Today is the 233rd birthday of the U.S. Army. The U.S. would not be the land of the free if it were not also home of the brave.
The chow hall had a better than average meal with roast beef as a tribute. They also had a special cake and a marzipan diorama.
When the Marines had their birthday, we all got two beers. As you recall, we cannot have beer or any alcohol out here in Al Anbar, but the Marines get a two-beer exception on the Corps birthday. No such luck with the Army, unfortunately.
Water: Toilet to Tap and Back
We live in a desert so it should not surprise us to know that we have a water problem. Currently at Al Asad, they suggest that we don’t waste water. It is becoming harder to waste water in some of the bathrooms and showers since the tanks are running dry because they are being replenished less often.
I am not particularly fastidious and I don’t have a job that makes me sweat too much, but I do like to take showers after I run, so I am interested in some kind of solution. If I can predict when water will be available, I can adjust my schedule and use less, but right now I am just confused.
Dennis is helping try to find water up in Rawah. Aquifers are there, but a prolonged drought and a lot of tapping is emptying them faster than they are filling up. If you pump out too much, the whole thing can collapse. The picture above shows a monitoring device. Dennis just uses a watch and sees how long it takes to fill a 5 gallon bucket. This very expensive technology pictured above does the same thing, but it looks better doing it.One partial solution to water shortage is reverse osmosis. Water is forced at high pressure through a filter that takes out almost everything except the pure H2O. It takes a lot of energy to make it work, however and while they say that these systems can go from toilet to tap, most people do not have the stomach for that, even if it works. But we could and do use that water for things like showers and toilets. You are not supposed to use the tap water to brush your teeth.
New Team Member
We got a new team member called John Bauer. We should call him Jack, both because of the 24 series and because otherwise there are too many Johns. He has a lot of experience in city planning, budgeting and capital projects and specifically worked for many years on waste water treatment and water projects in general. His skills are exactly what we need in places like Rutbah. I think he will be a good addition to our team.
Al Asad Weather
We get some dust storms and it is very hot during the afternoon, but I am happy with the weather in general. I have started waking up around 530. It is pleasant around dawn and if it is not dusty I can go running. You have to hunker down during the middle of the day, but it could be worse. Iraqi weather from Mid-October to May is very pleasant, even a little on the cold side in January. November & March are almost perfect, with cool evenings and warm, sunny days, except when there is a lot of dust. Of course, it will get hotter. Even now, temperatures do not dip below the middle 70s even during the coolest part of the day. We have around a 30 degree difference between the highs and lows. When it highs get to be around 120, which they will next month, it will only dip into the 90s and that is pretty hot, even if it is a dry heat.
The helicopter ride from AA takes around an hour. You need around forty-five minutes to convoy from our base at El Dorado (formerly COP Norseman) to the Village of Nathara near Rutbah. The ride there was bumpy and a little unpleasant. The trip home was even worse. I felt queasy, as did the others on the flight, but nobody got sick. The EXO told me that should I ever actually become sick, I would be called “Chunks” from then on. It is a powerful incentive to avoid messing up the helicopter floor.
We went there to deal with a local matter involving Marines. This is a barren area in a barren region. The township covers 172 square kilometers of dirt and gravel on top of a plateau around 700 meters above sea level. The elevation and topography mean that it is not as hot here as in the WERV. Besides that, however, it enjoys no advantages. Houses of the village are widely spaced. I have no idea why they do that. There is nothing between them and the spacing makes it difficult to get around. I suppose everybody wants his space. Buildings are made of a kind of a plaster/mud/concrete mix with facades of stone. Most of the houses are small, but there are lots of people per unit, since most of the local men have more than one wife and lots of children.
We shared the MRAP ride with Mayor of Rutbah and his associates. They talked a little about the regional problems, not surprisingly sheep, water and fuel. We hear that trinity of trouble everyplace we go. The problems are interrelated and most likely unsolvable in the short run and beyond our control in any case. Rain will mitigate the sheep/water conditions; fuel will require market prices.
