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Another gloriously enervating week gotten through, dear readers. The weather went from a sweltering 89 degrees -- this when I'm walking Goat Island, meandering Marineland, climbing Clifton Hill -- and when I'm finally able to enjoy the heat without having to exercise, the temperature plummets to 52.
Remind me: Why do we live here?
Another cheery bit last week was seeing, in truly full-of-themselves mode, the Dimwit Twins, better known as Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry, who jeopardized U.S. Special Forces on a rescue mission because the girls felt compelled to preach Christianity in Afghanistan. They were at Six Flags Darien Lake for "Kingdom Bound," a religious convention that also allowed participants to enjoy the theme-park rides. Which would explain the crowd. I hope. Mercer and Curry, now blondes, treated everyone to memories of the joy they found in captivity. We are talking major twits and I wish the both of them Kingdom Bound. The bottle-blondes are hawking a book and, for all I know, a music video. Not satisfied with their 15 minutes of fame, they're going to bedevil the rest of us with their self-righteous palaver, while reminding me of a going-nowhere war in Afghanistan.
And as a topper to my week, President George W. Weasel is planning to go to war with Iraq. He is pushing the United Nations to acknowledge the necessity of bombing Baghdad to sea level. He is testing the friendship of nations, the dwindling few which still are friends. All that because he wants to see Saddam dead. On a philosophical level, I'm with the Weasel on this one. But on a practical, logical, actually-booting-up-the-brain-to-think level, that is SO not a good idea.
My columns sometimes get overtaken by events, but last I heard the Weasel had sort of challenged the UN to go into Iraq and get evidence of at least a trillion transgressions of international law, including brewing up a mix of bacterial weapons. As ham-handed as the CIA has been on too many occasions to recount, if the agency says the Butcher of Baghdad is preparing major mischief like a smallpox plague, I'll take its word for it. Sweet Lord, Saddam is a sociopath (I have a minor in psychology and, trust me, that diagnosis is spot on) and is paying Palestinian families to encourage their children to become suicide bombers. He is not going to find Jesus and become a better person.
So let's look at it with the brain booted up. Should a UN request for a visit be granted by Iraq, UN representatives will be given a fully guided tour of nothing much. More likely, they will be denied entry. In either case, the United Nations is going to heartily discourage the United States going to war in another Middle Eastern country at this juncture in time.
Well, duh.
Not enough that we have a war going on in Afghanistan that has won us nothing much in the way of world security, but has given freedom to Afghan warlords to kill each other, deal opium and hate Western infidels with a rare and scary fervor. We also have Israelis and Palestinians determined to keep the bloodletting going until the last man, or child, is standing. Jordan and Egypt, usually friends thanks to our cash contributions, are seething with anti-American feeling. Fat-cat Saudi Arabians fund every wank Islamic terrorist group on the planet. And Kuwait, the tiny oil kingdom that was being trashed by Saddam the last time a Bush decided to go to war with Iraq, is none too fond of us at the moment.
And our own clever Weasel decides to build on all this positive energy by single-handedly going to war against Iraq. And you know why? Because Daddy, George the Lamentable, didn't have the common sense, the correct counsel, the courage to keep going until Desert Storm came to its logical conclusion: Take out Saddam. After our forces and the military men and women of many other nations had liberated Kuwait at great cost in humanity and money, why didn't we make that 80-mile trek to Baghdad? The answer: Daddy Bush, of the blue blood and baffled brain, was and is a gutless wonder. So now we get Daddy's eldest son going to war to retrieve his father's reputation. Isn't that special?
You want to neutralize a madman, kill him. A nice little surgical hit, and hope the Iraqi leaders-in-waiting won't be psychopaths. Of course, the CIA is no longer allowed to assassinate people. Damn shame. Perhaps the boys were getting a wee bit over the line, but name five people not living in Cuba, not on the Cuban payroll or not insane who would miss Fidel Castro.
Unfortunately, even if we gave the CIA the power of life and death, they'd likely botch it. So I say, let's hire the Devlin Twins, former employees of Tiny Cunningham, a New Jersey developer. I hear they're very good at assassinating a target without murdering the rest of the restaurant. See, I'd like to see Saddam Hussein dead, cremated and his ashes scattered in a pig wallow. I'd like to personally do all of the above. But going to war against Iraq is a lose-lose proposition. Saddam will be in a safe bolt hole before the first troops hit the Iraqi capital, more Arab men, women and children will die, and if the Middle East could hate us any more than they do right now, they will.
Life is short, but in Saddam's case not short enough to suit me.
Nevertheless, let's not harm a lot of innocents along the way. Listen, if the Devlins are unavailable, I hear the Drubeschi Gang in Brighton Beach is at loose ends since Carl's unfortunate encounter with a Glock.
When I go wrong, I go over the top wrong. Thus I owe a sincere apology to Mike Davis of the Great American Balloon Co. Last week, Mr. Davis wrote a reasoned, fact-filled and genteel response to my ill-considered jibes against his business. Mr. Davis, I can only say I was misinformed and since I'm a twinkie when it comes to going airborne, I accepted hearsay evidence.
I have since been deluged by folks who say the glide up the stable cable of your balloon is marvelous, the view from that vantage point is magnificent, and maybe I should muzzle my mindless diatribes unless I know what I'm talking about. Good idea, yes?
Meanwhile, those of you who don't have vertigo should give Mr. Davis' balloon a ride.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | August 13 2002 |