Read the News

As-salaam alaikum,

Well there's not a whole lot to write about tonight. I reckon it will be three, perhaps four more weeks of talks at the UN before the Middle East comes into agreement and reaches peace. It seems to me the Sunnis and Shias are starting to realize that they actually agree on more fronts than not, and beginning to feel foolish over their actions of the past 1,500 years. I think Iraq's government is going strong and the country is reaping their efforts in rebuilding aaaaaaand okay that's enough - you and I both know none of this is true.

I follow the news very closely. I always try to keep well-read, but when I'm especially away from home in some unfamiliar part of the world I become quite obsessed with catching up on the past few decades of politics and regional events. I remember being in Cambodia when the King of Thailand died, and reading for hours about what exactly that means, how national mourning periods work (it's literally against the law to laugh), and precisely from where instability stems. In Greece while I was at the Parthenon, gunshots could clearly be heard from the warren of narrow streets below, overcasting a roaring crowd. "Okay. That sounds like a protest, indicating that I'm in no way of harm. I know they're pretty pissed off about the economy, something about the Euro. But what exactly are they protesting? How is the government responding? Who are the affected players?" And then I read the news.

My habit of information is stimulated significantly now that I'm living alongside the Persian Gulf, flying into Iraq or Saudi Arabia five times a week and able to wave at snowcapped mountains in Iran when I'm able to pick them out from altitude. When the front page articles of Al Jazeera or CNN have a direct effect on what you'll be doing that day, and how you're going to do it without causing more headlines, you should probably be reading them. So it's become my daily ritual when I wake up, before checking Facebook, before checking the flying schedule, and after texting my wife but just barely, I read the news. And every morning lately I've thought, "Jesus fucking Christ what happened!?"

I've made the observation before that most people, with the most opinions, with the loudest attitudes NEVER ask that question. An explicit example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, laid out ad infinitum just for you day after day, story after story. It's ironic, the more you know the more questions you have when you read an article. But I'm lucky in that regard because I happen to have a security clearance; and 90 minutes after I read the news every morning I go into a room with an intelligence officer, close the door, and I ask away. 

"Morning Dave. So uh, what the hell happened!?" Questions asked. Questions answered. Near perfect understanding of an event and all parties involved. Just the way I like it.

But then I spend the next seven hours in a media blackout, which is a strange occurrence in this day and age. Seven hours, spent flying directly toward and above the very place you've read about every day, seven hours spent just wondering what the headlines will be when you land.

We've been briefed lately on some shenanigans at the behest of Iraqi controllers. I can't go into details. (Just picture Iran trying to convince the Iraqi government to END THE DISGRACEFUL REGIME OF AMERICA AND ITS ALLIES while Yakety Sax plays on the radio and there's like a chair on fire in the background or something.) So we were on guard and had a scan going of all the strike frequencies up so that if the world started ending, we'd hear about it. I'm afraid to say it was not the most exciting flight over that country, until we started heading out.

We were a hundred miles or so from Basra, on our usual track back home. We "FENCE'd out" (fuel, emitters, nav, comm, and equipment; it's when we reconfigure back to a regular airplane and just casually slip back onto the ICAO airways with Emirates and Etihad like nothing happened) and started picking up our clearance with Baghdad. It was an American controller, I've dealt with him before, chill guy. He said "Python XX, radar contact...eh... sorry guys I gotta switch you over to another frequency, contact 120.something. Have a good flight back." I read it back, "CYA", and switched over.

This new controller was Iraqi. And he was pissy. "Python XX radar identified!" He was yelling. "You are supposed to be at FL230! Descend immediately to FL230! Cross TONNY below FL230 or else you will be unauthorized!"

Okay pause. Here's why that's bullshit.

1) We spend most of the flight operating in military airspace, controlled by America, within the best interests of Iraq. We are controlled and cleared by Americans who are tracking us with American radar, satellites, and radio, all of which are encrypted. It is those controllers who give us our clearance out of the country, at whatever fucking altitude we want. They gave us FL280.
2) It is Baghdad's job to sequence us and clear us into Kuwait. They have hundreds of miles to do this. There is no other traffic in this airspace... until we get to Kuwait. If they need to change our altitude, we have until Kuwait to do it.
3) TONNY is the point where we check in with Baghdad and get a public IFR clearance. It is physically impossible to descend to any altitude by that point, because we are already past that point when we check in.
4) Being "unauthorized" is not a thing.

Alright back to the story. "What? That's bullshit! Who pissed in his hummus!? Can we switch back to the American dude!?" I said on intercomm before very calmly and without alarm reading it back on the radio, "FL230 by TONNY, Python XX." As we got closer to Kuwait and were picking up more on the radio, the bullshit indicator starting swinging again. "Python XX switch my frequency 121.whatever, contact secondary frequency 125.this, and monitor third frequency 128.fuck-you."

Pause again. Here's why that's bullshit.

1) Aircraft are not normally, not ever, given more than one frequency to contact or monitor.
2) We have a finite number of radios, a portion of them are dedicated to talking to our military controllers and chain of command. We are unable to do that if Baghdad gives us ten frequencies to monitor.
3) If you are supposed to be on a certain frequency and you're not, they'll start calling you on Guard.
4) When transmitting on Guard, everyone within range is forced to hear.
5) Iran is within that range.

So again, acting courteously as if this were any other day, I read it back. ("121.whatever,  125.this, and 128.fuck-you, as-salaam alaikum Python XX") Then we start hearing our buddies on their way into-country, fighters, other tankers, the usual crowd between Kuwait and Iraq; and Baghdad wasn't letting them in. Assigning vectors in the opposite direction, present position holding patterns with no reason, or just simply telling them "You are not authorized to enter Iraq."

"Ohhhhhhh SHIT! It's going down!" My A/C and I rushed to crack back open the secrets case and started punching in secure frequencies (We were supposed to be monitoring 121.whatever, but this was more important.) The secure lines were filled to the second with the diplomatic discussions. And then...

Well... I can't talk about what they all said or what happened to all of those planes. I guess... I guess just use your imagination (And then all the KC-135's launched their missiles and took out every single remaining member of ISIS) But knowing what happened doesn't change the fact that there are questions. Why did the American controller on Baghdad immediately switch us to an Iraqi controller? Why are all the Iraqi controllers being such assholes? Why does it feel like we're being tricked into busting airspace and causing an international incident with Iran? OH! And why aren't any other American planes being allowed into Iraq? What the hell happened!?

But as far as what happened to me... After a time we were switched over to Kuwait Control and within minutes we crossed the ADIZ and we were out of the country. There was quite a bit of weather over the gulf, pretty nasty turbulence, but we flew through it into a busy Doha Approach, and I landed. We taxied back and shut down and ran our checklists. Our driver picked us up and drove us off the flightline.

"We're gonna have to report this to intel aren't we?" I asked as we were walking through the door to the squadron.

"Yup. And we'll back-brief the Tactics Officer."

There's a number of things we have to do when we get back to Ops after a flight. We have to put our helmets and oxygen masks back on the rack. We have to turn over our classified documents, and shred all of our notes and kneeboards and scrap papers from the flight, as those are now classified too. We have to do paperwork and update our currency records and check the schedule for the next day.

But the first thing I do, is read the news.