Along the way we had to drive thorough a dry wadi to bypass a collapsed bridge. CF had destroyed it early in the conflict as part of the shock and awe campaign. The mayor pointed out that it was not very shocking and inspired little awe since this particular bridge was so isolated and it was relatively easy to drive around. I don’t know much about bridges and as I looked at the supports I could not tell how easy it would be to repair the structure, but I am not sure they need a bridge there at all. I suppose that is why there is no urgency about making repairs. On the rare occasions when it rains, the wadi would be impassible for a couple of hours, but I bet culverts could take care of that.
We met the local sheik and his entourage when we got to Nathara. The imam also showed up. We had not expected him because he was reportedly sick, but he insisted that when he heard about our visit he had to come to see his friends. He evidently has some kind of bronchitis, but didn’t seem very sick and whatever ailed him did not interfere with his socializing. He greeted our Chaplin very warmly and with genuine affection. They spoke a little about Christianity, Islam and Judaism all being Abrahamic religions making all of us brothers. This brotherhood thing is very important around here. It is used fairly loosely and I am uncertain of its real significance.
The Marines took the opportunity to set up a local health screening. Iraqis do not have access to much heath care. Even the rich sheiks like to get American medical opinions. The poorer people we served on this visit may never have seen a competent doctor. Men brought in their sons. A big challenge is women’s health. That is why we brought female doctors. This is a conservative area and women are not allowed to talk to strangers. Colonel Malay asked the local sheik and the neighborhood imam to help get women to come. Both promised to do what they could, cautioning however that women might choose not to come. The imam even promised to preach re during Friday services in his mosque, but we don’t expect a high turnout.
Below is stonework in the buildings.
The imam mentioned that he personally could use a checkup and maybe some medication to help with his breathing problem.
Villagers were friendly and local leaders are supportive of the Marines, who they know protect them from insurgent attacks. They told us that they recognize any outsiders trying to infiltrate into their area and report what they know. Bad guys are still hanging around in the deserts and the wadis and some are crossing the borders. The vast distances and sparse population make this a good place to hide, but the atmosphere is much improved.
Local authorities were anxious to talk to me because they knew that our ePRT had helped with wells and animal health in nearby places. I will ask Dennis to assess potential here, but my own observations tell me that we will not be able to do very much. A short observation of the local soils and topography did not make me sanguine re the prospects. The land falls off in all directions from the place we were standing and a look at the map does not reveal any likely sources for an aquifer. Dennis told me that there is indeed water in the area, but it probably not sufficient and it is 250-300 meters down. Beyond that, the water to the west is evidently so full of dissolved salts that it is brackish and unsuitable for consumption. The soil looks okay, seems to have a lot of iron, but it is just dry dust. It would be wrong to say that there is not a blade of grass, but there is not much more than that.
This situation in Iraq’s western desert is emblematic of a coming world crisis in water. It is just more acute here sooner. In the 1940s, Iraq had a population of less than five million. The land and its water resources could sustain a population that big. Now there are twenty-eight million Iraqis and the population is expanding fast, fastest out here in the western deserts where there is not much to drink even in a wet year – which we see only once in every 5-7 seasons. The population of sheep and goats has expanded along with the population. The number of animals is well above the carrying capacity. We can advise on improvements and make things better, but trying to find more water for more sheep as well as more people and more irrigation is not a sustainable solution in the long run in all places.
The natural condition of this desert is to be mostly empty. There is little here that would attract population and maybe it should stay that way. Don’t get me wrong. I firmly believe in making improvements. Some parts of our AO cry out for just a little water and some smart agriculture. Along the WERV there are Eden-like places that could supply high quality fruits and vegetables sustainably and in very large quantities. All they need is the initial investments and better management. The high desert we were in yesterday is not such a place. Sometimes you need to recognize what shouldn’t be done.
All that said, we CAN help with a well and we probably will. It will enhance Nathara’s prospects at least a short time. Perhaps it will buy enough time for the people to make an adjustment. No, I don’t think so easier, but hope is trumping experience. On the plus side, one of the local leaders complained that the sheep herds were significantly smaller and that people were being forced to sell off large parts of their herds. Of course, that is exactly what must happen. I regret that hardship is creating this solution, but it is nonetheless the right direction.
