House of the rising Moonglum

Forwarded to me by a friend. Korea Loves Iraq

FYI: Korea is currently struggling internally with wether or not to send troops to our (and the Iraqi’s) aid. It seems there is a pretty large “don’t send troops to other people’s business” there contingent in Korea. There is also some anti-american sentiment, but that would be a very long post to get into all of that. It is very confusing.

In any case, it is looking like they want to send 3,000 non combatant troops. I wonder if they would send more if we restationed the 37,000 troops we have on their northern border to Iraq?

You know, it is kind of funny to look at the past two days of entries, and see the day before me saying that someone is too religous.

Big two days, I guess. I used the phrase “going home” to refer to someone passing away. I like it. It gives comfort where there is none to be had.

Little things start to mean more. A hand in yours, a short phrase, “don’t go yet”. But the best phrase of all, “thank you for coming”. But then to see that grace suffer the indignity of doctors poking and prodding, and a lack of privacy. It is just not right.

Time is short, the end is near,
but we are one, we have nothing to fear.

People are amazing. We are so much more than a hunk of meat wrapped on some bones. We are a collection of a lifetime of experiences. We are memories and thoughts and ideas. We are even somewhat other people’s memories thoughts and ideas. As we move through life we interact with others, touching their lives. If the human experience is an ocean, then we are waves in that ocean, coming into contact with others, and changing their very nature. It almost seems unfair that we are confined to this hunk of flesh. Perhaps that is where the idea of a soul comes from. Once the source of the wave is old and broken down, and has propagated as far as possible, the source dies and allows the waves to echo forever.

1 Zu der Zeit wirst du sagen: Ich danke dir, HERR, daß du bist zornig gewesen über mich und dein Zorn sich gewendet hat und du mich tröstest. 2 Siehe, Gott ist mein Heil, ich bin sicher und fürchte mich nicht; denn Gott der HERR ist meine Stärke und mein Psalm und ist mein Heil. 3 Ihr werdet mit Freuden Wasser schöpfen aus den Heilsbrunnen.

4 Und ihr werdet sagen zu der Zeit: Danket dem HERRN, rufet an seinen Namen! Machet kund unter den Völkern sein Tun, verkündiget, wie sein Name so hoch ist! a 5 Lobsinget dem HERRN, denn er hat sich herrlich bewiesen. Solches sei kund in allen Landen! 6 Jauchze und rühme, du Tochter Zion; denn der Heilige Israels ist groß bei dir!

Tonight on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country at 10 (9 central?) they are doing a piece on the toy drive in Iraq. The chief is an interesting character. He is an interrogator in Iraq. He started out with some generals who surrendered at the beginning of the war, moved on to Baghdad for volunteered information, and is trying to do some good getting toys for kids. He is very religious, and believes that God is working with him and many of the Iraqis he meets. It is a little different, but on the other hand he really is doing good. I am especially happy with the toy drive. It’s neat to be able to see who your donations go to. He often posts pictures.

One interesting thing he did was to secure the release of the Generals that he was interrogating immediately after the war, and hopefully they will now be able to participate in the rebuilding of the Iraqi army. Reading his blog, depending on who you are, you may need to take the religous aspect with a grain of salt, but it is nice to read about someone so thoughtful, working so hard to make the world a better place.

It is hard to understand what goes through these people’s minds. Whoever is doing this it is not helping their cause. You do not gain the support of the locals by blowing them up. It does lend creedence, though, to the notion that these are people from outside the country. Still, what happened to the “no fighting on Ramadan” that everyone was shouting about. Oh right, only we are not allowed to fight on Ramadan.

My wishes go to those in Iraq to have a peaceful remainder of their Ramadan.

This reminds me so much of Berkeley when I was in college. It was horrible to watch so much go up in flames, and remembering the horror stories from the firemen standing in the way of sixty foot walls of flame that moved faster than you could drive. That is something I will never forget.

Maybe it’s time to start listening to what God is telling you the second time you are hit by lightning!

It’s way too late for me to be doing anything. I am sick, and I am tired, and snot is all over my keyboard. But I not have a listing of recent comments on the main menu. As requested. Goodnight.

Most people who travel to Iraq seem to find what they are looking for. If they are Democratic senators looking for mistakes that the current administration has made, they find them. If they are Republicans looking for reassurance that everything is going well, they find evidence for that. So I am sometimes excited when I see someone going in looking for one thing and finding another.

John Warden appears to be quite a good writer and has some interesting views on what we need to do in Iraq. He feels that progress in most areas is up a level where the Iraqis can take it from here in about a year or so. The reason for that being that they are “good enough”. Basically, it works, and they can work to improve it. The two areas he is worried about are the military, and the government.

