I am the law!

one of the hardest lessons to learn here is that we can pretty much do anything we want. i'm used to life in America were we all generally obey the law and do things in a proscribed manner. sure, i may go a few miles over the speed limit, but other than that things are pretty orderly.

in iraq, however, there are far fewer restrictions on what we can do to accomplish a task. if we want to stop the enemy from moving weapons, set up random roadblocks and search every car. if we think someone in a particular villiage is a bad guy, search the whole villiage. we think they might run away with their weapons when they see U.S. soldiers going house to house, cordon off the villiage. nobody goes in or out till we're done.

if we knock on your door, it's a courtesy. we'll now ask permission to enter your house, but yes or no, we're going in (they've never said no). wherever we are, no one else goes. if we have to stop in the middle of the street for something, all traffic stops with us, but a good 200 meters back.

we're as nice and understanding as we can be in everything we do, but this is still a war and that gives us priority over the local nationals' freedom of movement.