Below is not Iraq. That is lake Michigan, Grant Park in South Milwaukee Lots of water and very pretty. I just put that in for contrast and because I like it.
When you are “in charge” of the helicopter, you get to wear the goofy hat. I caught the CH46 to Ramadi to consult with the PRT there and to deliver our agriculture advisor Dennis and our rule of law advisor Burt Brasher to meetings. The advantage is that if I go we can get same day service, i.e. we can leave in the morning and come back the same evening AND we can leave from the Ripper landing zone, all of which makes life a lot easier for us. I get this special treatment because my SFS/SES1 rank is finally paying off. I am the highest ranking USG civilian in the AO. Of course there are not many of us around here.
I will try to use the one-day service once a week. We can bring several members of the team to each engagement and get many of our appointments done at the same time and then get them back to AA. This will save us literally day of waiting at landing zones & sleeping in those interesting advance bases. We – almost everybody on my staff – are getting a little old for that sort of thing. It will give me better opportunity to do the oversight and diplomacy job I am supposed to do.
Until now I got to use priority assets only when I went with Colonel Malay or with one of the generals. These are always great opportunities and I think I add value to the delegation but it will be good to be able to deploy our ePRT resources independent of other people’s travel when appropriate.
Stories that begin with somebody winning the big lottery usually end sadly. I suppose it has to do with the corrupting power of unearned/unexpected wealth and the frailties of human nature. Oil wealth can be as bad as a lottery win because not only does it often shoot more money into a country than it can usefully absorb, but it also empowers governments and encourages both centralization and corrupting patronage.
Let me hasten to say that I am speaking only my opinion and it is not based on any special knowledge, but as we see Iraq’s oil revenue jumping from around $20 billion under Saddam to $70+billion today. I fear we may have a lottery winner.
Oil revenues past helped destroyed Iraqi agriculture and retarded local initiative. It doesn’t make intuitive sense that good fortune could be such a curse, but the influx of so much easy money crowds out other endeavors. It cheapens hard work. The lottery winner feels like a chump if he keeps on working just as hard. Local initiative is stifled more directly, as money from the central government supplants local funding until the only guys left standing are those from Baghdad.
Oil wealth also creates a feeling of entitlement. People think they deserve “their” share and start getting angry when that share is too small in their opinion … and eventually it always is too small. It really is true that money cannot buy happiness and bribing people with gifts is a losing proposition. Over the long run (or even the not so long run), resentment & irritation always trump gratitude and satisfaction in these sorts of uneven relationships.
All this is much beyond my pay grade and since I have no ability to influence the outcome, I feel free to speculate. Take it for what it is worth. I think it is a stroke of good, but dangerous luck that Iraq is taking in so much more oil revenue. The money will allow Iraqi to rebuild and recover from the damage done by so many years of war and mismanagement. The caveat is that the oil wealth helped create the mismanagement and waste in the first place. To adapt an old saying, to err is human, but to really screw up you need the steroid power of oil wealth.
I hope that Iraq will spend that windfall on infrastructure upgrading and maintaining what they already have. There are certainly many places that could use such investments. Infrastructure investments that do not include governmental management of the economy are usually a good thing. Another thing that could be usefully done is to distribute revenues directly to the people, like the State of Alaska does. This is not perfect, but it gets some of the money out of the control of the bureaucrats. I fear there will be pressures to “do something positive” such as subsidize the dinosaur state owned enterprises and spread patronage from the central government. Actually, I suppose it will be a mix of both hope and fear. Let’s hope the hopeful part predominates.
Below are the date palms at our oasis. We have been having a little dust lately. This picture was taken at the middle of the day.
