In area and in population, Iraq is about the same as California.
California is huge.
I have driven the breadth and most of the length, although I never went to the southern border, or San Diego. The farthest south I got was Laguna Beach. I know it takes 6 hours from the Pacific Ocean to Nevada and at least 12 hours from Oregon to Mexico. I have never been to the northeast corner of one of the biggest counties in California but I know it's Modoc County, full of juniper trees 30 feet tall, sage brush, high cold lakes full of swans and trout, abundant in coyotes, wild high desert. I have never been to the coast between Big Sur and Los Angeles, and that's about 4 hours worth of driving. I have never been to the Imperial Valley, or the backside of the Sierras except for one quick trip at night to Reno.
Huge.
Occupation.
Iraq is a big place.
We have about 150,000 troops there.
150,000 troops to maintain order in a city as big or bigger than Los Angeles and its outlying areas.
Donald Rumsfeld who needs a wooden stake through his heart in the worst way just said all the soldiers in Iraq should expect to double their tour of duty, and that no more troops need to be deployed for replacement.
Hanging out there like threadbare sheets in the hurricane.
Huge.
Occupation.
Double tour of duty.
Iraq is a very very big place.
And I bet the Iraqi equivalent of places like Oakland, or Fresno, or even Redding for that matter, are smoldering with hatred of the Occupiers, and have the fuel to smolder for a lot longer than a double tour of duty by some unhappy American soldier whose morale has sunk deeper than the darkest channel of the fastest water in the Euphrates River.
America has never held such contempt for her soldiers, not even during the mire of Vietnam, and I know lots of veterans of that war including my disillusioned father and his biker friends. America has never held such disregard for her troops, for her militia, for those poor boys from poor places sent to fight rich (ich?) mens' wars in the name of Mammon aka the "A"merican dream aka "God" to those who should pray they never see His second coming. For He would knock over their money-lending tables and say, "You did this in my name, and I never knew you."
America has never held such contempt for her soldiers, but now the soldiers find their veteran's benefits cut, their veteran's hospitals backlogged at least six months because there's "no money," their veteran's retirement plans "limited" because those who are in charge of the nation were never soldiers. America has never had such flagrant disregard for her soldiers, but then it has never before intended to be an empire, and empires demand penance paid by every soldier. Rome's soldiers served 20 years.
Double tour of duty.
Occupation.
We are an empire. This does not comfort me.
Robinson Jeffers 1887-1962
Shine, perishing republic
While this America settles in the mold of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out and the mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother: and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence, and home to the mother.
You making haste haste on decay, not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches the noblest spirits, that caught --they say-- God, when He walked on earth.
1925
California is huge.
I have driven the breadth and most of the length, although I never went to the southern border, or San Diego. The farthest south I got was Laguna Beach. I know it takes 6 hours from the Pacific Ocean to Nevada and at least 12 hours from Oregon to Mexico. I have never been to the northeast corner of one of the biggest counties in California but I know it's Modoc County, full of juniper trees 30 feet tall, sage brush, high cold lakes full of swans and trout, abundant in coyotes, wild high desert. I have never been to the coast between Big Sur and Los Angeles, and that's about 4 hours worth of driving. I have never been to the Imperial Valley, or the backside of the Sierras except for one quick trip at night to Reno.
Huge.
Occupation.
Iraq is a big place.
We have about 150,000 troops there.
150,000 troops to maintain order in a city as big or bigger than Los Angeles and its outlying areas.
Donald Rumsfeld who needs a wooden stake through his heart in the worst way just said all the soldiers in Iraq should expect to double their tour of duty, and that no more troops need to be deployed for replacement.
Hanging out there like threadbare sheets in the hurricane.
Huge.
Occupation.
Double tour of duty.
Iraq is a very very big place.
And I bet the Iraqi equivalent of places like Oakland, or Fresno, or even Redding for that matter, are smoldering with hatred of the Occupiers, and have the fuel to smolder for a lot longer than a double tour of duty by some unhappy American soldier whose morale has sunk deeper than the darkest channel of the fastest water in the Euphrates River.
America has never held such contempt for her soldiers, not even during the mire of Vietnam, and I know lots of veterans of that war including my disillusioned father and his biker friends. America has never held such disregard for her troops, for her militia, for those poor boys from poor places sent to fight rich (ich?) mens' wars in the name of Mammon aka the "A"merican dream aka "God" to those who should pray they never see His second coming. For He would knock over their money-lending tables and say, "You did this in my name, and I never knew you."
America has never held such contempt for her soldiers, but now the soldiers find their veteran's benefits cut, their veteran's hospitals backlogged at least six months because there's "no money," their veteran's retirement plans "limited" because those who are in charge of the nation were never soldiers. America has never had such flagrant disregard for her soldiers, but then it has never before intended to be an empire, and empires demand penance paid by every soldier. Rome's soldiers served 20 years.
Double tour of duty.
Occupation.
We are an empire. This does not comfort me.
Robinson Jeffers 1887-1962
Shine, perishing republic
While this America settles in the mold of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out and the mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother: and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence, and home to the mother.
You making haste haste on decay, not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches the noblest spirits, that caught --they say-- God, when He walked on earth.
1925
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