Why I Love My Job, Reason 142-148

"Here is my paperwork for CAC card renewal-do you take this?" I ask.
"Yes," she says, taking the paperwork from me. There is a pause, as her eyes get big. "Oh, you don't have the correct paperwork here!"
"I brought what I was told to bring."
"Oh, no, no. This is just not right," she gasped, now standing.
"OK, so what do I need?"
"You will need a copy of your passport, travel orders, and CAC card."
"OK, but I don't have that here. I'll have to come back," I say, feeling the familiar dread in the pit of my stomach that forwarns yet another simple task becoming a shit-fest right before my eyes.

The next day, I return with what I think is the proper paperwork. "Here," I say, proudly holding out the growing stack of paperwork, feeling uncomfortably like I am seeking approval.
She smiles, taking the paperwork. "Thanks." She continues to flip through the paperwork. "Oh, no. This is not right."
"What?"
"I asked for copies of your travel orders."
"They are there!"
"No, this is the blank one that everyone has."
"That is the one that is always checked!"
"No, I need the one that you came over with."
"I'm not sure I still have that one..." knowing that I probably do, but resenting the whole process and hating her more each minute.
"Check with Nancy, they can get the file."

The next day, I return again, hopeful. It doesn't take long for HR to crush all hope. "Here you go," I look at her, she slowly rises from her desk, now suspicious of me.
"No, you need a copy of your CAC card."
"It is right there," I say, pointing at the copy.
"No, you need to have a copy of both sides of it."
"You didn't tell me that."
"You should have known," she proclaims, handing back my stack of paperwork.
"How?"
She doesn't answer. I walk off, looking for a copier. As I approach, I see that in this building, I am not allowed to make my own copies. There seems to be a waiting list, with a dozen names ahead of me.
Fuck.

I come back the next day. "Here you go!"
She takes the stack. "Oh, no..."
"God."
"You don't have your address on this."
"You didn't ask for it."
"You should have known."
"Why do you need the address?"
She is suddenly defensive. "Military asks for it...see?" She holds out the completed application.
"OK, may I?" I take back one of the copies, writing in an address. "OK?"
"OK." She returns to her desk, looking through her email.
"So what do I do now?"
"You should know. I'll send you an email with the completed form."
"So all this was just for a form?"
"Yes. You'll take the form to the military, and they will process your CAC card."
"Why couldn't I just fill out the form myself?"
"Because HR fills it out for you."
"To streamline the process, I bet..."



Dodgeball today at 4PM! Everyone is invited!
I open the email. Well, at least it is no longer mandatory. There is the YES list, the MAYBE list, and the NO list. I am on the NO list.
I ask Bill, "Can you remove me from the dodgeball email list?"
"No."
"Why?"
"You are part of the team."
Fuck.



"I need to ask you two to do something," Joey asks.
"Yeah, what can we do for you?" Bob replies.
"GC says that the timesheets have to be centralized."
"No, do we have to?" I fill with dread. The old camp manager had required this. But it required us remembering to stop by another trailer to fill it out before we head to our hooch at night, a task that I consistently forgot to do. Timesheets are a unique entity. You can do almost everything, but God, don't fuck with the timesheets. We have timesheet training, timesheet refresher, advanced timesheet training, site specific timesheet training, timesheet training for the new task order. Don't fuck with the timesheets. They have to be filled out just so. A whole fleet of employees says so. A whole fleet of employees checks them. And another fleet checks them. And then government compliance checks us all. God, don't fuck with the timesheets.

Each morning, the Bosnian Ops guy would take my timesheet and hide it from me, running copies of my serious mistakes and handing it to the powers that be each morning. I was a chronic timesheet lackey. If it is with me, which it always has been (and that has worked fine), then I remember to fill it out each night. If it is across the courtyard, in a trailer I never enter, I don't remember to fill it out. God forbid. They have to be filled out EACH NIGHT, they would apoplectically announce. So every morning, I had to find the mad Bosnian timesheet police, in yet another trailer, and beg for it back, while he scolded me for not filling it in on time. "One more time and you will be written up," he would sternly say.
"Will you send me home?"
Fuck.



