Traveling delusions and Iraq...

What did I expect?

Not sure, it being the day after Christmas, and the weather getting socked in starting this morning. I woke up, looked out the window into the old family homestead backyard, and what did I see? Snow. Bear in mind that it hasn’t snowed yet this year in Maine, and here I come home, and the day that I need to leave, it snows. Couldn’t this have happened on say Christmas Eve when it would have been more appropriate? Or maybe the day after I leave? But no, the day I do leave, but get this. That isn’t even the problem, that’s not the reason that I’m stuck in another airport trying to get back to North Carolina. No. Get this, in New York, there is some fog, and planes are not allowed to leave as frequently as they normally would, and hence, here I sit. So far, the flight has been delayed by about 45 minutes, so “they” say (they being the airline and Orbitz where I booked my flight). I’ve flown enough over the years to know that the first delay will inevitably lead to the second delay, and then to the third, and then probably to me sleeping in an airport somewhere, most likely in New York knowing this kid’s luck. This has happened too many times to me in the past, I know how this story ends. It ends with me probably getting an overpriced hotel room somewhere in New York, or worse yet sleeping on a very uncomfortable seat. Although I can’t complain half as much as the poor souls that got stuck in Denver earlier this week when they get hit with a big storm.

The thing is though, with all of the technology that we do have now, why can’t they fly safely in fog? They have instruments, ground radar, and other technologies that let them safely operate in daylight, and nighttime, and yet they can’t make it through some fog? What is the deal with that really? I guess, they need to be safe and all, but come on, it’s inconveniencing me greatly. I’m just wanting to get home, and hang out with the fiancée and open our Christmas gifts together, and hang out with the cats, and clean up the cat poop that I know awaits me at home. Always, this happens to me. Always. I haven’t had a hassle free set of flights in so long I don’t know when the last time was that I had no issues either going or coming home. Ah well, that’s the price we pay for flying right? If I was driving, I’d probably be almost home by now, but with a lot more headaches than I have right now. At least this morning, I could sleep in a little, go for a run in the snow this morning, have a good breakfast with the family, and then drive down here at a leisurely pace and all. So yes, this kid is bitching, but I really shouldn’t be. I don’t know what is going to happen, quite yet. We’ll see. As a side note though, it appears as though some Jet Blue customers have been here quite some time, and they handed out free pizza to them. You don’t see that coming from airlines that often. Maybe this is why they are building a loyal customer base, and why they are doing well, as opposed to other big name carriers these days. Customer service. I’ve found that indeed, people are more willing to pay a little more money, or in the case of Jet Blue and or Southwest, less money, and get some good customer service. You don’t see that too often these days, so much so that when you do find a company with good customer service, they are the exception rather than the rule, and people will flock to said companies. That’s where I think business folks, and their business models get messed up a lot these days. Just provide some kick ass customer service for whatever it is you’re doing, and people are going to come back, and they are going to recommend you to their friends, and people will come calling. Bad customer service, people will still come, just in less numbers, and it’s more likely that the folks who do come will refer you back to their friends, and word of mouth dies out quickly. If you’re out there, and you’re starting a business, give out some good customer service, folks will love you for it.

On another note, I should have brought my power cord for my laptop, as I sit here and watch the battery drain away while I write this out. Why don’t I ever think of doing that when I travel? Maybe I’m getting dumber as I get older? It’s possible.

This Christmas was pretty low key this year. We had the usual assortment of family folks over and all, and a good dinner as per usual, but we didn’t have a houseful of people stopping by, and or coming in and hanging around. Which was good I think. Different, but good. I think it’s the mere fact that less and people who have come over in year’s past are coming around for the holidays now. They have their own families in different locations around the country and or world, and they’re doing their own thing. While we’re still doing the same old thing, more or less, that we have been for years. It’s nice to be able to just spend time with the family, hang out, eat some good food, have a good talk, and get yelled at for farting in the kitchen on Christmas Eve. We had such a lack of presents this year under the old tree that we did almost everything on Christmas Eve, which is something that we’ve never done before according to my memories. Nobody really got anything this year, well, people received some gifts, but they had been passed out previously, and in my case, my present was my flight home and back, so I took that one with me when I left RDU at 6AM earlier this week. It’s all good really. As I think people get older, we need less “things”, and we already buy the stuff that we do need, so receiving more things, something most of the family doesn’t need anymore. We of course did our stocking stuffers, which is the most fun thing normally anyway, and the good old Yankee Swap (aka Chinese Auction I think, and probably known as a few more things no doubt). I did not participate on said Yankee Swap, as I had bought gift certificates for everyone anyway. I’m good like that. I know that for the most part, they were well received. I think. I mean, come on, who doesn’t want an Amazon.com (I should get paid for that plug right there) gift certificate? You can get just about anything under the sun in that place. People should be clamoring for those. I know that a person such as me would always appreciate such things (just a hint there, just a little one, plus look at the wedding registries on Amazon and Pottery Barn, it’s all in there).

