Groundhog's Day

Nothing really new to report here, but I thought I'd let everyone know I'm doing fine. As the title suggests, every day seems the same here. There's so little variation to the weather, food, and work that we all have deja vu every day. You can see it with everyone. Frequently during our meetings, someone will say something like, "Yeah, we were working that issue yesterday...or the day before...wait, what's today?"

There's 4 or more orange marmelade kittens on base. They're probably no more than 4 months old, and very skinny and timid. I thought there was only one at first, until the other night (don't ask me which one), I saw four at once. So I've been putting out a little plastic bowl of long-life full-cream milk every time I come back from the chowhall and some tuna fish when they have it. Most of the time when I check on the bowl and plate of tuna, it's gone, but a few times it went bad in the heat. I'm hoping to train them to come to one spot to eat and maybe even let me pet them. It's amazing they're alive at all out here. I even saw one of them with what looked like a mouse in its teeth.

Mailing Address

For those who want to send a letter or something, here is my mailing address here.

Kaminoff, Joshua
Unit# 931003/TFTP
APO AE 09391

I'm told the delivery time is about 2 weeks.

Fighting Militant Islam

I'm currently reading a great book called The Secret History of the Iraq War by Yossef Bodansky. It's an incredibly authoritative and detailed account of the preparation for and conduct of the Iraq War, to include Saddam's support of Islamic terrorist organizations and his WMD programs.

As I've been reading it, I've been thinking about my previous post about the Apaches and Al Qaeda. It's true that our current strategy of killing terrorist leaders is not working. Computer simulations have shown it is not a viable strategy against decentralized organizations, and real-world studies have born out the same. I made the comment that the solution probably exists in the non-military realm, which, if I were to say such a thing aloud at work, would make me a virtual parriah, a left-wing nutball. It's bad enough I'm an environmentalist animal-lover. (Which is very weird, since in my family, I am the RIGHT-wing nutball.)

But long-term, I'm skeptical there's anything we can do but to continue killing as many militant Muslims as we can, while trying to cut off their funding and deny them refuge anywhere in the world.

I was reminded of a couple of crucial things in this book that neither I, nor anyone else, should ever forget.

1. Militant Muslims have claimed again and again that they will not rest until we are destroyed. Not until we've left Iraq. Not until we're friendly with other nations. Not until we stop helping Israel. Until we are DESTROYED. Until, "The flag of Islam flies over the White House," as more than one terrorist has put it.

2. There is no concept of peace, coexistence, truce, or anything other than war in the religion of Islam. The phrase, "Religion of Peace" is a joke. They didn't conquer northern Africa, Spain, Indonesia, etc by being peaceful. You'll never hear them claim the "Religion of Peace" when they are in power. They will seek a truce when they are weak, and fight again when they are strong. Mohamud once made a 10 year truce with his enemies, and broke it 2 years later when his armies were strong, and now all Muslims believe it is thier duty to do the same. When you hear Muslims seeking a truce or peace and calling theirs the "Religion of Peace," it is simply a ruse to buy time until they are strong again. When Usama bin Laden was on the run early in the war, he made a tape seeking a truce. Once he was safe, he started calling for attacks again. And if you read their literature, they are waiting until there is a Democrat in the White House until they strike again. They know if they strike the US now, we will fight.

So what do you do against such an enemy? There is no politically correct solution. There is no humane way of dealing with them. There is no way of making peace and going home. We can't turn our backs on them. What's hardest to grasp is that it is not just a handful of terrorists that are the problem. All Muslims believe the world belongs to Islam, and everyone else should be killed or converted. That's not an extremist point of view, but rather a central part of their religious teachings.

In the lead up to the Iraq War, Iran, Syria, Iraq, and others conspired to instigate Isreal into entering the war in order to draw other Arab nations into it as well, to include using various WMDs. Saddam figured it was the only way to stay in power. What's really scary, is that they almost succeeded. We came incredbly close to WW III, certainly closer than the Bay of Pigs, and I think it's only a matter of time before it erupts. I just hope the Western world wakes up and takes this fight seriously.

Settling In

Well, I'm in country finally. It's been a long couple of days sleeping in my clothes and grabbing food when I can, but I think it's going to work out well here. There's a huge gym here (that I'm going to use after I get done typing this), and the food at the chowhall is pretty good. I'm working nights, and it looks like it'll be 16 or so hours pretty much every day, so I'm really going to have to watch what I eat and work out so I don't gain weight here. You'd be surprised how many people deploy and blow up like a summer tick from all the ice cream, cheeseburgers, fried miscellaneous, bacon breakfasts, etc. That being said, let me reiterate please do NOT send anything. I've got one wall locker, and it's filling up fast and I can get pretty much everything I could need or want down here.

I wouldn't mind the occasional email, letter, picture, or whatever so I know how everyone is doing though. I know once I get a feel for what I'm doing, I'm going to get absorbed in my work, and it'd be nice to hear from everyone once in a while.

Hopefully, I will see you all soon.