Watch For Snakes
Today's Track: Eve of Destruction--Barry McGuire
For the benefit of those of you who have spent the last few months on Neptune, in a box, in a hole, under a rock, with your fingers in your ears, America seems likely1 to go to war. With Iraq. Again. Now I know that some highly untrustworthy persons--mostly seditious malcontents and anti-American firebrands--will try to insist that we are already at war; that, in fact, we have been ever since our fearless, nearly-life-sized Chief Executive declared his blanket campaign against terrorism. These same apolitical miscreants will continue, at the slightest provocation, by explaining that our endeavors in Afghanistan--already suspect because of their "we can't tell you what we're doing, but, trust us, we're winning, despite the constant setbacks and total failure to achieve any but the most superficial objectives" disclosure policy--were in fact a Hitler-in-Russia scale bungling, and that President Bush and his fellows chose this occasion to strike at Iraq simply for the purpose of covering their own pasty political asses. Besides which, say these despicable malefactors, the Bush administration, in a rare moment of actual insight, realized that they could make good use of America's stifling ambient nationalistic fervor to obscure the fact that our President has, effectively, commandeered the entire government, thus allowing him to act out his own questionable socio-political agenda despite the obvious handicap of being routinely mistaken for a chimpanzee. Honestly, the nerve of some people...
In all seriousness, our President Bush does indeed seem to be girding for conflict with Iraq. And notice I say our President., because, upon even the most cursory analysis, it would appear that he is the only person in the world2 who thinks that this war is a good idea. Spurred on by some internal compulsion unknown to either politics or biology, Bush took the matter of further disarmament resolutions before the U.N. a few months ago. Again. His suggestion? More teams of UN arms inspectors. This was not an immediately appreciable maneuver, based on the slime mold-level effectiveness and resounding lack of accomplishment of previous efforts. This is not to imply that the UN weapons inspectors of the past were in any way inept. By no means. They were simply victims of adverse circumstances. Who could have forseen tht the Iraqis--drat them and their infinite cunning--would fail to hide their devastating arsenal of mass destruction in the baggage claim at the airport, or in the Baghdad Hilton’s mini-bars? And yet, for some unfathomable reason, the Assembly was reluctant to commit to any new actions in Iraq. Some few nations--unquestionably ignorant and potentially threatening in themselves--balked outright as Bush read through the entirety of his well-scripted and only occasionally mispronounced plan. That plan, effectively, was that Hussein was to submit, forthwith, to a series of things which he absolutely, positively would never even consider, under any circumstances, actually doing, on penalty of immediate warfare. Among these demands, Iraq was thereby expected to:
- Grant entrance and hotel accommodations to UN-sanctioned inspectors, who would then proceed to snoop about in locations including, but not limited to:
- Factories
- Industrial complexes
- Sensitive military installations
- Saddam’s sock drawer
- Factories
- Take inventory of their entire military structure, carefully noting and cataloguing any piece of harware larger than a staple remover (lest any of them be deemed components of some weapon of mass destruction)
- Take stock of every molecule of any chemical substance in Iraqi domain, including oxygen, as such things are irrefutable indicators of chemcal weapons manufacture.
- Disassemble and/or otherwise destroy the vast preponderance of their entire military infrastructure (including, presumably, any local bat populations, which, as the U.S. military has proven, are capable of carrying incendiary devices).
And all of this, according to the illustrious Dubya, was to be completed in less time than is required for the U.S. Department of Transportation to patch a municipal pothole. Or else.
Some individuals were of the opinion, at the time, that making laughable demands of a homicidal madman was only spoiling for a fight, but it’s really all for the good of the free world, right? I mean, if you can’t trust the President of the United States, whom can you trust?
Anyway, after some arm-twisting, the inspection teams were dispatched, headed up by Hans Blix. After a few nail-biting weeks, he delivers his first report to the UN. To summarize (and paraphrase): "The Iraqis think this inspection racket sucks. We're still looking around. Check back later." Obviously, this will never do. Even as the inspections go forward, our intrepid Presidential action-figure continues the push for immediate combat readiness. Some lunkhead representatives in the Security Council, as well as a few "misinformed" citizens--numbering no more than an inconsequential few thousands globally--try to convince Impetuous George that this is, in the words of Tolkien's Ents, a bit hasty. The general consensus, amongst the world at large, was that, basically, no one wanted any part of this mess. In the end, Bush comprimised by only mobilizing approximately a third of the U.S. armed forces. Yes, apparently support for his scheme...er, plan, was getting noticably sketchy at this point. People were proving reticent, and it wasn't just China this time. Even former allies were wavering. Obviously, what was required was a stiff "shot in the arm". However, as it happened, most people were unwilling to undergo sodium pentathol injections, so Colin Powell came to the rescue. In a presentation which lasted roughly three fiscal years, Powell brought before the UN--and the world--just the irrefutable proof that was required to finally open the eyes of people everywhere to the threat before us. Thanks to the crack sorces at his disposal, Powell had unearthed solid, rock-hard facts to support Bush's view of Saddam as an immediate peril. For those of you who missed this, I will recount the salient points.
