Baghdad, Iraq (March 2005)

Photo by Peter Rimar

Swords of Qādisīyah، at Sunset, Baghdad, Iraq (April 2005).
Photo by Peter Rimar

7 Bizarre Monuments of Saddam’s Iraq
Read More...

Iraqi School Girl, Baghdad, Iraq (April 2005)
Photo by Peter Rimar.

Ministry of Education, Baghdad, Iraq (April 2005).

Classroom in Baghdad

Admittedly, NOBODY visits this blog to mentally digest the author's various rhetorical rants and raves. Politically, this small corner of cyberspace will never challenge the likes of a The Huffington Post or Politico. It is what it is. A majority of this blog's daily traffic comes from folks searching for a specific image on Google or Bing.

Yesterday, someone in Spain did a Google search looking for an image of a classroom in Baghdad. Unfortunately, in terms of what I've already posted on this blog, this anonymous person's search only yielded classroom photos from China.

That's is until today...

In April 2004, this blogger tagged along for a week with a U.S. Army Civil Affairs team working in downtown Baghdad. The above images were captured on a mission which delivered supplies to a special school for the deaf and blind.

‎"It is a well know fact that reality has a liberal bias" ~ Stephen Colbert

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's call to ABOLISH the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and allow corporates to police themselves is like firing every correction officer and placing the inmates in charge of guarding the prisons. READ MORE...

For a majority of Americans, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (along with the follow up extended military occupations) were viewed through the abstract lens of our digitally connected, 24/7, talking head e-world. Some people learn about American foreign policy from reading a book or from watching CNN. This blogger was lucky enough to get my first taste of our wonderful geopolitical world sitting inside a sandbagged CONEX (shipping storage container) at the Port of Mogadishu, Somalia. After 9-11, I took several taxpayer funded vacations to Kabul and Baghdad.

After more than 26 years in uniform, I retired and moved to the People's Republic of China. For six weeks (July & August 2008), I taught summer school in the city of Huadu. After just a few days, my wife and I started developing serious, painful skin rashes from the local water supply. After looking at the arms and legs of my students, it was visually evident that EVERYONE in the city had some degree of skin problems. Indeed, EVERY DAY, one or two students would cry from the rashes. Why?

Well, the Communist Party's version of the EPA has no real authority. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the world continues to ship its e-waste (along with its dirty industries) to China. Unknowingly, my wife and I had moved downstream from an e-waste generated ecological disaster.

Can you say "Love Canal"?

Thankfully, once we relocated to the city of Shenzhen, our skin problems quickly cleared up. So, when a candidate talks about "abolishing" the EPA, I question that individual's political motives. Are guys like the Koch Brothers pulling the candidate's strings? Anyhow, this blogger asks this simple question, "what kind of world do we want to leave our children's children?"
Biologic Pollution Mask

"A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation." ~ Adlai Stevenson

...another perspective...

If you're a Ron Paul for President supporter, please stop reading this post. For this blogger, this Libertarian's continued misguided belief that corporations will somehow police themselves in a pure free market economy is Utopian lunacy.

If you're a Newt Gingrich for President supporter, PLEASE see a doctor. Poor students cleaning up rich kids urine and shit is a jobs plan? Having children competing with their parents for the handful of jobs in poor neighborhoods will somehow "morally" fix the country? WTF?

Here's an idea:
Army Private Paris Hilton.

YES, there are real reasons why this country was a world leader in creating and then enforcing Child Labor Laws. The current GOP Flavor of the Month REALLY needs another HISTORY lesson.
Read More...

Anyhow, please forgive this blogger for temporarily straying away from the original topic of this specific post.

In the People's Republic of China, while the Chinese government claims goose stepping adherence to its version of Communist ideology (socialism with Chinese characteristics), when it comes to actually enforcing the country's weak environmental laws, the free market reigns supreme. Beyond the token measures taken by the Central Government prior to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, when it comes to protecting the manufacturing engine which drives the country's economic growth, both Chinese and foreign-based corporations enjoy a free market with ZERO environmental accountability. Can you say limited government in its purest form? Can you say profits before people?

With that said, it appears the Chinese people themselves are beginning to question the government's laissez faire response to the country's rapidity developing environmental crisis.
Read More...

Blue Beijing Skies?

March 2008

Photo by Peter Rimar

Update: (1/21/12)
Beijing releases pollution data after public pressure?
Read More...

This week in American History?

Poor Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann. Who actually remembers the Presidential Election of 1936? Alf Landon? Or his running mate Frank Knox? The latter of which went on to serve under FDR as Secretary of the Navy during World War II, but I'll leave this feel good political story for another bipartisanship kind of day.

So, what else happened THIS WEEK? The approval rating for the U.S. Congress, the bedrock of this country's democratic principals and ideals, is now in single digits. According to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll, only 9% of the American people think our representatives are actually doing a decent j-o-b. While GOP voters are still searching for a Presidential candidate to support, Congressional incumbents from both parties are wondering if they'll still have a j-o-b after the next election. Read More...

