Election reports from the Iraq front.

This is a personal letter from a soldier whom I know secondhand in Iraq, talking about the current state of affairs there. I wonder how much of this gets covered in the mass media—somewhere between zero and “huh?” I suppose.

Hello everyone,

Taking a little time out from hectic last minute elections preparation to drop everyone a line about how elections preparations are going. Some things are as I predicted. The IECI, being a new organization, has forgotten about a few details that we are filling in. Like paying most of their workers. They seemed to think that day workers would find it acceptable to be sent a check three or four days after the election. The supposed checks were going to be sent through the non-existent Iraqi mail system or picked up by the workers on the 6th. Rather than not have polling station workers show up, the US military is transporting more than 12 million dollars between all eighteen provinces. And moving just under a thousand workers, from safe areas of the country (south and north) into the Sunni triangle so they can run polling centers. Oh, and feeding and housing them for a week and providing security for them. And filling in for missing electoral materials. Because of course the IECI plan would have been fine if everyone were perfect. But in the real world, someone forgot to send ballot box lids to two provinces, and various other sundry to other locations. So we are raiding the strategic reserves for missing materials that are then transported with military convoys (on civilian trucks), appearing in the middle of the night when there will not be many cameras, at the IECI warehouses that need them. We are all crossing our fingers that no additional materials are either destroyed or misrouted…

I also think the nicest part about the elections being done is that we can then ignore the UN guys again. What a bunch of pompous jerks. Their command says they cannot move except by military air. You would think then that they would be nice to the people involved and grateful that we are willing to transport their persons around the country. Instead they act like our aircrews are valets. They don’t like carrying their own bags. They want to re-schedule flights like we are a commercial carrier. Then they act all miffed because they get stranded when choppers are down for maintenance or weathered out. Yes, military choppers do get weathered out. As the Marines unfortunately proved two days ago, flying at 75 feet off the ground (to stay safe from SAMs), with visibility of less than a half mile, will occasionally have tragic consequences. So we don’t fly in that weather unless it is REALLY necessary. And flying UN dudes around does not qualify. Military chopper pilots are the best and will fly through hell if it means saving a life, but if it means flying in bad weather or waiting until the next day, bring a blanket.

And the convoy escort thing is getting old. The IECI hired security for the election material transport from the airheads to the warehouses and back. Unfortunately, the truckers are afraid to move unless they have military MPs as escorts. So we are stuck escorting most of the materials around the country in addition to the civilian security. I don’t blame anyone, they all have reasonable positions. I just feel bad for the MPs that are getting stretched thin. Once again, not a nationwide problem, just Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle. The other 80% of the country is percolating along quite nicely.

Tomorrow starts the media circus. The BBC already has four teams wandering Baghdad. Tomorrow they will bring Geraldo into the HQ. Joy. Don’t look for me, I will be the one typing away in the background while talking on two phones. The generals are all briefed, they will look good on camera. I just feel wierd because I am not actually doing anything, just passing the word from one group to another, trying to track in the middle. At least there are four of us here trying to divide and conquer.

At least Hajj went without a hitch. Only 700 people stuck at the border and Saudi let them in after one night in the cold. Most people have returned already, and the flow has already started to slow significantly.

As my boss says, “There will be terrible scenes on the TV tomorrow, that’s what the TV people get paid to find, but the election is going to go better than 90% of the elections around the world.” I believe him, he has done this before. I will try to write and let everyone know about the hilarious things that the TV does not cover early next week.

I’ve removed the writer’s name to protect him from any backlash, although I suppose if anything the military should be happy that word of their exceptional work is getting out one way or the other.

Apple turnover.

Unbeknownst to me (until now), the Apple store in Evansville, Indiana, which hosted frields.com bellied-up at the end of 2004, which is why my mail there has been bouncing — and why there’s now a generic travel sales site taking up referrals from that URL. I had hoped that the outage had something to do with the huge winter storm that buried the area after Christmas, but apparently the situation was a bit more permanent.

