Day 87
No watch today. I got invited to a working party. Woo hoo. We went and put up two tents. About twenty of us. It was hot. We had two make to attempts at it. My unit spends a lot of time putting up tents. So we are pretty familiar with how to do it. However, this time we had to put in a liner. We don’t usually do that. So we put it in inside out. We had it about halfway up when we realised it wasn’t right. Had to pull it all apart and start again. It was good fun. Even with the restart and the fact that about half the lines had to be redone we got it done pretty quickly.
A conversation with a friend reminded me. The prisoner mistreatment scandal that is the focus of the media at the moment. The temptation will be to use this as a distractor from our mission. There will be those who say that this illustrates why we should pull out quickly, that we should get UN oversight, etc. etc. I am of the opinion that this is our’s and our’s alone to finish. Whatever is true about how we got into this it is now incumbunant upon us, the US, to see it through to the correct and proper conclusion.
What happened in Abu Ghraib was bad. The people responsible need to be brought to justice in public manner so that the world can see that this kind of behaviour is not tolerated. The quicker the better. However, what happened in Abu Ghraib is an unfortunate and horrible sideshow. The main event here is the establishment of a free and democratic Iraq. We cannot falter from that mission. We, the armed forces on station in Iraq and the surrounding regions need the suppose of US public opinion and the support of the President and Congress. We need to deal with the crimes that have occurred while at the same time staying the course that has been set. What we’re doing here is important.
We need to finish it.
aloha