“A STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND THE PREZ’S PUZZLING PENNY ANTE APPROACH TO HIS SUPPOSED STRUGGLE FOR CIVILIZATION”
Or, 10 Questions to Terrify Bush about His War Against Terrorism
Our feckless leader, George Bush, continually proclaims in increasingly strident rhetoric that continuing to occupy the countries we invaded is important. Nay, vital to our future. He insists it is not merely an ego trip or an attempt to steal oil or a chance to wear a flight suit and pretend he is courageous, but a “struggle for civilization itself.”
Okay, let’s take him at his word for the moment. Perhaps he has better information than the entire rest of the world. Perhaps he accidentally got something right. Perhaps God does speak directly to him.
In any event, his call to arms is a serious proposition and deserves full consideration. We are willing to march into the abyss and indulge his every vainglorious whim. BUT... if this is truly a “struggle for civilization itself” as asserted, if this is truly a task suggested directly to Bush by the voice of God himself, if this is truly the most important aspect of the current Administration, then we have some questions.
Dear President Bush . . .
1. Why aren’t you demanding your own children join the military? It looks like the military could use every warm body available if what you say is accurate. Even if the girls are addiction prone or even fearful cowards like yourself, they could still scrubs pots and peal potatoes in a military Mess Hall if nothing else and free up others for combat. In fact, why aren’t you instituting a draft to induct all the children of your fellow Warhawks into the War’s efforts? Don’t we need them for the “surge” before the Army if permanently broken?
2. Speaking of the troops, why are you paying them the same as you pay the private contractor mercenaries you hire from Blackwater and Halliburton? Why aren’t you insuring the troops are trained, armored, equipped and rested before sending them into combat? Why are combat tours so often and so long? Why don’t you care about the military families? Why are the wounded vets getting such poor medical care merely because they are no longer useful to you once you use them up? That technically is more than one question, but actually it really is just one question. Why do you treat those needed to fight your war so badly?
3. Why aren’t you donating your vast family fortunes, particularly the unearned portions, to either the War’s efforts or its side effects? After all, you presumably won’t need it if you fail and civilization collapses into barbarism. Show us you mean what you spout by sacrificing to the cause what you Republicans treasure most - your personal treasure.
4. While we are on the subject, why aren’t you taxing your friends who are making billions war profiteering by price gouging and jailing the many who are engaging in theft and corruption? Make them give it all back so that we can fund your follies.
5. Why aren’t you using all the tools at your disposal such as the diplomatic ones that have proven to work in the past? We realize that you are terrible at diplomacy. Anyone who gropes the female head of state for Germany on TV obviously hasn’t a clue in that regard. Nevertheless, there are some talented people out there assuming you haven’t finished culling all the career foreign service employees in the State Department yet because they might be secret Democrats.
6. Since you are always talking about how we must do things if there “is even a 1% chance” they might be successful, how about offering your testicles to Iran for instance in return for a halt to their nuclear weapons program and full inspections? They could brag about it, but we wouldn’t care if it worked. Either way, it would be a literally minuscule price to pay and well worth it if we got what you have been demanding from them. Surely there is a 1% chance of it working. Moreover, it would not even be painful with anesthetics.
7. Why aren’t you instituting a crash project to completely eliminate the need for gasoline? Of course, that would bankrupt your oil buddies, but look how much it would harm those states that don’t like us like? It would remove a major source of their power over us not to mention reducing their ability to build weapons of mass destruction.
8. Since your own efforts seem to be failing miserably, why aren’t you resigning so that someone more competent can complete the task?
9. Why aren’t you at least firing those who have been proven wrong and rehiring those who got it right? Get rid of all those hacks who were appointed solely because they were Republican campaign contributors, but haven’t been doing a “heckofajob.” Give them a Medal of Freedom, which is not longer worth anything anyway, and terminate them.
10. Why don’t you stop smirking? It may take plastic surgery to do it, but we simply cannot take you seriously as long as you look like a frat boy just back from a panty raid.
It's probably obvious I'm a CYNICAL PESSIMIST. Why a cynical pessimist? Possibly it's the result of expending a full lifetime defending, first with rifle in hand and then with a legal pad, "truth, justice and the American Way." Observing the less than perfect result and the fact that it must be unending tends to incubate pessimistic cynicism.
There is actually a better answer though. As a pessimistic cynic, I know I'll always be either right or delighted.
I'm probably also affected by the fact I live at the very edge of the earth, about as far as someone can get from our nation's centers of power and still have dry feet. (Minor quibble to establish my unfailing honesty: I don't actually live at the edge. Nevertheless, I really can at least see the edge from here.)
The commentaries submitted to this website are some of the views from that edge, for the most part political and social observations and questions tinged (or perhaps more accurately, tainted) with humor to make the point.
The name "lawless one"? It was my call sign in Nam and ironic in other ways.