"Joey, if what they want is compliance, I am compliant with it right under my computer, where I have to see it every day. If I put it over there, I'll forget."
"GC says it is policy."
"No, it is not. I checked on this before. This was just someone's courtesy, and they turned it into an order. Do we have to?"
"I've been asked to have everyone do it."
"Are you asking or telling us?"
"Probably telling."
"Probably?"
"Telling."
Fuck.



"We're here to speak to you about some documents," I say cheerily.
"Documents?"
"Yes, we were here last month, and we were waiting for some documents." I hand him the forms.
"We don't have these. You'll have to see the Chief at Regional. But you won't get them. I've never seen them, and you don't need them."
"No, I don't have to see him. You are supposed to have them on site."
"What you don't seem to understand is that we are strategic partners. We don't have to give you anything. We plan out our days, and you drop by with no notice..."
"We don't have to give notice," Bob says.
"...and expect us to drop everything..."

I look around. Five men are in the kitchen drinking coffee. The Captain and another man are on the couch, doing nothing.

"Well, we were here last month, and we requested some documents. Do you have them?" I ask, trying to get this train wreck back on track.
"We don't have to give them to you. And we're not."
"You don't need to be hostile."
"Hostile. Lady..."
"Yes, I am just trying to get some information."
"You need to leave. You have no right to be here. You people don't get it. You just never get it, do you?" He is sneering now. "And you come in here, just walk right in. Who do you think you are?"
"We should go, Bob." I stand up.
"Feel free to talk to my Chief."
"His name was?" Bob asks.
"I have told you four times what his name was."
"Tell me five."
"And your name is?"
"OK, what is your name?" I ask.
"Finch. Make sure you spell it right. You can spell, right?"
"We should go, Bob."
"You can spell, right? You got it? You got my name? Make sure you write it down."
Fuck.



"What does he want on this fucking report?" I ask Bob.
"I don't know. He just sends them back for no reason. He'll never tell you."
"How am I supposed to know what to correct?"
"You can guess, then send it in again."
"I've already done that four times."
"He bounced mine back five."
"I keep asking him, but he won't tell me what is wrong with it. I don't see anything wrong. I've spent two hours guessing and sending it back and forth. Why won't he just say what the hell he wants?"

"OK, I don't get it. What do you want on this?"
"I thought that was clear just by my sending it to you. Unfortunately many people don't have the ability to read a sentence and formulate a question using the same sentence. Also unfortunately, many people think that they are perfect and like to track changes. The tag is not to be used. It doesn't go well professionally when changes are made and the others are reading the reports and the tracked change tag appears."
"I understand. Thanks. However, in one conversation, you have managed to imply that the people that work for you are: 1. Stupid 2. Illiterate 3. Arrogant 4. Unprofessional. Probably not the best thing for morale, don't you think?"
Fuck.



"DCMA meeting today," the email says. "It is your place to be there."
"My place?"
"Place of physical presence, as in; be there…"
Well, at least I know my place.
Fuck.

The Strange Case of the Turkish Drag Queens

Walking around the streets of Istanbul, I kept seeing these strange displays in the windows. Their freakish little faces were smiling, frozen, staring blankly. They proudly wore a hat, usually with a feather, and had all manner of quasi-royal regalia: sceptre, cape, and more glitter than I have seen since Mardi Gras 1994. In these displays, it was always a group of boys that were tarted up like mini drag queens, and the thought occurred to me that there are only a few events in a boy's life that are deserving of such ritualistic attire (baptism, circumcision, coming of age, weddings). Hmmm. The boys are too young here for marriage, too old for baptism.

Could it be?

The question nagged at me. Each corner store had these displays. One of the stalls in the Bazaar had a nice selection of mini DQ's in red regalia. The grocery store had a selection of younger DQ's in blue regalia. What the heck was this? It certainly seemed to be a depiction of some common ceremony.

I never did find out until I was leaving Turkey. In one of those unique alignments of the cosmos, there was an article in the in-flight mag on the plane about the "circumcision ceremony," with an attached picture of smiling little boys marching along in matching DQ outfits. Interesting. But these costumes seem to be for older boys, surely they can't.......