Here is another article about WWII reconstruction. This stuff just takes a while and is messy. And people never believe that it is going to work in the process. Of course that lack of faith in it working, could be part of the process that makes it work. How very democratic.

It seems like I just always agree with his articles. This one is about being careful how we present ourselves to the rest of the world. Specifically having people who are a little macho as heads of intelligence. At this point in world history we can no longer afford to have tactically smart, macho, cultural blockheads too high up in the military. The military really needs people who can interface well with others. And having listen to some of my friends in the military this may well be true internally to the military as well as from ours to other countries.

I don’t know if any of you have seen Engrish before. Basically they go around with a camera looking for poorly formed English in Japan. Then they take a picture of it. Mmmm. Hamster.

A lot of people, myself included, are pretty upset about the way the post war is being handled. I am really nervous about all the contracts going to American companies. I am nervous about the lack of improvement in security. I am worried about the unemployment. And I began to wonder how this compared to World War II. Well someone transcribed a number of Life magazine articles from the time, talking about all of the same problems that we are having now in Iraq. Only at a scale that makes you shudder.

In post war Germany, it was the American troops doing the looting, and making the citizens feel unsafe. And the regions occupied by the Russians fared even worse. One quote:

“When Americans looted they took cameras and valuables but when the Russians looted they took everything. And they raped and killed. From the eastern frontiers a tide of refugees is seeping across Europe bringing a nightmare tale of helpless populations trampled underfoot. When the British and American came the Viennese felt that at last they were in the hands of civilized people. But instead of coming in with a bold plan of relief and reconstruction we came in full of evasions and apologies.”

Another article speaks of the abject misery of the Europeans seven months after the Allies won the war. 25,000,000 people homeless with the oncoming winter. Average daily food intake fell from 3,000 calories before the war to 1,800 after.

Am I contributing to the future decimation of employment in the United States? This is a very interesting series of articles by the guy who made How Stuff Works about how robots are going to take all of our jobs away. It’s actually a fairly convincing series. I’m not sure I buy it, I mean people have always made these sorts of arguments to Ford inventing the assembly line, and later to people putting robots in place on those lines. Jobs have always formed to fill in the void.

But the robots seem to be taking over the low end jobs now, the ones that have always been a last line of defense, working in Mc Donalds, at grocery stores. Hopefully a whole new class of jobs will open up because of the freedoms this new automation allows us. Perhaps people will be employed in interpersonal type positions from now on, making a higher happiness with life for everyone. Perhaps I am not helping form an economic disaster for our country fifty years from now.

Wil Wheaton (yes that one) posted a wonderful open letter about the guy that caught the foul ball in the sixth game which was followed by the Cubs getting hammered. It is well worth reading.

And here is another one. Again this one shows an average person, trying to get by. Her words show some of the problems that women are having in Iraq right now. Needing to be escorted by a male family member, not by religious law or anything like that, but by fear of crime. And again, she has another take on life under Saddam, only this one a bit less scathing. More just, this is the way it is. I especially like the pic of her dad and Saddam.

…of an Iraqi police officer. This is an amazing piece that the BBC did. So much of what we get over here (on CNN etc…) is how many troops are getting killed when, and how things are all going down-hill. Reading this photo-journal moved me, and helped remind me what the point of all this is. Yes there are problems, yes things are not going well, but these are peoples lives.

People who deserve more than they have gotten in the past, and a chance to make a difference on their own. The deep pride in his words, especially when talking about the MP’s, “they are here to help, but we do all the work.” Just wanting to make sure we understand that they are the police officers.

Also it was interesting to here his thoughts on the old regime, one that he worked in. The world is a complex place, but the Iraqis deserve a chance after all we have done to them over the years. Easy to say from here I know, but still… I guess I’m just a sucker for the personal lives stories.

Given how Republicans have historically sided with Israel, I have been a little surprised at how much play Bush has given the Palestinians. I feel for the Palestinians, and had hoped that the “roadmap” would have made some progress. I’m afraid that the latest bombing may have ended any hope for more of that.

Update: It looks like Arafat may actually realize just how important this really is.

Having read a lot about what is going on in Iraq for the past few months, I feel that I can safely say the main problem in Iraq right now is unemployment. Solving the problem of un/underemployment in Iraq would solve so many of the other problem there. Additionally, if all the reconstruction work were being done by Iraqis, then the knowledge to take it to the next step, improvement rather than just reconstruction, could happen.

There is certainly enough money going around there to make it happen, the problem is that it is being accumulated by a few large companies. This money eventually makes it to the actual Iraqis who do the reconstruction work, but by the time it finally reaches them it has been so diluted, that they are getting almost nothing, and we (the US taxpayers) are getting very little bang for the buck.

I honestly don’t mind funding the war, and if we are going to do the war, I certainly don’t mind funding the reconstruction. I just wish that we were doing it more efficiently.