Mike v. Mesopotamia: Meet Me In Mosul

And speaking of not gathering any moss, I made another trip up to Mosul a few weeks back. For the safety of those involved, I will have to speak pretty generally. I was there to support a prosecution we've been working with CCCI in Baghdad. There were some elements that couldn't be completed on their end, so I went up to get hands-on with our investigators there and try to take a scalp on my way out. Results were mixed.

Our effort on this case is kind of representative of the situation across Iraq these days. All of the pieces are in place. We haven't fixed all of their problems, and we have undoubtedly caused quite a few. But I'm confident that we've done enough to put them in a position to choose their own fate. The problem is, this is all based on their willingness to make a choice and move forward, and as you can see from the recent ass-hattery going on with their elections, they don't seem too inclined to get it together until we're out the door and they absolutely have to. Slightly frustrating. We did everything we possibly could to get a very, very bad person put in a noose, but the final piece of the puzzle is in Iraqi hands. As of my departure, they have yet to pick the damn thing up.... one wonders if they'll realize they should care about these things before it's too late to make a difference.

They're definitely not used to the democratic concept of self-determination just yet. I don't know if dictatorship fits their culture, or if their past dictatorship has simply left a big dent that hasn't worked itself out, but at this point it seems like Iraqi society as a whole is still expecting to be told what to do, and to have things done for them. We definitely haven't been weening them off that latter tendency. I thought the picture of the tank tread running up against the wall up there was a good representation. You can only do so much with a military... I think we've done all we can here.

I had planned to stay a few days, but the weather was looking ominous after one night and I am terrified of getting stuck after my nightmares in Baghdad and Baqubah during the summer. Luckily I've got connections by now, so I was able to ditch my scheduled flight and get out a day ahead of the storm on a somewhat... special flight. We're in the process of releasing a whole lot of detainees all over the country at the moment, and we've got a full-fledged Con Air operation going to get them where they need to be. That night it just so happened we had a flight oming through Mosul and stopping at Speicher on it's way home. So instead of sitting at the terminal praying I could catch catching a helo space-A like all the contractors and regular saps, I sat around at the edge of the runway until about 0300 when the flight came in. Watched some detainees get led off, completely dumped on the AF crew that tried to deny my pre-arranged boarding, linked up with the soldiers pulling guard duty and hopped on a C-130 packed tight with my favorite people in the world - insurgents. Good times..... pretty surreal experience.

Anyway, FOB Marez is cool and I actually brought my camera this time.

"Inject the Venom!" Apparently we have poisonous wolves. I feel like we should be making a bigger deal about this.

The Marez DFAC was blown up by a suicide bomber in 2004 - this is one of the memorials to the people who were killed, outside the rebuilt facility.

But for the death and destruction, Ninewa province looks a whole lot like parts of California. I definitely didn't expect this view.

Jut over the wall there you can see the mosque that I think produced the crazy call to prayer that I listened to on my last trip here. Pretty sure they point the speakers at the base to mess with us.

The view from Marez is both very picturesque and somehow hard to take pictures of at the same time. On my first trip the air was a lot more clear and you could see much more of the city from this spot.

I imagine that somewhere there's a dude named Hesco who's swimming in a giant bin of gold, Scrooge McDuck style (yeah, I'm that old), because of these things.