So my unit is almost done wtih this mission to go all over the place and do the public relations things with the people. And there are somethings that I've noticed which are shaping my impression of Iraq and the current situation.
Give the kurds their own country in the region that they already have, and allow for talks for them to try to negotiate some of the disputed regions. We played three different places in kurdistan and in each of those places we rolled out with no gear on and had to give up our weapons when we got to the venue....but it was safe, we felt it was safe, and the people wanted it. The leaders of Kurdistan have their shit together and hopefully they will stop getting fucked with at some time.
I think it's far enough along to be able to talk about some of this, but when we played in Tikrit (the major city down the road from our base) some asshole tried to blow me and my fellow soldiers up. Thankfully he is a fucking idiot and didn't do things correctly, otherwise the boom would have been much more substantial. This time, no one got hurt and some people just got shaken up. After the gig the leader of the national police around here told us how they arrested the same guy a while ago for the same thing (e.g. setting of an IED). Then they let him go
. I'm not sure how that works but that seems like one of the things that you don't get released from prison for. On the bright side the Iraqi Army guys that were there went Rodney King on his ass 
.
Pretty soon we go back into Tikrit and this time we're going to a place that is especially anti-coalition. The previous time we were at an amusement park for little kids.
Yea that's pretty much it. My computer claim also got settled so I should be able to get a new Mac soon to replace the one that died an untimely death recently.
Give the kurds their own country in the region that they already have, and allow for talks for them to try to negotiate some of the disputed regions. We played three different places in kurdistan and in each of those places we rolled out with no gear on and had to give up our weapons when we got to the venue....but it was safe, we felt it was safe, and the people wanted it. The leaders of Kurdistan have their shit together and hopefully they will stop getting fucked with at some time.
I think it's far enough along to be able to talk about some of this, but when we played in Tikrit (the major city down the road from our base) some asshole tried to blow me and my fellow soldiers up. Thankfully he is a fucking idiot and didn't do things correctly, otherwise the boom would have been much more substantial. This time, no one got hurt and some people just got shaken up. After the gig the leader of the national police around here told us how they arrested the same guy a while ago for the same thing (e.g. setting of an IED). Then they let him go
. I'm not sure how that works but that seems like one of the things that you don't get released from prison for. On the bright side the Iraqi Army guys that were there went Rodney King on his ass .
Pretty soon we go back into Tikrit and this time we're going to a place that is especially anti-coalition. The previous time we were at an amusement park for little kids.
Yea that's pretty much it. My computer claim also got settled so I should be able to get a new Mac soon to replace the one that died an untimely death recently.