Well, we’re in a hell of a mess over there in Iraq, aren’t
we?
Well, we’re in a hell of a mess over there in Iraq, aren’t we? It’s been a year since we waded in to get those weapons of mass destruction (there aren’t any), or to effect a regime change (from Saddam to us), or to create a bottomless reservoir of goodwill toward America (in the most recent public opinion poll of a thousand Iraqis 80 percent blame us for their troubles), or perhaps to open up the Middle East to Western-style democracy (what were they thinking?).
The longer it goes on the crazier it gets. Condoleeza Rice seems to have borrowed one of Dave Letterman’s Top Ten lists to run through whenever she’s on a news talk show these days (“We went there because of this – what, you’re not buying it? OK, then we went in there because of this – oh, not that one either? Then how about this one? No? Well, OK, then it was …”).
Also the longer it goes on the more obvious the deviation from America’s entire tradition this whole thing appears to be. The bottom line is, we’ve always limited our wars to those in which we’ve had a credible claim to having to defend ourselves, but the administration still hasn’t come up with an argument that pre-war Iraq was a genuine threat. Oh sure, it’s a threat now; the Iraq/al-Qaida link that was never there before is quite real now, but at the time? They keep poking around, trying to find some way that Saddam was about to get us, and the well just keeps coming up dry. So what’s the story – why did a mature, supposedly statesmanlike nation turn cowboy?
I think I have the answer, and it’s been lying right under our noses. I mean, look at Bush – a wimpy kind of guy, a spoiled rich kid with all the perks that come to the namesake of a powerful daddy. He didn’t play baseball; he owned the team. He had it easier than those around him at every turn, so he had no real need for brawny biceps or six-pack abs. Consequently, his physique has always more closely resembled Perot’s than Schwartzenegger’s. But then, all of a sudden he’s bulked up; he’s swinging for the fences, he’s running the bases like a gazelle, he’s busting out of his shirt. Other players are getting suspicious.
Well, I think we know the signs by now; we’ve seen it so many times. Yes, tragically, it’s unmistakable – steroids. Dubya’s a Balco customer, an andro abuser, a performance-enhancing mutant who’s a disgrace to the purity of competitive diplomacy everywhere. I mean, what kind of message does this send to pampered upper-class white kids with big dreams of some day ruling the world? It tells them, don’t do it the natural way, oh no, take a pill or a shot to artificially improve your skills. Sure, you hear prime ministers and premiers everywhere whining about how they can’t compete without that extra testosterone – look no further than Tony Blair, a 98-pound weakling if there ever was one until he started working out with Dubya. Now he’s Rocky Balboa with a much better accent.
Of course, there must be consequences. For starters, this war can’t go into the record books, or at very least it has to have an asterisk. It can’t stand as a benchmark for future foreign policy or as a standard for military success because it was achieved by cheating. And I’m one of those who believes that in the interests of restoring the good name of armed conflict this administration should be suspended for three wars, pay a substantial fine, and submit to random testing.
And Dubya should have to give back the spiffy flight suit.
