Op Ed that will never see paper

I submitted this to the Charlotte paper a week ago. Have not heard a thing, so I guess they are not going to use it. Here it is:


THE HORROR GOES ON FOREVER

There was a story recently by the Associated Press claiming that US troops are winning acceptance in Sunni areas of Baghdad. One Iraqi man had this to say: "We feel safe when the Americans are around… when we see the Iraqi army, we just stay home or close our shops." Capt. Albert J. Marckwardt, of the US army, commands about 100 soldiers patrolling this section of Baghdad. They were part of the last to arrive in Iraq from Bush’s surge.

Isn’t it grand that the US troops are protecting Iraqis from the Iraqi army that the US troops armed and trained? Even more grand, the US taxpayers are paying both the protectors and the army that the Iraqi people need to be protected from…..Mission Accomplished! Apparently, the Iraqi people do need protection from the Iraqi army – another news story I read said that the Iraqi army had invaded a children’s hospital in Baghdad and beat the guards.

In August 2007, we found out that a heck of a lot of weapons (about 190,000) issued to the US military in Iraq have gone missing. According to a CBS report, the CIA has photographic evidence that some of these weapons are in the hands of the Iraqi insurgents. Isn’t it grand that the US taxpayers get to fund the weapons being used against our own troops? More recent news story says that it is suspected that Blackwater, a private security firm out of North Carolina, may have been involved in the smuggling of weapons to insurgent groups.

By the way, Blackwater sent armed men into New Orleans after Katrina, while the real authorities down there stripped the locals of their legally owned guns. This does not sound like a good idea to me, but hey, what do I know? I never liked guns anyway.

Anyway - we are paying to arm the US troops, the Iraqi army, and the Iraqi insurgents, and we are paying a lot of money for Blackwater to get the arms to the insurgents. (Hey, we are also sending plane loads of weapons to Lebanon, and just last summer we sent plane loads of weapons to Israel. I think I see a pattern here!) And, back in Iraq, some of the Iraqi people are grateful that we are “protecting” them from our weapons on the other side. Although it is not clear if the Iraqi army is the same thing as the Iraqi insurgents, or if just some of them are – or maybe they work part time in both camps. I know I am going to follow Barbara Bush’s example and not going to waste my beautiful mind trying to figure that one out.

Well, folks, WHATEVER you do, don’t listen to those unserious (and likely unbathed) anti-war protesters. They just want our troops all back in the USA in order to sit around a campfire singing “kumbiya” or something. They think (unserious people that they are) that we should spend our money on infrastructure or health care or education or something. Where’s the fun in that? Life is much more exciting when you don’t know if a bridge is going to fall down or a levee give way.

You all should only pay attention to those Very Serious People who are in our Congress or White House or part of the corporate media. They are the ones who want to continue this occupation in Iraq and bring the Iraqi people Freedom and Democracy – well, if any of the Iraqi people are left, that is. A lot of the Iraqis seem to be dying or running away with nothing but the clothes on their backs. I guess they just don’t like democracy much, since they keep going to countries that don’t really have that.

And PLEASE, don’t remember that just five years ago the Very Serious People had hallucinations about WMDs! Why, anyone could make a mistake like that. I, myself, had to spend five or six hours researching on the computer before I figured out that no WMDs were going to be found in Iraq. I am sure the Very Serious People are also Very Busy People, and just did not have five or six hours to surf the innertubes. And, while the unserious anti-war protesters were saying “no blood for oil” years ago, just recently the former chair of the Federal Reserve said that the invasion of Iraq was largely about oil. Does that mean he is joining the ranks of the unserious and probably unbathed? I just don’t know.

In September, our politicians in the US Senate and US House of Representatives voted to condemn an ad on TV. Now, when they are doing important work like that, how can we expect them to keep track of all the weapons the US ships around the world, much less who might be using them? After all, it does make it more sporting to have everyone armed in an occupation.

I just wonder why they don’t give the Iraqi insurgents, I mean, the Iraqi army, some airplanes and helicopters? Wouldn’t that make it even more sporting? I mean, gee, Reagan armed and funded bin Laden’s group, but forgot the airplanes, so they had to go out and steal some! I don’t think that was very sportsmanlike to put them in that position!

Of course, all of the above would be quite funny if there weren’t a million dead people now. And while some may argue that having the US Senate and US House vote to condemn a TV ad might actually suppress free speech here in the USA, I rather suspect it will not. After all, a lot of us recognize that those Very Serious Senators and Representatives are really a bunch of clowns.

Maybe we could make up a massive virtual reality game for our Congress and White House, where they can arm everyone to the teeth, and then make war again and again and again….. only, since it would only be a game, they would not actually mutilate, maim and kill real people. And, we might save money doing that. Maybe Blackwater could run it.

The occupation goes on forever and the horror never ends.