messiestobjects

The Title Of This Post Is [That Song Bill Murray Woke Up To Every Morning In Groundhog Day]

Well, remember how I said it was going to be nice to finally know whether or not I'll be staying or going from here by the end of this month? And that one post where I said it was funny how I always seemed to be saying that I'll be leaving Iraq any time now, but somehow it never seems to happen? Well guess what? It happened again. sigh. We got an extension until July 27th on our eviction notice, due to some legal questions about GBG property... a technicality. So I'm here for at least one more month. How many times have I said that now? Anyway, it's actually a good thing because it gives us more time to try and work with the Iraqi Government to secure this property for long term use, so all this means is that we actually have a better chance of staying much more long-term now. Or I could be on a plane to Thailand on July 28th. Is it Groundhog Day? Actually I'm psyched, because it means I'm that much closer to being able to say "I lived in Baghdad for 3 years." No, don't try to understand, no one can but me.
Ok, just because I just came across it, and it's about as horrible as anything else I've come across relating to US Military behaviour in Iraq, I'm going to link you to a video about some illegal warfare tactics our fine military used while attacking Fallujah. My favorite parts are when the US soldier kills an unarmed injured civilian, and the whole thing where we bombed the city with White Phosphorous... an illegal chemical weapon which we had once upon a time signed international treaties not to ever use, and which, by the way, our government vehemently denied using. But watch the video for yourself, and then tell me that we're still the good guys.

Capturing Space Cadet Footage

I just figured how how to capture a JPEG image off of a video, and I'm all psyched 'cause I went back and made some pictures off of my MIG-25 flight Space Adventure video! Here's one of me tossing my camera about at the apex of my flight in near zero-G!

                 And here's one where I'm all space cadet!

And I had fun going through the whole video, so I've posted a couple of other interesting ones here at my Zhukovsky Air Force Base, Russia smugmug gallery, including a badass-lookin' new Jet they were testing on the airfield that day. Sweet!

You Should Never Blog When You've Had A Glass Of Guilt To Drink

I ordered the book they printed from Riverbend's Iraq blog, 'Baghdad Burning' last week. I just finished reading it in less than a day, and in addition to making me feel angrier than I've ever been, (which I seem to feel a lot lately) it also made me go back and read a lot of the emails I was writing to friends and family from when I first arrived in Baghdad. Riverbend began writing her blog online on August 17th 2003, just 3 days after I arrived here. While she was busy pouring her heart out and crying about all of the atrocities going on around her, I was writing glib notes about how much fun I was having. I never have thought of myself as naϊve, but going back and seeing what I was thinking about and what she was thinking about during that same time period made me seriously consider the adjective. It's not that I ever approved of what was going on here; behind alot of my snarky comments was a real cynic of Bush and his illegal war... but I now think that being a snarky cynic is the most shameful thing I've ever been. I can't possibly re-create the emotions which Riverbend was able to get across with her very real, very immediate expeiences as an Iraqi writing about the occupation firsthand, but it made me see myself as she probably would have seen me had I been sending those emails to her, and it made me wonder why my Iraqi friends here hadn't strangled me a long time ago. I don't believe I was ever intending anything other than sympathy and support for this country, but it was all an adventure to me... hell, it still is. That's one of my main reasons for coming in the first place, and I won't make a self-deprecating comment here about the money, because I'm trying to give up the snark. But it's fact; I really made the decision to come primarily for the sake of adventure and something new... it's true that the money is mostly why I'm still here 3 years later, mercenary that my grandmother says I am, but it wasn't the whole of my original intent. But having a grand old time, even while trying to do good by the Iraqis I know, and hating Bush and the evil that governments do, is a slap in the face to someone who had to cower with her family in her house for days while we 'Shocked and Awed' the crap out of her city, or who watched American soldiers raid a neighbor's house and throw the 16 year old girl into Abu Ghraib, all because the CIA was tipped off by a vindictive neighbor who had had some sort of domestic dispute with them the year before. And that's the light stuff. Her book has really affected me, and there is alot of really scary crap that's been going on the whole time, some things I was aware of, but much I wasn't. When you put it all together in the same spot, I begin to see my place here a little more clearly, and I have more reasons to stay up late wracked with the guilt of my nation. It doesn't change anything: I still have reasons for staying, beyond even money. Someday, when I'm gone from here for good, perhaps I'll even be able to explain it.
Speaking of which, we are getting close to the end of the month, and I still don't know whether it will find me starting over here, ready to go back to work, or on a plane to Thailand. I should find something out...well, before the end of the month. I've said it before, but either way brings it's own brand of relief and dread... so toss the die, cross your fingers, pray to God... but que sera, sera.

Happy Antichristmas!

(P.S. - Go see the best sign yet of Satan's presence among us!)

