Prosperity??????

Everyday that I go out on the roads of Iraq I see shops open for business, people shopping, walking to work, children going to school and constructions all over the city.
We depend on the Iraqi police to do their jobs as police officers, the Iraqi Army is working to secure the roads and all over the city we see people working and cleaning the roads.
When we arrived here many months ago, we didn't trust ANYTHING the police did, now we depend on them to provide security. Today I saw a check point where police officers were issuing traffic tickets because license plates were not registered.
Many months ago we couldn't hire contractors because they were getting killed by the terrorist pigs, now we have to turn them away because we have too many.
It is strange to come to work and see that NOTHING happened the night before.
Don't get me wrong, this is a very dangerous place, but Iraq is evolving in to a country, people are arguing about the elections, people are mad that the government is not doing things for them and they come here to voice their complaints.
But US soldiers are still dying in Iraq. We have lost friends here. I have lost Iraqi friends because they dared work with us.
Iraq will not be fixed by us, the Iraqis have to do that for themselves.
I just hope that we get out of here in one piece.
I just hope to have Iraq as a memory in a few months.
I hope the Iraqis will know the price they have paid for freedom and the price we have paid for their freedom.
Late night yesterday we received a report that the IPs were getting shot at one of the many check points they have setup all over the city. My first question to the Iraqi Police officer here was; do they need back up? He said that he didn't know. Seconds later, he tells me that there are no casualties and that it looks like the shooting was not aimed at them. An IP calls on the radio saying that he sees tracers about 200 meters from where he is. We sent an IP patrol to investigate because there are people shooting and we didn't know what was going on. After about ten minutes the IPs reported that two families were mad at each other because one was stealing satellite from the other and decided to settle the matter with AK-47s.
It seems that every house here has a satellite dish on the roof, everybody has a cell phone and every Iraqi wants to do business with us.
One of the contractors brought to us a hell of a feast after we awarded him a very large contract to fix the electrical problem in one of the police stations. Ten months ago we couldn't get a plumber to come fix the toilets, now we have more contractors than projects.
Out of 100 Iraqis that work with us, 10 of them are terrorists who have infiltrated the police ranks.
And we wait for the next attack, who is going to blow us up? The suicide bomber will not just kill Americans, but that piece of pig shit will also kill Iraqis working for a better country, he is going to kill Iraqis trying to earn a living to provide for their families. If I survive the attack I will find what is left of his body and in his grave I will place two pounds of bacon, a cross and say a Catholic prayer in Latin so that piece of shit can go to hell with the rest of terrorists pieces of pig shit that have died under our hand.