Yes they can. The Turkish circumcision ceremony is done when a boy is between 6 and 9, and is done without anesthetic. The boy is dressed up in his cape and glitter, and then placed between an older man's legs (someone who is designated as his Godfather). A circumciser whacks the ole you-know-what. The boy is then rested on pillows and given gifts (morphine would work, in my opinion), while the family celebrates (I imagine, knowing the dark hearts of most women, that they perhaps celebrate more than the males in the family). This ceremony is done in the spring, so the poor kid has time to recover before school starts. I have no idea how long it takes to recover from the psychic scars.

If you Google turkey circumcision (I am surprised that the filter on my computer lets me, and even more surprised that I did not get diverted to some sort of Thanksgiving sex site), you get alot of anti-abuse sites. Apparently, this practice is fairly bloody and is not always done hygienically in the remote villages of Turkey. And though it is done in the cities by someone who has some medical background, this is not always so in the outlying areas-some men have taken to profiting by charging parents for this, they have no training and they literally use a dirty knife. So there is debate about the whole ritual. However, the Turks consider this to be a coming of age ritual, and the first ceremony in the transition to Muslim manhood. Who knows. Got to respect the culture, though, even though we might question it. However, when you think of it, are our methods any better? We take solace in the fact that we circumcise the newborn, believing that somehow their screams are less traumatic.

All I can say is that I have a new appreciation for Turkish men.

The Ultimate Cultural Divisor

There are a few things in life that define us. Our food, our attire, our beliefs as a society. But when you really look at what divides this world, it is not our beliefs. It is our toilets.

Most Americans have no conception that there are other versions of the venerable crapper in existence. I first pondered this some years ago, while sitting at a Denny's, where all my significant revelations occurred at the time. Across the very busy six lane street was a drainage ditch, adjacent to a gas station. As I sat vacantly staring out the window, I saw an Asian man pull down his pants, and take a crap right there in the ditch.

Now, in the part of the world that I am from, we have a fair amount of Asians. They have arrived for decades, from Viet Nam, Japan, Korea, China. At one point, they arrived by the boatload, refugees of yet another political misadventure in their homeland. So we are used to Asians, they are the backdrop of our northwestern lives. Yet I had never seen one, fresh off the plane, drop and do, so to speak. My mouth dropped open, I breathlessly pointed, the vision so disturbing to my neatly ordered, Tidy American life.

My SO calmly explained that this behavior is indeed normal in "those parts of the world." The thought rattled around in my head, bouncing, unable to be filed away. This was years ago, and I still remember it clearly, still remember my horror, still can feel the shift of the world and the consequent dizziness as I first considered that other people, uh, performed body functions differently than we did.

Fast forward to Dubai, October 2004. Landing at the airport at 1AM, we are disoriented, exhausted, assaulted by the brightness of the airport. Men in ghotras and women in abayas seemingly drift along the aisleways, their unholy feet invisible. Military uniforms pace back and forth, lending a heavy air of looming imprisonment to the immigration area. I sneak off to the restroom to wash the sweat from my face, and act that automatically identifies me as a Tidy American.

All the stalls except the one on the end are in use. So I head down to the one on the end, and recoil in horror that it is merely a hole in the floor. My mind spins. What? How? Why? As one does, I tried to fit into some schema that made sense. I could not. A hole in the floor! My God! A hole in the floor!!

Welcome to the other side of the world, girl.

Back in my Tidy American life, I refuse to use gas station restrooms. Consistently too dirty. And in the pre-gas-station-as-central-shopping-stop world, the dirty restrooms had the added creepiness of always being next to the garage, where several beer-bellied men half covered in grease resided, surely peering through a hole and watching you do things that people should not watch you do. Nope. Won't go there. Much prefer to visit a McDonald's (note: not a Burger King, never). Always cleaner, and in the best ones, you can see yourself in the reflection off the toilet bowl. Yes, it gives me great pleasure to see my water-distorted face in the brilliant bowl of Mickey D's, the Tidy American that I am.

However, I must say with some pride that I am a hearty woman. Camping does not scare me. Nor do long road trips. Though I do not visit dirty bathrooms, I have absolutely no problem with taking a leak in the great outdoors (several truck drivers in Texas will attest to that). Squeamish, I am not. Not, at least, until I saw that hole in the ground that the other half of the world had the audacity to call a toilet.

