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War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for... is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
-J.S. Mill
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I get frustrated that this country is so broke sometimes, and I'm not talking about only the things we've broken--the rubble and crumbling infrastructure--I'm talking about the broken Iraqi people. We're here to help them... but a lot of days, I'm just like, "Fuck. Iraqis." I could live the rest of my life without ever dealing with another Iraqi.
They're unprofessional, suffer an epic sense of entitlement, and they're complete cowards.
For example, we've hired a local contractor to fix the plumbing of a school. He agreed on a generous payment, took the initial payment, and then never did any fucking work on it. He said that he did only the work agreed to, that the rest of it doesn't concern him. And he demands the rest of the money. Another guy we tried to hire, he said that he'd e-mail us the scope of labor in 24 hours, but 72 hours later, we're calling him again for the e-mail. Another guy, Abu Ali, the one who runs the little convenience shop on the COP, he'll promise to order us 7 t-shirts of very specific colors that we wrote down in Arabic for him, and a week later, he'll give us 7 black t-shirts. It's like the idea of honoring agreements is completely mystical and foreign to them.
Part of that problem might be their sense of entitlement. They expect hand-outs from us, and if we give them nothing, we are evil and selfish and greedy for it. Seems like every time I patrol the streets, Iraqi children would swarm me and demand money, chocolate, and pens from me. I tell them I don't have anything, and they harass and crowd me. They'll even try to jack my pen when I take it out to write down notes, like, say the name of shopkeeper we're talking to. It makes me nervous because it takes an incredible amount of self-control to keep myself from smacking some street rat with the butt of my rifle.
Even detainees make unreasonable demands: few weeks ago, some detainees in our holding area rejected the food we gave them. They said they wanted better food. It was the same fucking food that we eat (no pork that day), but it wasn't good enough for them. Few days ago, a detainee refused medical treatment for his diabetes unless we gave him a cigarette. YOU'RE A FUCKING DETAINEE--YOU HAVE NO BARGAINING POWER WITH ME, ASSHOLE.
I'd heard that the Abu Ghraib scandal destroyed our credibility and moral high ground, but I think if anything, it's only given this nation of career victims an excuse to beg for more handouts and make more demands from us. It's only given them an excuse to pawn the work of rebuilding this country on us.
The worst thing of all that they're fucking cowards. There are no brave Iraqis willing to fight for themselves; there are only opportunistic bullies who are ready to rob others of their possessions, opportunities, and lives. In the dark of night, they kill each other for their houses, for blood, for U.S. contracts. They are a nation of bystanders willing to watch their homeland burn instead of sacrificing to improve their own lives.
And.... that's just how the people are. I didn't come here to fix the people. I came here to fix our mistakes, not Allah's.
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I know I don't really mean all the things I just wrote, at least, not all of the time. Sometimes, I almost believe that they deserve our sacrifices. But God damn, man, fucking help me help you. Stop blowing up my friends and maybe your country will get somewhere....
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