Iraq has 12-16 million date palms. This is down from 30 million in the pre-Saddam times but it still makes Iraq the world’s largest producer of dates. In Western Anbar, however, dates are not producing properly this year. Dennis and I did a local check out in the grove in our oasis and could not find even one producing tree. We are trying to figure out how the extent of the problem why it is happening and what Iraqis can do about it. Last year’s crop was good. Even a partial failure of the date crop would be a big problem, so we are very interested is making accurate assessments.
In the longer term, there is a lot Iraqis can do to improve their date production. Some of the techniques they currently use go back to Babylonian times. They are not wrong, but could use some adjustments. Most of these improvements would be easy and organic. For example, planting a cover crop of ladino clover under the trees would help control water absorption and regulate humidity, as well as improve soil. Another management fix is to plant the proper mix of male and female trees. Date palms have gender. Each male tree can pollinate around fifty palms. Pollen is distributed by wind so location makes a difference. It is also useful to plant the male trees on the sunnier part of the grove. Of course there are also the issue of irrigation scheduled to avoid salinity, better genetic quality of palms and modern use of nutrients. Iraqi farmers need to learn some of the new techniques and often relearn some of the more traditional ones.
Dennis also did a field survey of around 10,000 donum (6,000 acres) of irrigated farmland in the Ubaydi area of the Al Qaim district. Things have fallen apart. The tragedy is how easy it would be to remedy the situation IF it could be properly managed. For example, a twenty foot section of a pipe that draws water from the Euphrates is broken. The system could be fixed for a few hundred dollars and an afternoon’s work. Unfortunately the people farming the land don’t own it. The owner is no where to be found. Word is that they have left the country and the uncertainty is freezing developments.
There is also the problem of bureaucratic inertia. In all our districts we find warehouses full of agricultural equipment and fertilizers local farmers need, but bureaucrats representing the authorities are unwilling or unable to release. Some of it related to the problem of who should get it and the land tenure problems I mentioned above complicate every solution. Our ePRT is trying to broken agreements, but our work is made awkward by our incomplete understanding. I am not sure that anybody really knows the answer, but we are looking hard.
There are some things we can and have done on our own initiative. For example, we equipped an agricultural laboratory that will help with things like soil analysis. We are also looking to fund some solar powered water pumps and a we are helping buy some tractor for an equipment rental operation.
In ancient times, Iraq was a phenomenally rich agricultural region. It will be again after we all pass through this rough patch.
Below is part of village in the Abu Hyatt region just outside one of our camps. Not a pleasant place, IMO, but I guess people like the place they live and get used to it after a while. The stone work is kind of interesting. When you fly over these places, you see some patches of green that are not evident from ground level, so it is not as bad as it looks. (reminds me of what MarkTwain said re German opera – it is better than it sounds. Actually, I like the music where the fat lady sings, but the comment is funny.) Nevertheless, despite all the beauty contained in the various shades of khaki, when I leave Iraq this fall I will not come back. Some people like deserts and they can have them. I like trees and grass too much.
Abu Hyatt was still hot and dangerous when I arrived in Iraq eight months ago. Insurgents and terrorists passed through it and used it as a sort of safe haven. RCT 2 made cleaning it up a priority and RCT 5 has followed up. Today it enjoys a tentative stability. People are returning and rebuilding. A representative from Abu Hyatt sits on the regional board and our ePRT is working on projects and public diplomacy to help solidify the gains.
Sixteen villages comprise the district. Most of the people work in agriculture. They grow dates and citrus, fodder crops and sunflowers. Of course, there are the usual sheep. Some people also work at the local refinery at K3.
Since it so recently came out of its time of troubles, Abu Hyatt still suffers a lot of insurgent related damage. The Marines are repairing schools and bridges, but there are some problems that were around before the late unpleasantness. One challenge is clean water. We are helping install some solar powered water purification systems in one of the villages. If it works well, more can be installed; we are eager to share our experience and expertise, but prefer using Iraqi funds for the next steps.
