Military
Genius on Parade
T
here
was fierce competition among Bush administration officials to see
who could most accurately predict the length of Operation Iraqi
Freedom. Here are the nominees:
-
PENTAGON ADVISOR
RICHARD PERLE: “Support for Saddam…will collapse after
the first whiff of gunpowder.” -
U.S. DEPUTY
DEFENSE SECRETARY PAUL WOLFOWITZ: “An explosion of joy will
greet our soldiers.” -
PENTAGON ADVISOR
KENNETH ADELMAN: “I believe demolishing Hussein’s military
power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.” -
V-P DICK CHENEY:
“I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators.
I think the regular army will not fight.
We can’t emphasize
enough the dangers of abusing hallucinogenic drugs.
Media
Breakdown
A
s
people “embedded” in American culture, it’s difficult
to comprehend how Iraqis could possibly resist their own liberation.
The answer may lie in a few overlooked cultural differences. For
example, when American soldiers tore down the Iraqi flag and hoisted
the Stars and Stripes over the port of Umm Qasr, many Iraqis failed
to appreciate that this was our way of saying, “We’ve
come to liberate you.” A similar misunderstanding may have
occurred when the 101st Airborne Division named two of its main
outposts in the desert Forward Operating Base Exxon and Forward
Operating Base Shell. Fortunately, neither name implies we are there
at the behest of our oil companies, says the Pentagon (
Guardian,
3/28/03).
Bush
off the Leash?
W
hile
scolding the UN, President Bush pointed to the example of the UN’s
inaction in the face of the genocide that claimed 800,000 lives
in Rwanda in the 1990s. “The UN,” he said, “must
mean something. Remember Rwanda or Kosovo. The UN didn’t do
its job.” Advisors reportedly had to draw straws to see who
would tell the president that it was the U.S who had led the opposition
to intervention and that Bush was on record as opposed to intervening
where U.S. “vital interests” were not at stake.
Power
to the Imagination
W
hile
our nation campaigned against weapons of mass destruction in the
hands of others, the Pentagon asked for the lifting of the ban on
our development of small nuclear weapons. These weapons may be needed
because of the existence of small countries. (We don’t want
to take out adjacent nations when making those surgical strikes.)
Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration,
defended the move with these words of wisdom: “Anything that
inhibits thinking about the future, should be looked at skeptically.”
Hmm,
and if you can’t think outside the box, blow it up.
Benchmarks
in Diversity
A
ll
the major networks have refused to air anti-war ads. Our award for
the best explanation for banning such non-commercial views goes
to CBS. Their spokesperson, vice-president Martin Franks, put it
succinctly: “On the CBS television network,” he said,
“we think that informed discussion comes from our news programming.”
Soundbites
T
he
Bush administration was pleased to announce that both Eritrea and
the Solomon Islands had joined the “coalition of the willing.”
The question on everybody’s mind: “When will Liechtenstein
join the cause?”
A
rumor had it that Iraqi army officers trained for possible surrenders
by watching videotapes of U.S. Democratic party leaders. This was
not true.
The
U.S. Air Force furthered the cause of freedom in Iraq by dropping
leaflets on its citizens. It’s also been suggested they drop
copies of the USA Patriot Act. Give them a dose of reality.
Wayne
Grytting is the author of American
Newspeak: The Mangling
of Meaning for Power and Profit
. More Newspeak can be
found at
www.scn.org/ newspeak
.