I stumbled backward, nearly falling, pointing down at the hole. There's a hole there! Where's the toilet? I looked around the bathroom, wide-eyed, trying to keep my wits and look like a world traveler but knowing at that moment that there was no fooling anyone. My eyes met another woman's, an Arab, who briefly glanced at me, then lowered her eyes to the floor, as they are prone to doing. Are they all like that??? Finally, another woman exited one of the stalls, and I slipped in behind her. Thank God. I sat, rejoicing in the coolness of the porcelein on my Big American Ass, collecting my thoughts. This international travel thing is more stressful than it should be, that's for sure. Now, what is that hose for? OMG. Where is the toilet paper????



One of the issues that first emerged working in Iraq was related to toilets. Many TCNs are employed on the bases, and they, as you would expect, are not used to using the Western toilets that ship with a Tidy American workforce. I can imagine now, looking back, that they greeted our Western toilets with the same type of horror that I greeted the Asian toilets (hereafter referred to as the Death Hole...will explain later). Iraq is an adjustment for us all.

We got complaints that the toilets were not being cleaned adequately. Upon further investigation, we discovered that some of the TCNs would stand on the toilet, crouched down, the way they were used to using the Death Hole. Needless to say, some excrement was frequently deposited on the toilet seat, usually in a neat little steaming pile, thus rendering the entire facility useless to the Tidy Americans. Was a mystery at first: the neat, steaming piles seemed to be some sort of political protest of unknown origin, causing considerable consternation to both Ops and Security. But we finally figured out what was happening after much hand-wringing, several emergency meetings (with the requisite full-color PowerPoint presentations), and a fair amount of culturally-sensitive brainstorming. We are, after all, pretty good at our jobs...

Simultaneously, we were confronted with yet another toilet issue. No one had apparently considered that the rest of the world doesn't use toilet paper (for those fellow Tidy Americans who are shocked by this, see reference above to the hose...). Don't see the problem with this? Neither did the entire US military. That is, until we had backed up every sewage system in the country (and it didn't take long). Iraqi sewage systems were never engineered with TP in mind. Nope. The pipes are too small. The treatment facilities (what is left of them) are undersized. So, after we had plugged them all up and roto-rootered them for the thousandth time, we had hard buildings that had to be posted as TP Free Zones.

But since we are creatures of habit, we cannot expect the Tidy Americans to suddenly adopt ritualistic ablution. So, one of the odd things that you will see in our world is a separate bin for used TP next to the Baghdad toilets. Yup. Use it, don't flush it. Nice on a hot day, which, BTW, is pretty much every day. But not to worry!!! We Americans have hired TCNs to dump our bins of used TP in the TP Free Zones, so we never have to dirty our Tidy American hands with it. Whew.


Flashback to Dubai, January 2004. David and I had just landed from our first trip out of Baghdad since our arrival. Of course, we head to the bathroom in the terminal. As I enter the small, two stall women's restroom, I am confronted by six women in large patent leather boots, wool sweaters that drop past their knees, flower-print skirts, and wildly clashing scarves. They are definitely Not From Here. One lady, probably 85, has removed her patent leather boots, and has a leg hiked up into the sink, and is apparently bathing. In front of each stall door is a woman with a death grip on the top of the door, holding it securely closed. One woman smiles at me. She has no teeth. I smile back. I have a full set. She seems confused.

I make a vain attempt at conversation. Many in the UAE speak English. But this group speaks none, not a lick. I wildly swing my hands, trying to pantomime "globe" to them, trying to figure out where the hell they are from, since it is now apparent to me that they have never been to a public restroom before. They do not understand how to flush the toilet, nor close and latch the stall doors. Both women inside the stalls are apparently trapped inside, and there is much animated discussion from the lady standing outside the stall door, who herself does not understand how to unlatch the door. The ladies inside have managed to pretty much spray down everything inside the stalls, including themselves. I have no idea whether they managed to actually pee, but everything in sight was wet. They finally emerge, one second before I pee my pants, shoeless, damp and smiling. I smile back. The old lady at the sink struggles to turn off the water, with her foot still in the basin. She is extremely flexible. I smile at her. She nods her head and smiles her toothless grin. I envy her flexibility.