One thing working well is our application system. It is a form of intellectual property that helps us and helps the Iraqis. We want to ensure that all the projects our ePRT funds are worthy and sustainable, but it is hard for us properly to vet all of them. To address this, we developed an application process, which we make available in easy step-by-step form in both English and Arabic. It requires the approval of those who will actually make the project work and requires that the Iraqi side make significant contributions in kind, labor or money. We also want to ensure that the Iraqi authorities are not planning to do the project already. Many would prefer to spend our money before they dip into their own pockets. This makes it harder.
Our application system also puts the onus on the Iraqis to organize. I don’t like the idea of going to visit someone and just getting a list of demands or needs. We get a lot more done and a lot more respect when we work as partners not mere providers. We do not fund most projects, but our contacts have told us that the organizing and planning they have done to prepare the proposal helps them make priorities and proposals for their own authorities to consider and fund, so the process has the salutary effect of providing real world, hands-on training.
Iraqis are competent people. We should treat them that way, which means requiring them to hold up their side.
I also got an interesting insight re Iraqi officials. I just had not thought about it, but after the fall of Saddam the highest ranking officials lost their jobs and were barred from coming back. Some of these were bad guys, who got what they had coming. Others were just technocrats. In any case, they were the ones with the experience and insight to run things. Often we had to go down to the third or forth tier of leadership to find a politically correct guy to run things. Some of these guys just needed an opportunity; others had been third or forth tier for good reason. In any case, it is taking Iraqis some time to develop or redevelop the capacity for bureaucratic leadership.
Sometimes the most useful thing we can do is not give money, but rather the stimulus to exercise leadership and provide some methods that help develop it.
Some things speak for themselves; this requires a bit of explanation. If you are squeamish, please read no further. I don’t want to offend anyone.
The things that most affect the quality of life are often little ones and just as often things we rarely talk about. Bathroom issues score high on both counts. Those easily grossed out can skip the rest of my musing on this subject, but it is an important one.
We live pretty well on the FOB. We have an excellent chow hall and bathrooms that are fully functional, if a little constrained. This is not the case universally. If you are at one of the smaller bases, you are lucky to have one of those plastic port-a-potties and your chow is not so good and sometimes in short supply, at least the hot main courses. Sometimes you are not lucky enough even to get these luxuries and you are reduced to MREs (boxed meals you cook yourself) and “wag bag” toilets.
The wag bag is exactly what the name implies. You are allowed only to go #2, since otherwise the bag would be even grosser to handle and dispose of by burning. You can see from the picture that the facilities are makeshift plywood. It is not good.
As long as you are with me so far, I can also tell you that the local guys don’t use the sit down toilets at all. They prefer a hole in the ground. If you go to a local toilet, you see a porcelain hole with a couple of places to put your feet. It might still flush, but it doesn’t work well. We in the Western world owe a great debt to Thomas Crapper, who did so much to popularize the flush toilet we know and love.
We have a small but significant problem in our own facilities, as non-U.S. contractors prefer to squat on top of our toilets. They break the seats and that is why you see the incongruous sign, “do not stand on toilets” posted on the walls.
Above is just us going back to our convoy after a visit to one of the outlying posts.
I did catch that flight to Kuwait, but it was diverted to Ballad, where we all got off as the plane did some kind of medivac. In Ballad, I heard that there was a flight to Al Asad with a 0325 show time, so I went to try to get on that flight. I got on the waiting list, but at show time they told us that this flight would be for freight only. No passengers.
The next flight to AA was on Wednesday, but I thought that was the best I could do, so I decided to look for some temporary billeting. Unfortunately, the guy I asked, although very nice, directed me to general camp billeting. It was a long way off, but I found it with the help of a guy in a pickup truck. When I got there, they told me that I could not get that sort of billeting and that I needed to return to the air terminal and get temporary quarters.
I asked the woman at billeting how to get back to the terminal. She very helpfully pointed out the door toward a light shimmering in the pre-dawn gloom through the dust. She told me to go toward the light and I did.
The Texas barrier below are at AA, but they look the same everywhere.
It is very depressing to walk around these places. There are lots of sandbags and Texas barriers. A Texas barrier is one of those concrete free standing walls. It is like the smaller Jersey barrier you see along roads at airports, but it is around ten feet high. In the gloom of night, they make you feel very constrained. I wondered if I would ever get back and mentally kicked myself in the keister for just not staying put.