Beyond Lindsay Lohan posing nude for Playboy, the #Occupy Wall Street Movement and the ongoing trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, one story got this Blogger's attention. While it's a story which will never appear as some future newspaper sidebar highlighting this week in American History, it's a story which reminds us all, that during this specific week, the United States is still a country at war:

CBS News
Soldier in Afghanistan killed during
14th deployment
October 25, 2011
Read More...

...reflections...

IUC Nurse at the bedside of Medal of Honor Recipient 
Marine Corporal Jason Dunham 

Ibn Sina Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq

April 2004

Photos by Peter Rimar.

Google+ the NEXT generation of Blogging?

Last month, this blogger posted a comment regarding the need for Google to fully integrate Blogger with it's new + platform. Evidently, the techno-geeks at Google have already been kicking around this idea:

PC World
Users Can Now Replace Blogger Profile With Google+ Profile
October 24, 2011
by Juan Carlos Perez

"In the first integration between the Google+ social networking site and the Blogger blog publishing platform, users will be able to replace their Blogger profiles with their Google+ profiles, the company announced on Monday."
Read More...

...perspective...

Photo by Peter Rimar of an Iraqi Schoolgirl, Baghdad, Iraq (March 2005)

10th Anniversary of 9/11 ~ I Am An American

e pluribus unum ~ "Out of many, one."


American Passage: The History of Ellis Island (Paperback)

...view from inside a HMMV...

Photo taken by Peter Rimar on the highway to Baghdad, Iraq (March 2005).
Click on image to open in a new window.

Welcome to the Redundant Department of Redundancy

Can you name the first time in American history that the government cut taxes as it marched off to war?

What was the original mission in Afghanistan? To find, capture and/or killed Elvis Bin Laden. What was the original mission in Iraq? WMD? Oil? Tourism? I am NOT an isolationist.

After spending over $1,300,000,000,000s for two wars (with follow up military occupations of 7 & 10 years respectively), perhaps it's time to seriously reevaluate the economic, geopolitical & military wisdom of maintaining the rhetorical status quo. At least during World War II, the federal government sold WAR BONDS to build the factories required to support America's "arsenal of democracy". This time around, beyond those who serve in uniform (along with their families), what real sacrifices were the American people asked to make?

Have you seen the bumper sticker "Freedom is NOT Free"? It's true. Freedom has an actual price tag. Funding the Department of Defense requires real pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters.

The money for Iraq & Afghanistan has already been spent. So, how will this BILL get paid? Wishful thinking? Prayer? The Free Market? More Corporate Tax Breaks? The next generation? I guess asking folks to do the right thing for the right reasons is asking too much.



Photos of Afghan Soldiers & Burger King Sign by Peter Rimar.
The Iraq War (History Channel DVD)

...reflections...

Baghdad, Iraq (April 2005).

For anybody that's attempted to take a large group photo, even under the best of circumstances, it's difficult to get every face in the picture. Particularly, when all the subjects are moving in different directions. Sometimes, luck plays a role when attempting to capture a single image at just the right moment.

During the Berlin Airlift in 1948, German children would scramble for packages of goodies dropped from relief planes landing into the besieged city. Fast forward to 2005. No matter where U.S. Troops traveled in Iraq, children were soon to follow. Once a convoy stopped in a village, the American soldiers became a magnet for kids. When I snapped this photograph, dozens of children ran towards our vehicle hoping for candy and soccer balls.

Blogger's Room at the Baghdad Hilton?

Victory Base, Baghdad, Iraq (March 2005)

The idiotology of ideology?

[id·i·ot·all·o·gee]

Compare:
Between 2003-2010, the U.S. spent $21.3 billion on rebuilding Iraqi security forces.
Contrast: Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the Stimulus Bill, 
$1.3 billion went for the construction of military hospitals, $6 billion for the cleanup of radioactive waste (mostly nuclear weapons production sites) & $600 million for hazardous waste cleanup at Superfund sites (EPA). 

When this blogger read that $6 billion was allocated for the cleanup of radioactive waste, my first thought was "where is it & how long has it been there?" 

Why did it take a so-called stimulus package to address the issue of nuclear waste in this country?
Nuclear Waste Stalemate:
Political and Scientific Controversies (Paperback)

...perspective...

Iraqi Soldiers in Baghdad, Iraq (April 2005).

Political Doublespeak?

This blogger remembers the day the Canadian PM said his country WOULD NEVER support military operations in Iraq. At noon, while standing in line to eat in Baghdad, I asked a squad of Canadian soldiers about the PMs remarks. Basically, they laughed and answered the question with one simple word: POLITICS.


The Middle East for Dummies (Paperback)

Street Scene, Baghdad, Iraq (April 2004)