Shock & Awe on Hold



I feel like I'm watching an updated version of Dr. Strangelove or something. Last night, March 19, at about 7:15pm EST, the SCAB (Supreme Court Appointed Bush), gave the order to start his acquisition of Iraqi oil and exact revenge for Dear Old Dad's embarrassment from the 90's. At 8am PST, Donald Rumsfeld appeared at a press conference to send a "Resistance is Futile" speech to the Iraqi military that would have made The Borg proud. By 10am PST this morning, CNN was reporting that 100 "Tomahawk" cruise missiles, costing more than a million dollars apiece, had been used on Baghdad and other strategic targets in Iraq. Over a hundred million dollars literally up in smoke in less than 24 hours. Meanwhile back home, the SCAB's proposed Medicare revisions will force senior citizens to find new ways to obtain medical care and pay more for prescription drugs. And as the tenure of "The Education President" reaches its Tomahawk roaring crescendo, teacher lay-offs reach an all-time high. But it's okay because according to CNN, "shock & awe are on hold." Shock, at the way a US budget surplus so quickly disappeared after the SCAB took office, is on hold. Awe, at racking up the largest budget deficit in US history in less than three years, is on hold.

But CNN is happy. They love the SCAB! Finally, Wolf Blitzer has the chance to reclaim the fame and glory that made him a household name in '91. A new Gulf War to cover, 24/7! And as the CNN anchors wax rhapsodic in near orgasmic ecstasy over the "amazing quality" of the videophone pictures they're receiving from the "embedded reporter" racing across the Southern Iraqi desert with the US 7th Armored Cavalry, no one, not even CNN's hired "military experts," ask the question: why is this so easy? Are our military leaders so affected by the SCAB's own arrogance that they have thrown caution to the wind? Are they believing their own spin that this will be a quick and easy victory? Have they never played Risk? Don't they know about the oldest trick in the book of presenting an easy target and playing dead in order to draw-in your opponent; only to surround and kill him when he's within easy reach? Still the 7th Armored Cavalry careens headlong across the khaki landscape, confident of the invincibility of their M1A1 Abrams battle tanks. I care about the 7th Armored Cavalry. I want to see them all come home safe. So far, the beginnings of this "war" seems pretty reckless with their lives. Let's just hope that this morning's "decapitation strike" really was successful and that the Iraqi military leadership is in genuine disarray and not laying a trap for our most precious military asset; our people.

If this sounds like anti-SCAB rhetoric, it is; I didn't vote for him, don't know anyone who did, and I'm still pissed that our votes weren't counted. If this sounds like anti-war rhetoric, it's not necessarily. I happen to believe that Hussein needs to be taken out. In fact, I think it should have been done in '91. There's no doubt that Hussein is a murderer who supports terrorism. On March 13, he openly gave over a quarter of a million dollars to the families of "martyred" Palestinian suicide bombers; a crystal clear link between Hussein and terrorists. My problem is with the dishonesty and the arrogance displayed proudly by the SCAB to the rest of the world. It's painfully obvious that the SCAB never had any intention of letting the Iraqi weapons inspections reach their full authority and logical conclusion. He simply played along with the UN until all of his military assets were in place. Once that was done, he could cut the UN loose and place the blame on them for "not doing their job." He's now treating the rest of the world with the same contempt with which he treated American voters in 2000. He's doing what he wants to do regardless of what the people who he supposedly serves have to say about it.

And through all the jerky CNN videophone footage, and through all the SCAB rhetoric about "freeing the Iraqi people," the e-mailed words of an anonymous NPR listener keep ringing through my head:
"War is what happens when we don't elect our president."

Posted: Thu - March 20, 2003 at 10:30 PM          

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