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I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I wanna kill. I wanna kill! I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth! Eat dead, burnt bodies! I mean: Kill. Kill!" Arlo Guthrie, "Alice's Restaurant."
As a writer of middle-of-the-road articles and essays detailing extremely moderate opinions, I am always chagrinned when someone points out the grievous errors of my ways. Heaven knows, I am deeply desirous of adhering to what is true. But...to err is human, as some say. Many of my readers contend that recently I have severely departed from reality with my statements regarding the impending war with Iraq.
I have written a number of times on terrorists and war. (For example, see my essays, "The Real Terrorists," "Attacking Freedom," "Police State, American Style," "Iraq: Unleashing the Dogs," and "Eager for War.") While I have always been firmly in favor of destroying enemies, foreign or domestic, who represent immediate threats to our safety and freedom, I have also, in my mild-mannered fashion, expressed serious concerns and reservations about those who seek to embroil us in another Middle Eastern war.
I will, however, attempt to take to heart the lessons the dedicated souls advocating war have so generously imparted to my benighted self.
Remember the past, they tell me. Delve into the history of this great nation. Observe what the American public has supported and deemed good and righteous in previous times of conflict and peril. Apply that knowledge wisely to our present travails so I might repent of my misguided ignorance.
Reform is good, they say. So, reform I shall seek to do.
Lessee...
Those advancing this preemptive attack against Saddam Hussein advise me that I have been utterly and irretrievably wrong about this upcoming war. I have been too soft on a country that is clearly our enemy.
Yes. I need an attitude adjustment. Just a moment...just a moment. Ahhhhh.... Much better. Okay. Ready? Begin...
Those dirty, rotten bastards! Those Iraqis won't do what we want them to, so, bigod, let us crush them. Emulating the Lord in Heaven, we shall rain ceaseless hellfire upon the cities of these heathens. We shall destroy their bridges, level their factories, shatter their buildings, burn their homes. We shall swoop upon their lands and drive the civilians -- men, women, and children, alike -- into the ravaged countryside. All who oppose us shall die. We stand ready to kill our foes, whoever they might be. We will shred into unrecognizable fragments the illegal government of Iraq and set in its stead our own leaders. Those sage soldiers shall manage the country of Iraq until we decide the people are damned good and ready to govern themselves again in the accepted fashion of civilized human beings. Our enemies shall be sorry they ever thwarted our wishes.
We shall teach those towel-heads a lesson they shall never forget. Collateral damage will ensure that the people of Iraq realize that we are their saviors, liberating them from the evil regime of that Hitlerian wannabe, Saddam Hussein. Emulating the joyous throngs of German citizens who dropped to their knees in thanks as the freedom-loving soldiers of the Soviet Union and America rolled their tanks through their city streets, so too shall the Iraqi people rise up from the rubble that was their homes, their businesses, their churches and weep their gratitude.
This is the strategy that worked so well for such champions of liberty as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Our society honors those gallant lads and lauds generals such as William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant. Those fine, strapping fellas weren't afraid to teach mere civilians the mistake of supporting enemy soldiers in a doomed cause.
Honor of the highest has been bestowed upon those enshrined in our school textbooks and in the heart of our national mythos. If such forthright actions as they performed worked so well in the past, then similar behaviors should surely work for us today, too.
Remember: the Civil War -- a.k.a., the War Between the States, the War for Southern Independence, the War of Northern Aggression -- was a Just War. As the Iraqis shall, the Rebels -- those SOB's -- learned a hard but proper lesson. And no one can deny that the South has never again arisen to challenge the dictates of the North. We established freedom there. At a price, yes, but a fair one, nonetheless.
With a heavy heart, our fearless generals watched from the rear lines as their soldiers and those of the enemy died by the hundreds of thousands. Tens of thousands of noncombatants also felt the bite of the Northern sword as it swept away corruption and decay from Southern fields and villages. Burn the towns, rape the women, obliterate homes and farms and crops and livestock. Declare martial law. Free the oppressed Southerners and their slaves. Set up a military government to rule them. Send in the carpetbaggers.
Ah! Just as will the Iraqis, the former members of the Confederate States of America loved and love their Yankee friends. Why, even today, the affection for the dear, sweet North practically oozes from the Southern psyche. Visit anywhere in the South and see the warmth for yourself. Just look at how Southerners respond to the great compassionate Northerners demanding that the Stars and Bars be banned from public schools and buildings. The universal appreciation for such tender intervention can hardly be missed.
I am sure the South regretted then and still does today that it ever opposed ol' "Honest" Abe. No doubt those people also regret that A.L. did not ravage their lands earlier as he helped promote total war; that he did not establish sooner the groundwork for the omnipotent state; that he was assassinated in the moment of his triumph.
Yes, the past can teach us much.
Let us also not forget World War I. A few million soldiers and civilians dead and wounded. That'll learn 'em a lesson. The United States entered the Great War late, yes, but by doing so we made sure those pansies in Europe would not settle for any weak-kneed "negotiated" peace. Our conscripts and our money helped prolong the war and served to prevent any cowardly retreat from complete and total domination over the enemy powers. And the Treaty of Versailles with its crushing reparations. By gum, the Germans would never forget that, either. But the treaty established peace! To End All Wars! Yay!
Then there was WW II. Carpet bomb them back to the Stone Age! Fire bomb Dresden! Tokyo! Burn the Krauts, crispy-critter the slant-eyes! Collateral damage 'em to the tune of hundreds of thousands.
Plus, we learned so well in the First World War that we insisted in the Second one that Germany and Japan surrender unconditionally. That way those evil bastards had absolutely zero reason to try to negotiate a settlement. They decided they had best keep fighting to the bitter end. Yeah. That way we got to blow up and nuke more civilians. Because, damn it, they deserved to die horrible deaths. So they would never forget. Or at least the survivors would never forget. So they would have the opportunity to thank us for liberating them. Those who were left, that is.
And this time they really did learn. Those Germans and those Japanese have never again challenged American supremacy, have they? Have they!?! Just as with the South. Our strategy worked. See how grateful our former opponents have been to us for destroying their countries and then pouring in billions of our own dollars to rebuild them. They are our staunchest allies, for sure, never countering our wishes. Well, except regarding Iraq. And what about those Frenchies? What are they thinking? Let's boycott their wine and their cheeses. Yeah. That'll show 'em.
And Korea! Oh, glorious, wondrous days. More Orientals to slaughter. We were so successful there that thousands of our soldiers remain in a country that is still officially at war after only, what, fifty years or so?
And Vietnam! We kicked gook butt there, yes, indeedy. Let us not forget, either, how we pumped up those body counts when we collaterally damaged quite a few villages and their inhabitants and cattle. We won every battle we fought.
Too bad we lost the war. Oh, well.
But we taught those commies a lesson they won't soon forget!
Just like we'll teach the Iraqis. Once we cast aside the chains from the Iraqi people even as we punish them for fighting us, they will absolutely, positively adore and worship us.
Hugs and kisses, all 'round.
Ahhh. A burden of foul ignorance has been lifted from my warped brain. I must emulate the conquered folks of yore and profoundly extend my gratitude to the innumerable people who graciously informed me that I just didn't understand. So:
Thank you, oh, thank you! I can just feel my brain cells churning and growing bigger and stronger, day by day.
Ain't life grand?