Fast forward to Dubai, September 2005. Returning from Istanbul, it was 1AM, I was dead tired, and about ten 747's had just landed. Immigration was crazy, filled with thousands of hot and smelly people in various types of native garb. I ran to the bathroom, big mistake. The line was long, by the time I got to the stall I was rocking from foot to foot squeezing as hard as my Kegel exercises had trained me to. So imagine my horror as the stall I enter has no toilet.....my choice is pee my pants or use the Death Hole. I stare at it, afraid. It is dark, a hole to nowhere, to certain death or, at the very least, uncomfortable, feces-stained dismemberment. It is connected to a flush mechanism that is strong enough to suck your body down (and the hole is big enough to easily lose a leg in). Now, a year ago, I would recoil and stand in stunned silence and go ahead and wet my pants on the spot. But I like to think that I have learned something this year, certainly with regard to cultural awareness. I pause, then lock the door behind me. I am facing the Death Hole. And there is no call button on the wall in case I need help.

I slip my pants down (this isn't so bad, it's just like camping....) and try to center myself over the hole (OK, this is harder, camping doesn't require one to aim). But this is more complex: you cannot merely stand over the hole if you have pants on (ding! The advantage of an abaya is now clear to me!), you must bend forward, pointing your Big American Ass backward over the hole. I was deeply thankful, believe me, that there was no one there with a camera. That I know of.

Of course, if the, uh, stream is not forcefully ejected, it just dribbles down your leg, so you have to center and push while slightly squatting (really more trouble than you think). As I just get myself centered, I feel a sharp pain in my knee. Fuck. The one with no ACL, the one that has a tendency to lock, slide sideways, and throw me to the floor at the most inopportune moments (the last time was during a job interview...I didn't get the job). Yes, that one. It is true what they say. You do see your life flash before you. But I can't move, or I will pee on my pants, and I still have to wait outside in a crowded line in immigration for, oh, probably an hour. I would prefer to be not smelling like urine, another trait that automatically identifies me as a Tidy American.

I am trapped, waiting for the moment when my knee slides sideways and I fall into the Death Hole, sucked into oblivion, quite possibly to Texas. I take a deep breath, bracing myself. My knee gives slightly, but mercifully does not buckle. I look down, perilously, into the Death Hole, and notice that I am not peeing into it, but have missed and am now peeing on the floor, splashing onto my tennis shoes. From the looks of the floor, I am not the first. Someone has graciously parked a urine-soaked mop, circa 1981, next to the Death Hole. I'm not touching it...

OK, so do you drop TP into the Death Hole (an uncomfortable confusion overcomes me, similar to the directionally-related panic I still feel when faced with a bidet)? I froze, TP in hand, butt in air, not sure what the cultural rules were. But I felt my knee starting to slide, and dropped it. Good Lord. It is 1AM, I am exhausted, I damn near wet my pants in public, and I no longer have the capacity to process any more cultural sensitivity. I flushed twice. The first time, the TP just sat there, taunting me with my Tidy American-ness.


The next day, we were informed of yet another toilet issue on camp. Seems like some Tidy American has had enough of the Death Holes, and has modified them slightly....

Awash in the Bittersweet

WELCOME TO ATATURK AIRPORT the sign screamed. I peered out the window. The airport looked smaller than I thought it might be, one of those 'it always look smaller when you are an adult' things, I suppose.

We had loved the souks in Dubai. We had wandered them, arm in arm, through the winter, through the hot days of spring. We talked to the sellers, drank fresh juice, smiled and laughed. Together, we were much better than we could have ever been on our own. Now that he is gone, I cannot return to the souks of Dubai. I cannot face myself there.

We were to go to Istanbul to wander the Grand Bazaar. Istanbul: legendary, mysterious, cryptically Turkish. But he succumbed to his fear, recklessly destroying us in the process. It took months, but I had given him the souks, and could not give him Istanbul. It was mine to take, mine to face, mine alone.

I stood at the Bazaar, peeking in, unsure. I felt a tug deep within me, a fear of entering, a fear of what I would feel. The night before I had steeled myself, swallowed more than my share of raki, and cried myself to sleep. In the morning, I rose with a feeling of resignation. He was not here. He would never be here again. He would never be with me again. I dressed, ate, and started walking up the cobbled street to the entrance. A flicker of him passed through me, a memory, a feeling, a ghost of what we once were.

The darkened doorway beckoned, but I couldn't move, the crowds swelling around me as I stood paralyzed. Finally, I put one foot in front of the other, just like I had spent my entire life doing. One foot in front of the other. Eventually, I'll get there. Eventually, I always do. Just keep walking.

