New stuff

I've been about 2 paragraphs into a post for about 4 days now. I started off strong, I had the basic outline worked out, and had even formulated all the half-assed attempts at being clever worked out in my head. It's just that when it came time to sit at my laptop I just couldn't do it. I'd pull up the file and I'd just lose interest just as the program finished loading.
I was gonna talk about the going ons in the middle easter and how awesome it was that I had managed to find a Time, A copy of The Economist, and some sort of foreign affairs digest at the PX (score!) because they all had articles talking about the recent successes in the region. Every time I had a few seconds I'd think about finishing that post I started, but something more important like say, my 700th game of spider solitaire would always come along.
However, I think I found out what the problem was: Deep down inside I'm not much of an optimistic person, at least not in the sense that I can think the best of everything around me regardless of the circumstances. I think in the past I may have been a little too liberal with my optimism for the area, and my active participation in the affairs. There hasn't been anything major that happened to change anything, I still feel that we were ultimately right in doing what we've done. I still feel like we don good by the people here when I ride down the street and see all the waving kids, but I'm sure someone else could ride down the same street and be aghast at the same scene because of the children that could be there and aren't.
Anyway, nothing has really changed but it was been something negative that has inspired this particular post. As I was bsing on the Internet earlier for no particular reason I was reading an article about the Iraqi parliament having troubles with choosing a speaker, and how the whole affair degenerated into a shouting match between opposing sides. I'm not really stressing over all of that, because well fuck it, shit happens. I'm quite sure our constitution convention had its share of “friction” and if not theres always that got milk commercial with the Raymond Burr fanatic to remind us of our storied history.
The thing that got me was a quote in response to the incident from someone in our administration that I can't quite recall without referencing the article and since it's three AM and my boots have somehow found their way to the floor without my feet. I'll just have to paraphrase (please bare with me). All bullshit aside, someone said that the Iraqi's are setting the example for the middle east. I guess that's a good political response, but what gets me is the simplistic truth that lies beneath the obvious intentions of the statements: Iraq is the example for the Middle East good or bad.
It's true that what happens in Iraq will have reverberations throughout the rest of the region, but that's a very dangerous double edged sword. Any gains made in countries like Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria are likely to vanish quickly if things deteriorate in Iraq and unfortunately the regions' history isn't exactly in our favor. I guess the scariest revelation found along the line of thought I've been pursuing for a few minutes now is that there is little if anything we as Americans can do in the long run, and we'll undoubtedly receive a good dose of the fallout if any occurs.
It's been said that you can not give a man freedom, but that he has to take it for himself. That quote definitely rings true at this juncture. Yea, we can stay here and be a military presence, we can give the government billions of dollars in training and equipment, but in the end all of it will be naught if the country decides to follow the beaten track and do what seems endemic to the region; fight within itself. I guess there really isn't that much to this post, besides me sorting out my own thoughts, but I guess it'll have to do.
I guess I'll leave things off with the opening line from the two “lost paragraphs” mentioned earlier. “Hey, look at me, updating my thing more than once a month. I wouldn't get too excited though, this probably isn't gonna be a habit.”