all bets are off

Looking up at the pallid moon tonight I wonder what those mischievous insurgents might be up to in the mysterious desolation outside my front gate. For as many times as I have lit a cigarette and wondered why I am here, on this earth, in Iraq, or if my purpose is as parallel with the machine as my contract says it should be, I rarely consider the simple beauty of the night sky as it is, vast and indifferent, cool and crystallizing. But such indulgences of the soul are inefficient and costly. To roll the dice with hope and love on the line is a dangerous gamble. The deeper, more searching and abstract the feeling for the sensitivity and affection of any other time and place, the higher the stakes.

Caldwell was rocketed a few days ago. It was the first time this f.o.b. has been hit in over two years. The eight foot Katusha rockets impacted a few hundred meters from where we sleep and served as a vital reminder that we are indeed in the heart of a combat zone. After June 30th U.S. troops have largely pulled out of the urban c.o.p.s and f.o.b.s and combat missions have almost halted in their tracks. We have ceased to roll out on "combat patrols" and the area that we have worked so hard to clear of insurgent activity is now entirely in the Iraqi Army's hands. In direct proportion to the diminution of our presence and Sphere of Influence, terrorist activity has increased. More IEDs and land mines on the roads that we so diligently cleared, more attacks in the cities and no doubt more plans to display the destructive and homicidal passions of religious jihad.

Our mission over these past eight months has largely been to strangle the flow of weapons and explosives trafficking from Iran into the urban hubs of terrorist activity. These supplies would be transported through an intricate network of canals and tunnels built back in the eighties during the Iraq/Iran conflict. So as we loosen our grip and a breath of new life enters this window of opportunity it would be no stretch of the imagination to foresee a spike in urban car bombings, suicide bombings, rocket and mortar attacks on isolated coalition forces, and ultimately a season of great unrest in the ancient land of Babylon.