Here's a picture comparison in honor of the day we all know and love as Antichristmas, which only comes along once in a hundred years. Is George Bush the one we've all been waiting for? Are we living in the lucky century? Here's a site with proof of his presence among us! Don't be a mensch with Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia! Embrace your inner Baphomet and give George a hug! Don't forget to hang your black stockings over your oiltank, as Santa Bushie will be driving his SUV by with tax refund checks for everyone! Hail Satan.

I Rant and I Rant, But I Know It's Not Helping Anything

So something you don't see in the news a whole lot about Iraq is the new fundamentalist trend. There is some really scary crap going on out in the streets of Baghdad, and I think the Bush Reich is trying to keep it on the down-low. There are roving gangs of fundamentalist Muslim bullies passing out fliers to Iraqis which state that any women wearing pants or men wearing shorts will be killed. All women must wear Haijab (those headcover things, so women's shameful hair remains covered). Men have to keep their shirts buttoned all the way to the top and must either shave their face completely or wear one of those Muslim-type beards, no mustaches or goatees or whatever. In other words, they are trying to impose strict muslim law, similar to what they have in Iran, upon a populace which has many secular muslims who don't believe in that strict an interpretation of muslim law, not to mention many smaller non-muslim populations such as the Christians, Jews, or Yezidis. I think it made the news last week about a team of Iraqi tennis players who were killed for wearing shorts, but one in particular that I know of has been kept silent. I only know about it because it happened in the neighborhood of one of my Iraqi friends; a 5 year old boy was gunned down in his front yard because he had on shorts and a tank top. This is so horrendous in so many ways that I think I'd be willing to murder the people that did it if I had the chance. There are many cases of women wearing pants being kidnapped off of the streets and being raped and killed. This doesn't lessen my desire to break one of the ten commandments at all. The hypocrisy involved in killing a 5 year old boy for something he can't possibly understand, or raping and killing a woman because she is so shameless a whore as to wear pants and let the world see her hair is... astounding, apalling, unbelievable, confounding, heart-rending, insane, incomprehensible, moronic, RETARDED! And I can't come up with enough other adjectives to make it clear how awful that is.
According to my friends, the people commiting these atrocities are largely not even Iraqi: They are Iranian fundamentalist nutjobs taking advantage of the situation here. The situation being that the Iraqi government now in place has neither the resources nor, to all appearances, the drive to take back the streets. And where, ultimately, does the blame for this all lie? George effin' Bush and his warmongering cronies, that's what. Man, I really hate those people. Here is a quote from an artcle I pulled off of Yahoo news from Stephen Elliott's blog:

"I got a note from a friend today. An American who works in Baghdad and does not want his identity revealed. He says women are being kidnapped and killed for the clothes they wear. He says women are being hunted. The country is in chaos. People are mourning the loss of Saddam Hussein, convinced things were better before.

It's an awful thing to think, that things might have been better under a murderous dictator. But it seems to be accepted wisdom among the diplomats. And even if it isn't true, still, if it is close enough that a sizable percentage could think it, then we have failed miserably.

We have failed miserably in Iraq. We have tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib, murdered civilians in Haditha. We turned our backs on the Geneva Accords and American values, promising to build democracy in the Middle East, and received only a failed state in return."

I stand behind what he's said here %100, based on what I've seen happen here in the last 3 years, from the American side of things and through my Iraqi friend's eyes. I am ashamed to be an American. Not because I hate my country, which I don't. I am ashamed of my government, and what it has accomplished toward making the world a lesser place to live in.
I apologize if I seem to be soapboxing an awful lot in my last several posts, but the situation is deteriorating so fast over here it breaks my heart. There are so many things that America and Americans have done here in Iraq that, when the patriot blinders are lifted, can be called evil, it makes me crazy. PSD mercenaries and marines killing innocent Iraqi civilians who happen to be standing there is nothing new, I'm afraid. It's been going on all along, but only now, with Bush's approval rating at %29, are people daring to put it in the news. These cowboy-types over here tend to lump all Arabs together in the terrorist category, regardless of the option God gave them at birth to use their brains to make rational distinctions, and their regard for life can at times equal a Nazi's regard for life in a concentration camp. Sure, that's an extreme thing to say, and when out in a danger zone you have to make quick decisions... I can't speak to that, anyway. I've never been in that situation. But I've seen how good Iraqi people are treated by cowboys in a safe place like the IZ, and more times than not it leaves the Iraqis with an impression of Americans as cruel masters, which they understandably resent.
I wish I had a constructive solution to offer along with all of my bilious criticism, but I don't. Just saying it's time for America to leave Iraq is not enough; we'd just be leaving them to the awful fate which we put in place for them. But staying only means a continuation of what we've been doing here all along: Nothing save serving our own interests and making their home worse for it.