I wandered the stalls, wistful. He would have loved it. He would have been grinning ear to ear. We would have laughed and remembered this forever. I was looking at the lamps when I felt a tear slide down my cheek. Quickly, I distracted myself, dickering for a lovely red lamp with an angel motif. I paid more than I wanted to, but walked away in one piece.

Everything was filled with him. The food, the drink, the endless rows of stalls, the colors, the music. Everything was an echo of what could have been. This was for us. This was us.

I looked through eyes not mine, but ours. The dreams of what might have been melted into the visions of what had become of us. Everything we had shared was inside me. Everything we had said, everything we had done, all the promises we had made to eachother. I had to carry on, had to find a way. Somehow. So I touched for him, smelled for him, laughed for him, and took it all in. For him. For us. For what might have been.

And through our eyes, I let the last tear fall.

Alternate Realities

Snippets from an article by PV Vivekanand about the 9/11 attacks published in September 11th's edition of Gulf Today:

"There is an increasing belief around the world today that the Sept.11 attacks were engineered from within the US, and Al Qaeda was used as a pawn in the hands of those who orchestrated it. There are so many questions that defy logical and reasonable answers that it is simply impossible to accept the theory that Al Qaeda plotted and carried out the attacks on its own without help from powerful sources within the US. The irony, as many point out, is that even under this scenario, Al Qaeda might not have been aware that it was being set up."

This is interesting. As an American, I am aware that much of the world is angry with us. Until I was plopped down in the middle of the Middle East, I paid little attention to the viewpoints of what the American press consistently referred to as zealots. I also must admit a shocking disinterest in political matters, my American heritage, it seems. When you live half a world away from everyone else, it seems not important to understand what people think. Imperialistic, of course, and blatantly arrogant, we are.

Americans, even post-Nixon, want to believe in their government. Our institutions are us. Remember Sinead O'Connor? Americans cannot deal with threats on their institutions. We may disagree, but we hold very dear the notion that our government has our best interests in mind. We irrationally believe this, even when confronted with the text of the Patriot Act. Terrorist have dark skin and come from over there. The notion that our own government is now collecting information and terrorizing its own citizens is anathema. Our belief is seemingly unshakable, tied to our Constitution, ignoring all realities. Idealistic, we are.

We are a nation that has always rebelled, embracing the malcontents as evidence of freedom. Yet we now have adopted a frightening rigidity to our beliefs, a national thought approval program, that is increasingly evident. One cannot raise a question these days without being viewed as a potential threat, a potential terrorist. We back Israel unconditionally, not understanding the issues, not believing for a moment that the Israeli's have their own agenda. We only know it has something to do with the pursuit of religious freedom, and we approve of that, for it mirrors us. Anything more complex is a mystery. We have warped the process, not caring, not understanding. We cannot question, we have no idea what questions to ask. We shun viewpoints that differ from ours. We alone know the truth. Ignorant, we are.

"A sizeable number of Americans now believe that top officials in the administration of George W Bush had something to do with the Sept.11 attacks and Israeli agents were part of the conspiracy. The arguments raised by those who believe in this theory are plausible and could not be rejected out of hand. These include an assertion that Vice-President Dick Cheney was directly in control of running air exercises involving hijackings of airliners on Sept.11 and this was the reason that the honest-to-God American air defense system did not respond to the four actual hijackings that were not part of the exercise."

Huh? I was not aware that a sizable portion of Americans believed that GW had something to do with the attacks. But I, holding on to the rebel American within, am willing to consider this. Still, the thought is so disturbing to me, that I automatically reject it. This statement may be political flame-fanning at its worst...but if the ME populace really believes this, we are in for a world of hurt. However, it makes me smile to think of Cheney directing the hijackings. This, interestingly, is not a hard picture for me to envision...

"The American government version of investigation findings has many contradictions and many key details have been omitted, the strangest among which is that none of the eight cockpit recorders -- black boxes -- (each of the four planes had two) survived in order to yield any clue to what had happened. The odds of all eight black boxes damaged in four air crashes in a span of three hours are put one in billions. Another unanswered question is how at least seven among the 19 "suicide hijackers" named by the US surfaced alive and kicking."