It was longer walk back w/o the help of the pickup truck guy, but I found my way through the dark and got to the building at about the time it started to get light.
To my surprise, the guys I had come in with still had not left. They had evidently been having even a more frustrating experience than I had. While I was walking around Ballad, they were going to the flight line on buses and then coming back. I was able to get in line again, just as though I had never left, and get on the plane for Kuwait.
The people at the terminal were very helpful in this bad situation. Of course, they had taken me off the list when I told them I was going to AA, but they put me back on when I explained my sad story. I notice the woman suppressed a smile. I didn’t really mind. It was kind of funny and I am sure I looked comical. I had been just about everywhere around the base and in the end I finished exactly where I would have been if I never left. To me, that was a victory. I was back on the bus.
The flight to Kuwait was uneventful. I arrived and finished processing through just in time to miss the chow hall, which closes at 8 am. I put myself on the waiting list for a flight to AA. The next flight had show time of 2035. I got on w/o incident. We finally were off at a little past midnight and got to AA around 0200.
I knew we were back in AA as the back of the C130 opened allowing a cloud of dust to come into the plane. I caught the shuttle bus back to Camp Ripper. It is funny how much the old can feels like home.
Below is our new office space.
We are also out of the tents and back in the offices. My office is actually very nice now. They put in central air and plugged up a lot of holes, so the dust doesn’t get in as easily. The office where my colleagues sit now has a couple of Plexiglas windows, so they have some natural light.
Below is my new office – sweet.
Well, back to the old routine with somewhat better surroundings
Our significant task for the summer & fall will be to help Iraqis hold free & fair provincial elections. It is a narrow path for us to walk. The elections clearly belong to the Iraqis and it is important for them really to be theirs AND be perceived as theirs by all the world and the people of Iraq. On the other hand, we can provide experience as well as technical and security support that will make the elections fairer, safer and more generally more successful. We can easily help too much or too little. Actually I don’t think there is a Goldilocks “just right” solution. We will get criticized no matter what result and we just have to accept that we will get much of the blame and none of the credit and be ready for it to happen.
Preparations for the elections will begin in earnest on July 15. We still are not sure of the date of the elections themselves. They could be as early as October 1 or as late as December. There is a lot to do. The Iraqis do not have accurate census numbers for their local populations, so making accurate voting lists will be difficult. When you consider the significant trouble we Americans, with hundreds of years of experience, have with the practical job of holding election, you can imagine what the Iraqis are in for.
The people of Anbar are very enthusiastic about voting and I expect a big turnout. They largely boycotted the 2005 elections and they learned a valuable lesson about Democracy: non-participation doesn’t work. They will not make that mistake again.
The Anbaris have also come to believe in the power of the people to make changes. Their belief and enthusiasm is a refreshing antidote to the pessimism that says “these people” are not ready for democracy. They will get what democracy provides. In the words of Winston Churchill, “democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
I prefer the first past the post form of elections, the one we have in the U.S. where every elected official represents a specific district and whoever gets the most votes wins. Our system, however, is considered old fashioned by much of the democratic world. The part most often criticized is what I consider the key to our stability and prosperity. Our winners take all approach forces compromise. A group that wins less than a plurality of the votes has only one right. They can try to get more votes next time. That means they have to change their platform to appeal to more people or give up.
Making elections proportional (e.g. 10% of the opinion gets around 10% of the authority) is in theory a fairer way to go, but it has often been the road to ruin when candidates win by a plurality that is significantly a majority (50 %+) of the votes. Adolph Hitler and Salvador Allende, among others, were elected by only about a third of the voters, for example. Extremists can often fool some of the people all of the time, but they have a harder time fooling a majority. A U.S. style system excludes them. Proportional representation gets their foot in the door. But I am being old fashioned. “Our” system tends to predominate in Britain and former British colonies. Other places not so much.
