One day you am thank me for this. You will say “Weirdzo, you fink. You cut it off. Get lost.”
I find myself looking across time and feeling as if we’ve landed in Bizarro America.
Last year at this time, we were preparing to go to war, we were gathering evidence of al-Qaida’s involvement in the attacks in order to convince our allies and others that our desire to destroy the terrorists was justified. Last year, our President quietly admitted we needed the world on our side, that going it alone was a foolish idea. We welcomed the words of the other nation’s leaders and for the moment, we saw that the good that could come from the deaths of 3000-some people was a more welcoming, unified world.
It is today nine-twelve-2002, and we’re again preparing to go to war, even though the paint’s still not dry on the other campaign (indeed, I think it needs a few more coats). But everything else has gone through the looking glass. Our dumbfuck [1] President is standing before the United Nations and telling them that either they help us slap Iraq around or by God we’ll do it ourselves. Kofi Annan is so mightily annoyed by the whole thing that he purposely leaked his rebuttal to the press in advance. Dubya’s own father had said once before that changing the regime in Iraq is not that easy, that to do what had to be done, we’d have to occupy Baghdad and effectively rule Iraq, which was not something we could conceivably get away with. But Bush the Younger doesn’t care. He just doesn’t care.
Yesterday, a Baghdad newspaper ran a photo of the WTC on fire, under the headline “GOD’S PUNISHMENT.” While this evokes the same visceral reaction that footage of cheering Arabs did last year, the AP article I culled the information from also featured a few quotes from these same cheering Iraqis, and it completely spoiled the us-against-them mentality.
Memo to Kenny Chesney. Do you know why a 53 year-old Iraqi housewife cheered to Allah on the day thousands of Americans died horribly? Because as far as she knows, we superior Americans cheered while bombs lit up the skies above Baghdad ten years ago. Because she believes we cheered the destruction of the homes of her friends and family. Because she believes we cheer the starvation and illnesses of Baghdad’s children, that we cheer the evil [2] sanctions we impose on innocent people whose only crime was to live under a sociopath’s rule. But you know the sad part, Mr. Angry American? The sad part is that we don’t cheer these things. We simply don’t care one way or the other what happens to her. And that itself is so much worse.
[1] Yes, goddammit. Dumbfuck. If he stood in front of me now I’d say it to his face. You are not fit to lead. You were never elected. You have done more to destroy this country in one year that Osama bin Laden managed to do in ten. Go back to school and come back when you know what the hell it is you could have been doing. [3]
[2] A word that’s tossed around a lot lately, “evil” is. Dumbfuck. [4]
[3] Doubtless this is “unpatriotic.” Bullshit. A quote from Mark Twain. “Loyalty to the country always, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.”
[4] Christ, have I got a mad-on today.
Current music: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Brook, “Night Song”
Creative Control 