I have heard nothing about the black boxes. However, because this was a crime, all information related to the crashes is controlled by the FBI, not the NTSB. We will likely never see any accident reports released in our lifetimes. But, as an educated guess, I would say that the black boxes were not destroyed (it actually takes ALOT to destroy one), though due to the nature of the crashes, some of the information may have been rendered unusable. The odds of this happening are not in the billions, I question how this was calculated. The odds of the boxes being obliterated are directly related to the heat produced by the fires and the duration of the flames. Given the nature of the crashes, it is a possibility that there is not much left of the boxes, and this would be entirely expected, not an unusual event for fires of this duration.

"Israel benefited most from the 9/11 attacks. Afghanistan was removed as a source of militants with anti-Israeli agenda. Saddam Hussein was ousted and the shape of Iraq was twisted so badly that it would never emerge as a potential Arab military power which could threaten Israel. "

Oh, oh. The Israel thing again. OK, if I ignore the fact that this may be merely an anti-Israel propaganda statement, it does present an interesting viewpoint about the shift of power in the region.

"The international community now believes that the Bush administration was waiting for an opportunity like 9/11 to implement its grand designs for global domination. The world now knows that the leading figures in the neoconservative camp around Bush had plotted the invasion of Iraq, Saddam or no Saddam, and turn that oil-rich country around to an advanced military base in the Arabian Gulf where the Americans would be in a position to intervene in any country if such intervention fits in with American interests."

So here we are. And we are here for a while. The fact that the occupation of Iraq seems to present such an efficient opportunity for an extension of American interests in the ME, would seemingly confirm the truth to this statement. And if we accept the statement as true, we have to question how we got here...

"There are indeed many who believe that the US had deliberately relaxed its hunt for Osama Bin Laden so that he would remain a bogeyman who could be cited as and when it suits American interests."

Where is Osama?

"Michael Tomasky, executive editor American Prospect magazine, observes in an on-line (www.prospect.org) article:

"In truth, the anniversary should be the occasion for a thoroughgoing discussion of how America has combated terrorism in the last four years. And on that front, even the disaster Bush has created in Iraq takes a back seat to one overwhelming fact: By the time night falls on Sept.11, Osama Bin Laden will have been at large for 1,461 days."

"America vanquished world fascism in less time: We obtained Germany's surrender in 1,243 days, Japan's in 1,365. Even the third Punic War, in which Carthage was burned to the ground and emptied of citizens who were taken en masse into Roman slavery, lasted around 1,100 days (and troops needed a little longer to get into position back in 149 BC)."

Odd how striking this statement is. And true. We have lost our interest in Osama, a disturbing indication of what our true motives might be. Some have been saying this all along, but Americans, true to their institutions, refuse to believe this alternate reality.

If the ME firmly believes that our government orchestrated this whole debacle, it presents a picture so disturbing that it would shake our nation to the core. That is, if we could actually believe it and get off our fat American asses to hold our government accountable.

I recall a conversation I had more than once with David. We couldn't understand this war, and felt a vague need to protest, do something, when we returned to the states. I asked him why we didn't see masses of protest, what had happened to us to make us so apathetic. We had no answers to that. Yet I predicted that once back in the states, neither one of us would protest, a prediction that has turned out to be true. Why?

There is something intrinsically different about us now. Perhaps we have been overwhelmed by our lives, unable to take on more than what we have in front of us. Idealism is a notion still within us, but we have surrendered our lives to merely existing, not demanding more. Personally, professionally, politically, we have sunken to the lowest common denominator. We demand nothing for ourselves but to be left alone to live our pathetic, disconnected lives. America? Yes, this is America.

We don't care. We don't care if we are wrong. We don't care if you are killing your people. We don't care if your citizens are starving, unless, of course, we need your oil. We have our lives to live, mortgages to pay, kids to send to school. We expect our government to make the right decisions, but we no longer have the ability to critically ascertain if they are. We hold dear to the heroism of past wars, you know, the ones before Viet Nam, the ones that meant something to the world. We hold fast to our image as a cowboy, saving damsels and spreading good. It never occurred to us that we are as pathetic as an old man reliving his best years over and over again in his mind, surrendering the here and now to the prism of a better past.

We are America. We don't understand your version of reality, and we don't have to.

Pathetic, we are.