Rich Douchebag Jared Polis visits "Iraq"

First saw a post about this guy on BlackFive and though I would fan the fire a little more. I've seen a lot of these "tough guys" come through the IZ to get a "boots on ground" perspective. While there's nothing wrong with that, they tend to come with a lot of preconceived notions and leave 3 days later of the same mindset, patting themselves on the back the whole time for taking such a "risk". Jared Polis is some rich, douchey, Ivy league educated, dot-com millionare guy who is running for congress in the people's republic of Boulder. He kept up a diary of his exploits in Iraq on his website here, and he seems to complain a lot about the situation in Iraq but offers no viable solution.

First off, he talks an awful lot about these "mercenaries" or private security contractors. He seems to have this preoccupation with them. Perhaps there is a private security firm in his district vying to bid for a Defense contracts, but that's just me speculating.

"It is difficult to overstate the role that private contractors play here. I had understood that they were involved with protection and guarding, but I didn’t realize how integrated into the defense and service structures they are. Apparently, this is modern warfare. Private armies hired by nation states and controlled by corporations."

The reason we have so many "mercenaries" is due to the mass downsizing of our military during the '90s and the lack of increasing the size of the Armed Forces despite two major ongoing conflicts. The military was downsized to make way for socialist style programs that are highlighted all over Jared's website including universal health care, and even MORE social security (by the way both these programs each cost more than ALL defense spending). Ironically, Jared badmouths the same people who protect him on his trip to the "Red Zone".

"We rolled into a private mercenary compound in the red-zone about fifteen minutes later. The thought of walking outdoors in the red-zone was scary, but the trade-off is that while the risk of being shot increases, no mortar rounds are being aimed at compounds in the red zone, they are generally pointed towards the “International Zone” (Green Zone)."

Hmm, seems a little strange and counter-intuitive to speak so negatively of the people that are keeping you safe. This falls in line with limousine leftists at the Huffpost who put up a big fight about police brutality, but count on them to protect their multi-million dollar mansions in La Jolla from undesirables.

So Jared talked to some Government of Iraq folks to get their perspective. Of course he wouldn't come talk to anyone at the embassy since we're just "evil occupiers" working directly for the Bush/Cheney machine.

"Part of the problem with the occupation is the way that the planners of invasion had utter disregard for the honor of Iraqis. I’ve been told Iraqis value “honor” even more than Americans do, but we too are a people with some degree of honor and pride and it shouldn’t be too hard for us to understand these matters.For instance, in addition to occupying the Republican Palace"

He laments not being able to get the truth from normal Iraqis, but c'mon Jared. Even Geraldo was able to go hang out in East Rashid with his Fonz jacket and talk to all sorts of Iraqis. With your self-serving wiki about being a philanthropist and businessman, you weren't smart enough to figure out how to embed? Here's the website on who to contact for embeds. I think you're afraid to hear that some things are actually improving in Iraq. Jared neglects that the strategy for the past year has been for coalition forces to work amongst the Iraqis to counter the insurgency. So he could probably get a good perspective if he just talked to some of the military commanders in the field. Sadly, folks like this rarely want to talk to the American troops because it might shatter their reality if they hear the truth about security improving in Iraq. Thanks for tying up logistical assets you douche, don't come back!

Jared Polis and other douchebags who have no clue what's going on in Iraq, but seem to know what's best for America's foreign policy.