Meet The New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Hang Out With "Them" On This Podcast

Here's a lengthy podcast of an AM radio interview with my old boss, a decent guy, and his spouse. He talks about working with General Petraeus and life in the Green Zone being, what MAJ John calls, "one of them!". It was an odd time to be in Iraq, and my ex-boss does a good job explaining this. Things weren't going very well in Iraq when I first got there in June 2007 (sectarian violence was still rife, AQI had control of much of Diyala province, the Iraqi government was in disarray, etc.) It's one of those situations where you are glad that the people superior to you know what the fuck they are doing, which I'm sure many folks in the military could relate to. It was a bit uncertain what was going to happen with this new wiz-bang COIN strategy, and I'm glad it had a major affect on the decline in violence in Iraq. Not really for me, since I was leaving in 12 months anyways, but there's a lot of people who actually live there (see the Pottery Barn rule from Colin Powell). We have a tremendous responsibility to the Iraqis, and I hope this recent delay in provincial elections doesn't result in significantly more violence and instability.