I just finished reading this book, called Fiasco, essentially about the missteps of the war in Iraq and how the Bush administration took us into it, without really thinking things through too well. And it speaks to the effect of how to fight a counterinsurgency, which is what we should have been doing, but we haven’t been, and how we are now changing course to finally, almost 4 years after invading that country, fight a counterinsurgency action. This book, I think, contrary to its title, is not all about pointing out the bad things, and the mistakes (although it does do that), it also points out where things have been done right, and what the effect of that is. Being as it was written before the war has ended, that are some conclusions towards the end that could prove to be true, or maybe false, depending on which road we go down in that country, and or what happens in the very near future. There are good things that can come from this, but it’s going to take a lot of work on behalf of the military, and the US government. One of the basic conclusions reached in this book is don’t expect troop levels to drop very low over the next 4-5 years, at the very least. Those guys are now needed on the ground to fix the issues that came up when we first invaded, and the disaster that has ensued over there. Another conclusion reached was that it is entirely possible that history will look back on this war, and equate it back to the first Gulf War in 1991 which started with a short protracted ground offensive to expel the Iraq military out of Kuwait, and was then followed by 12 years of a very successful containment exercise conducted by first GHWB, then Clinton, and then GWB for a couple of years, until certain people gained his ear, and essentially convinced him, and other leaders that we needed to get in there, and that Saddam Hussein posed a serious threat to the security of the US. It’s sad really, since all of the reasons why we invaded that country have been either debunked or were not founded in anything representing the truth. Turns out that the containment actions that were being conducted were doing a good job of wearing down the Iraqi military, and Hussein. It turns out that after the 1991 Gulf War, most of their caches of WMDs were destroyed, and others were taken care of later on down the line before we invaded in 2003. Turns out that the Iraqi military, although large in number of troops, was ineffective really, and was nothing more than a paper tiger. A lot of the military industrial complex infrastructure in Iraq had been destroyed over the years during air raids by the US Air Force and Navy during the time of containment. One of the biggest things that struck me reading this book was that containment, was slowly whittling away at Iraq, and the cost of containment for a year was “only” 1 billion dollars. Remember, 1 billion per year. Still a ton o’ money, but a far cry from the 200 billion that we’ve spent fighting over there so far, with another 100 billion being requested as I write this now from the US. Think of what we could have done with 300 billion dollars in that region (or even just say, 5 billion a mere pittance compared to what we’re spending now). The face of the middle eastern education could have been changed easily. Instead of kids in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other middle eastern countries (funnily enough Iraq students attended mostly secular schools in the country) attending fundamentalist madras’s which essentially indoctrinate young people into radical Islamic fundamentalism ways of life, we could have set up schools through these nations where kids could have received a great education without the hating of America talk. Hell, take that same 5 billion dollars and invest it into US schools, our education system would be burgeoning again. Meanwhile, while we have been Iraq, the real locales of terrorism around the middle east have been essentially ignored. The Taliban are gaining another foothold into Afghanistan, and are making a sort of “comeback” in that country, with ever increasing attacks against US and other coalition troops operating in that country. Pakistan itself is just one military coup away from becoming a radical Islamic country with actual operating and functioning nuclear weapons. Iran has been ignored for far too long, and they now empathize and or sympathize with the new majority Iraqi government. Syria, also has been ignored for far too long, and they also identify with the new Iraqi government very closely. If there were a strong leader to come into Iraq, and take over the government, and one who was more about the people and leading Iraq, there is a good chance he or she for that matter, could unite the country, and also possibly have Syria and Iran as allies, and then where would we go from there? Think about Saudi Arabia being overrun by a allied group of Iraqis, Iranians, and Syrians. One government, possibly not very happy with the US could control most of the world’s oil. Think of oil jetting up to about $200/barrel, and think about the prices we were paying for gas and heating oil before. We would be in serious trouble, and would most likely have to re-invade with a weaker army, and most assuredly, we’d have a draft to get the bodies needed as this war would be a lot bigger. It could get really ugly, really quickly. Before with Saddam in control, we had a stable Iraq run by a crazy man, but at least it was stable, and it kept the other players in check.

Anyway, time will tell what the outcome on this will be. History will prove out that George W. Bush was a damn genius with his thinking about invasion, or prove him out to be the moron that a lot of us think him to be now (well, I think him a moron at least). That being said, we won’t be out there for a long time to come. I hope it all comes out in the wash.