Letter from Iraq

Things aver here are okay give the circumstances. I currently reside in the near center of Tallafar. Our AO [area of operations] is mostly the eastern side of the city. This place is in shambles. We've taken one of the nicest houses as our home. We call it the mansion. Its okay minusthe bullet holes. We're still living solely off generators without running water. That's the extent of our amenities. We're dirty and nasty. I have not showered for six days. And it was eleven days before that.

We don't see much shooting. The bad guys are cowardly. IED's and suicide bombers are the weapons of choice. I don't really blame them. Last night I watched about 30 155 rounds [artillery rounds] rain down on suspected targets through my NVGs [night vision goggles]. We also have lots of cav here. An M1 can wreck an Opel or an Iraqi building. The only shooting has been random while fleeing.

The people here are dirty and nasty. They just search for handouts. For $10 an iraqi will tell you everyone on the block who has an AK. When we dismount humvees you get mobbed by kids. I swear I about killed a kid who kept grabbing my GPS. Its really a rathol tyrannical place that would not have a clue what to do with freedom.

Seriously, the ONLY jobs are: street peddler, police, IED manufacturer and farmer. There is NO industry no schooling. I honestly do not know how this town ever will support the several hundred thousand residents on its own.

The funny thing is that people have this crazy idea that our soldiers want to be here. That we want to help these people. We hate this place. We hate these people. Most guys just want to shoot someone. Every one rushes to the window when we hear an explosion. We want to eat the humanitarian rations because they're better than ours. And we tell every Iraqi that they're going to Abu Graib because it's funny to watch them squirm. We should reinstate Saddam and give him our most sincere apologies. But that's just my opinion.

Since the letter comes from a grunt in an elite airborne unit, I would say he and his buddies are a pretty good sample of the military.

• Those who don't have to face the danger themselves
• Those who value supporting GW after he got everything wrong over holding him responsible and bringing the soldiers (who aren't responsible) home.

ShortyBP wrote: I truly hate to think of it this way... but WoT has to be fought somewhere. Did it need to be fought in Iraq? Perhaps not. But if not Iraq, it'd be somewhere else. Probably more attacks on our own soil. Expanded in Afghanistan. Expanded in the Philippines/Indonesia. Expanded in Africa. Unfortunately, there is no real option to not fight. Wish there were. Fight the battle where it takes you... happened to be Iraq this time around. Have no doubts... even when the fighting is done in Iraq... the fight will bring us somewhere else. And the soldiers won't want to be there, either.

I don't think we should be fighting a form of combat at all. We should be fighting an enemy, not an ideology. We would never be having this conversation if we had stayed in Afghanistan and got the job done, focusing on an enemy-the Taliban who harbored al Qaeda, who were responsible for 9/11. Instead we are fighting a nebulous ideal that has us in a country that has nothing to do with 9/11. So you tell me why we need to fight "TURROR".