Rationale for War With Iraq
- Saddam is a bad man
- Iraq has chemicals, some of which, if mixed together properly, under ideal circumstances, might potentially produce toxins
- Iraq has airplanes, and also a few trucks, some of which could be used to carry biological weapons
- Saddam has killed lots of people before
- Vials can contain harmful substances
- We are the good guys
As substantiation for all of this, Mr. Powell, in what may be the single most damning stroke against Iraq yet, produced actual, legitimate, well-documented, carefully collected, unaltered, un-retouched, amazingly clear photographs of nondescript darkish lumps. That in itself should have had even the most pacific of citizens gathering small arms and setting off a-march for Bagdhad. However, just in case--will wonders never cease--this wasn't enough to prove the point, someone, perhaps even Powell himself, had thoughtfully labelled each lump with explanatory captions such as "Mobile Chemical Lab", "Missle Silo", and "Martha Stewart".
Imagine the shock when, rather than rally outside the gates of the White House, everyone still insisted on waiting for a more peaceful outcome! Herr Blix made another presentation a few days ago, basically reiterating his earlier sentiments, being mainly, "Let us do our damned jobs." Our fellows in the UN continued to dither. People in cities the world over rose in protests against a war with Iraq. Bush, in the depth of his unfathomable wisdom, interpreted all of this as a resounding battle cry, and so, as I said, it's off to war we go.
If we're going to war anyway, I suppose we should try to look at the bright side. What bright side, you ask? Well, for starters, there's the economic benefits. I mean, let's face it, Americans. Our economy is not the capitalist juggernaut it once was, in much the same sense that the Titanic is no longer a reliable mode of transportation. A special bipartisan congressional committee was called to session to ponder potential solutions to this problem. After heated debate, it was decided that either America must go at once into full-scale warfare, or else we must somehow convince the entire populace of Portugal to invest in genuine, high-quality American-made chinchilla cages. On more sober--if slightly more hung-over--consideration, it was obvious that only Americans would be gullible enough to raise chinchillas, and that war was then the only answer. There's just something financially revivifying about bending a nation’s industrial resources to mass producing things like guns and powdered fish, isn’t there? (Note: Participants in the American public education system may argue that there exists already a great surplus of both these items, but a recent investigation by the CIA has found that there is a negligible chance that Saddam Hussein can be convinced to enroll in a public high school, so war must be brought on a larger scale).
Granted, oil prices will begin to skyrocket if we go to war--in fact, already have done so. I say, score one for tree-huggers everywhere. No gas means no SUV's, right? The decreased availability of consumer goods which follows the classic "butter to guns" wartime economic shift might make it a bit harder to come by some of the luxuries to which we Americans have become so accustomed. But, looked at another way, fewer material possessions mean fewer guilt trips from certain bleached ex-actresses in poverty-stricken third-world countries on Saturday afternoon television.
And perhaps the greatest benefit of war will come in a slightly less material form. You see, we Americans really need an outlet for pent-up aggression and fear. People are angry, for obvious reasons. And very seriously scared, thanks in no small part to the tireless efforts of our beloved--if aged and slightly faulty--government propaganda machine. Every few days for months now, our media is filled with helpful friendly reminders of our impending and inevitable--probably grisly--deaths. The offices of Homeland Security issue routine updates on our tenuous state of near-apocalyptic peril. Through these, we are constantly reminded that we are in imminent danger of a catastrophic attack from some unknown and unstoppable force3. The gist of these messages is that we have no idea exactly when and where, but something really terrible is definitely going to happen, and we, the citizens, are very unlikely to survive. Unless, that is, we have an adequate supply of duct tape and plastic sheeting on hand. All this sort of thing is fine and good for the handful of gentlemen with names like Moses and Malachai who share cramped and ammunition-intensive dwellings in the backwoods of Montana, but, for actual humans, it gets a bit stressful. And, gruesome as it all is, a quick round of Rock-Em Sock-Em Soldiers really does seem to have a way of lifting a nation’s collective spirit.
And perhaps it really is just about damned time. I mean, I think everyone can agree that this is a fight that was coming sooner or later. Honestly, it's not as though dear old uncle Saddam is just going to spontaneously decide to play nice with everyone after all these years. Once a petty, vicious tin-pot dictator bent on cruel domination and stupid hairstyles, always a petty, vicious tin-pot dictator.... So unless we can sponsor the entire "government" of Iraq for membership in Megalomaniacs Anonymous, something is simply going to have to be done sooner or later. And like so many of those somethings, this particular something is apparently going to involve a fair bit of gunpowder and a lot of very distinctly unhappy Marines. Although, to his credit, I think dear old Dubya would fit out a jeep and drive it all the way to Iraq himself if he thought he could help the war effort. (And I for one think that perhaps he should be encouraged to do precisely that.) Yeah, that has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it? It would be supremely cool if our conflicts were more like Star Trek. If that were the case, Georgie would parachute into the middle of the desert, strip down to some ill-fitting pants, oil up his chest, and fight Hussein to the death with oddly-shaped weapons whilst American and Iraqi contingents beat on drums and cheered them on. I'd pay to see that.
Ok, so I've been somewhat flippant. The truth is, war sucks. I realize that that is not one of the more erudite sentiments I've ever produced, but it says it well enough. I'm not a militant peacenik--don't you just love oxymoronic terms?--as it would at first seem. In fact, I have a great respect for the brave men and women of the armed forces. All the more reason that their lives shold not be thrown away so cavalierly. Apparently, our leaders, in the hustle and throng of conducting affairs of state occasionally forget what we all knew when we were kids...
Bullies suck, bleeding is bad, and there are no take-backs.
1- In the same sense that the seabed is likely to be wet.
2- Withe the possible exceptions of Colin Powell--who could probably defeat the entire Iraqi army by himself using only items found in his pockets--and Tony Blair, whose strings are showing.
3- Possibly Marie Osmond