No worries about frields.org though, since I own that domain personally. I’ll be trying to locate and replace content originally available at frields.com over the next few days. I should be able to generate a list based on some SQL-fu. One of the unfortunate “victim” files was a beautiful picture of Evie that I had scanned and edited. I don’t know how I could have not kept a backup somewhere… I’ll keep looking.

It’s a pity the store’s gone, especially since Apple’s new line is incredibly sweet. If I had fewer skills on the x86 platform I would definitely go for a Mac G5. A PC divorce would definitely set me back in personal time, though, so it’s not in the cards. I wonder if the expense of Apple hardware versus PCs (and their relative obscurity in the marketplace) wasn’t an even more significant hindrance in a geographic area that is not a heavily concentrated artistic or technology center. Apple sales are probably not as hard to make in DC, Los Angeles, or New York, but in Evansville, Indiana?

The band’s gig last night in Chestertown was canceled since Leah still has no voice after a sudden bout with illness last week. Just as well, given the poor weather and the long drive to rural Maryland the gig would have entailed. We will apparently have a make-up gig in February since the venue loves us almost as much as we love them.

The kids (as cute as they are) are being real pains today, probably because they have a touch of cabin fever. It’s so cold outside, and windy, that the news outlets are discouraging people from taking their kids out. The temperature may get to 25°F today, but the wind chill is currently closer to 0. We can usually placate Evie with a movie on TV; since she is currently in love with the original Star Wars trilogy, that’s OK by us.

Bring out the GIMP.

I am loving the new GIMP 2.2. Used it to retouch this photo of Ethan, taken just a few days ago. It was a snap to use some of the tools to reduce the depth of focus, airbrush some â??moistureâ? on his face (readers who are parents will know whereof I speak), and add a little of that soft-focus â??glow.â?

I ask you, does your world not tremble with the cuteness?

Condi on parade.

As if being sniped at by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) weren’t enough (wow! who could have seen that coming?), Secretary of State nominee Condoleezza Rice was taken to task by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) for comments she made to Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) concerning the tsunami disaster and its impact on American global PR:

Senator, first of all, I do agree that the tsunami was a wonderful opportunity to show not just the U.S. government, but the heart of the American people. And I think it has paid great dividends for us.

Boxer, of course, beat her breast and decried what she felt was Rice’s trivialization of a horrible natural disaster which took tens of thousands of lives and destroyed countless acres of homes and commercial property. How could Condi be so cruel as to see only an opportunity for a spackling of the USA’s public image, where others see an opportunity to host a celebrity-studded telethon?

Let’s get real for a moment, shall we? It surely comes as no surprise that, deep within the corridors of power, global events that are outside anyone’s control—such as the tsunami—become factors in both planning foreign policy and in executing domestic political strategies. It would seem inconceivable even to the most naive adherents of either party that a Presidential administration would be blind to the pragmatic aspects of boosting charitable aid efforts, and the beneficial side effect of appearing magnanimous even when the nation is under fire from liberal quarters across the globe.

We all can further rest assured that, in planning the President’s comments regarding aid efforts, strategists in the White House were likely licking their chops at the chance to shore up America’s overseas reputation as a nation not only of might, but of mercy. Is it really that shocking that someone, in a meeting regarding the President’s daily speaking points, said something like, “Gee, I’ll bet our aid to the tsunami victims can’t hurt our foreign PR efforts”? Frankly, I am a lot more disgusted by Boxer’s willingness to score points at the expense of the dignity of the confirmation process than by the foregone conclusion that people in Washington are interested in the political side benefits of Doing the Right Thing.

The truth is that, yes, Dr. Rice did in fact lose a good opportunity to show her diplomatic side with her comments on the tsunami. But she seized other, similar opportunities far more often than not, especially when refusing to rise to the bait of blowhards like Boxer.

That’s right, we made it all up.

New Year’s Resolution: To no longer acknowledge, other than by denigration, the travesty known as Kwanzaa.