The Iraqi election system resembles those of continental Europe or Latin America. I suppose that is a necessary component in a country as diverse as this one. It has some complications designed to make it “fairer”. Let me explain it as simply as I can.
A province gets twenty-five delegates for the first 500,000 people and then one additional for each 200,000 people over that number. This is an advantage to Anbar, with a relatively low population, since it gets a little extra representation. You could say it is like our system in the respect that if favors the small. Wyoming has a population of around 515,000. It has two senators and so does California with a population of almost 37,000,000.
Anbar has a population of around 1.3 million, so it will get 29 seats. All members are “at large” i.e. they do not represent a particular distraction. Candidates run both as individuals and as party members. This is how it works in an easy math example.
Stipulate that there are 100 voters and ten seats available. The election commission determines that a candidate needs 10 votes to win a seat. Anybody who individually wins 10 votes wins a seat. But some candidate might win 20 votes. His “extra” votes are transferred to his party to bring up the total of another of his party’s candidates. They has a similar system in Brazil when I was there for my first post. It enhances the power of political parties over candidates and one very popular candidate can pull up a lot of marginal ones, so you don’t always know who you are voting for, but it sort of works.
We are not quite done yet. There is a proposal that at least 25% of the representatives be women. In this case, the election commission would determine the number needed and then replace the lowest winning males with the highest losing females until they got the numbers they wanted.
Complicated as this all seems, it looks like it will produce an outcome that at least will approximate “consent of the governed”. Nevertheless, a great deal of uncertainty remains. Working in this ambiguous situation will be tough, but I guess that is why we get those big bucks.
I think we all are honored by the opportunity to see and be a small part of democracy at work in the Middle East.
We drove from Jerash a dozen kilometers and eight centuries to the castle at Ajloun. It was built in 1184 by the Muslims to secure local iron mines and as a counter to the Crusader castle at Belvoir, across the plains. They say you can see Belvoir from Ajloun, but the day was a little too hazy in that direction for that, or maybe we didn’t look in the right spot. If you notice the picture up top is very clear sky. That is looking NE. I don’t know why there was so much haze to the west.
Ajloun never fulfilled its original purpose. Saladin defeated the Crusaders at the battle of the Horns of Hattin in 1189, which was the beginning of their expulsion from the region. Castles are interesting to look at and sometimes beautiful, but it is well to remember that they were part of a military technology. Before the advent of accurate cannon, it was very difficult to capture a well defended castle. It was a real force multiplier and also a potent psychological symbol of the power and control.
This castle looks like others I have seen. It is a little less sophisticated than those I saw in Poland or Germany since it is an earlier version than most of those. The most sophisticated castle I have ever seen in the Teutonic Knight’s castle at Malbork in Northern Poland. That one is made of bricks, however, not stone.
below are some pines on the landscape. I think they are Turkish or Alleppo pines, but I am not very good at identifying such species. Some of them almost look like my loblolly pines.
Ajloun is situated on a hilltop with wonderful views of the surrounding area. The area here is semi-arid, but it supports olive, apricot and pistachio groves as well as significant pine forests. As you can see from the pictures, it is a pleasant countryside.
As I write this, the pleasant countryside is a pleasant memory. I am on my way back to Al Asad. Right now I am stuck in Baghdad, in the Internet café waiting. I have learned that I cannot get a flight to AA until Tuesday and then I have to go a circuitous route, on rotary wing, so I figure there will certainly be a dust storm somewhere to strand me in some shit hole along the way. I have decided to go down to Kuwait instead. I have a good chance of getting there tonight and then I have a better chance of catching a fixed wing flight to Al Asad. The longer way sometimes leads faster home. Wish me luck. It is going to be a long trip no matter what.
I am looking forward to getting back to work at Al Asad. The work is usually interesting, even if conditions are sometimes challenging. There is still a lot for me to do in my last months. I read the news about improvements in Iraq. Casualties are way down for both Iraqis and Americans. I think we are going to succeed here in Iraq put we have to finish our job and I have to finish mine. Less than four months to do. Hard to believe. Time flies when you are having fun.
