavy tole. It is sad as the systems at least in the water area are well thought out but so much in disrepair. The economic sanctions have inflicted such a heavy tole on Iraq's ability to sustain itself. I have personally seen these systems and met the operators and engineers and am very impressed. The Tigres and Euphrates river works, when you look at them in schematic are impressive. The one thing that really stuck out in my mind is that the are nearly identical in many ways to the State Water Project in California.
Well I have much to share and a large part is in response to DARSIC's earlier post so I will save them for that. These exchanges are stimulating but some of the reality I have experienced as compared to what in retrospect could have been have caused me some disappointment in what I would expect from our nation. But do not, I implore you, take my disappointment as condemnation of our nation, but rather as lessons learned for us all on listening to the Iraq experience and shaping our resolve and strategic planning in a manner that is complete. I still think we are NOW doing the right thing but as far as going to war, hell I think it was inevitable just based on the threat to the world and Iraq's location of the center of gravity as it comes to the GWOT. But we need to be more realistic about the conflict the world faces at this time, and there is a threat and there are operations going on by our enemies who know full well they are at war with us. The shift in our thought is to get rid of the cold war mentality and plan for the war as it is and not as we think it is. This is happening but as usual the timing has been behind.
Anyway let me read on and enjoy all of your thoughts.
SEABEES can do
Dan