I am increasingly wary of the reason I am here. Everyone back home is always asking for a soldiers perspective on the war. They want to know the opinion of someone who is actually here. They feel like the media is only reporting negative stuff (which is what the American media does with American news anyways) and that the real story isn’t getting out there.

Money. Everything is about money. Every day it’s more and more apparent. Occupation is big business! I can’t speak on behalf of all the guys out there walking the streets of Baghdad getting shot at, but I can speak for someone trapped behind the wires of a military base here in Iraq. Money money money. How much you willing to spend for your comfort? How much are the Iraqi’s willing to spend for their freedom? For $5 you can have a Whopper or a burned copy of the latest Batman movie. For $100 you can get a memory card to store all the pictures on your $300 digital camera… you can snap shots of the F-16’s screaming by in the air or pose next to your new laptop computer with a brand new $15,000 satellite internet connection! The U.S. army is fighting for space next to the army of civilian contractors here doing everything from telephone wiring to plumbing to giving pedicures in the salon! (And you can have that too for $20!) Big business. Tourist attractions. This is just another place for someone to make a buck. There’s a sinking feeling in my stomach that our reason for being here is purely for monitary gain of some pig in a suit sitting in a comfy office high atop a skyscraper in “any metropolitan city”, USA.

We make our money to hand it right back to them. We can’t help it. We are consumers. Even in war we are consumers. And us Americans are bred so dependent on “stuff” and “comfort” that we gladly turn our checks right back over to them.

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