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Monday, April 5, 2004
Well first things first. Clearly radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr does not read Fafblog or else he would have known that we had healed all wounds. All of them! Really! I have to say that radical shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is probably becoming one of our least favorite radical Shiite clerics around here.
There has been a lot of talk about how to handle all the new violence. Should we delay the scheduled turning over of power to the Iraqis? Should we not delay the scheduled turning over of power the the Iraqis? Should we nuke them? All of these are interesting positions talked about by interesting people. But what we still need is a sound policy to win Iraqi hearts and minds. And that policy is ice cream. Imagine you are a country who has been ruled by brutal dictators for centuries and invaded and occupied by a foreign power. You are tired and angry and hostile. You possibly still do not have good food or clean water or a job. What do you want? Ice cream. Who does not love ice cream? No one that is who! Children and mullahs and Baathists of all ages all love the sweet creamy taste of a fresh ice cream cone! Now imagine that you are the angry tired hostile unemployed waterless foodless Iraqi - and Americans are giving you ice cream, for free! How do you complain, you do not you are so happy with delicious ice cream! Your emotional landscape changes from angry hostile killing to delicious. Ice cream delicious. For just 37 billion dollars a year we could pay for one pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream a day for the 22 million men woman and children in Iraq. And if we buy in bulk it's even cheaper! We could be feeding them ice cream three meals a day! We could feed them ice cream at all state functions and constitutional drafting meetings! Our troops will no longer ride in humvees, they will ride in ice cream trucks. No one will launch grenades at the ice cream man! "But Fafnir" you are saying "won't this make the Iraqis very fat." Maybe but remember the ancient proverb: a fat Iraqi insurgent is a happy Iraqi insurgent - especially a fat Iraqi insurgent filled with ice cream. "But how will you pay for all this ice cream Fafnir" you say. The ice cream will pay for itself. As the love grows we will be able to phase out the military operation and thus afford the ice cream, and once we have normal relations with Iraq our ice cream exports there will be incredible. My only hesitation is that the wrong powers will launch other wars to open more markets. There must be no blood for ice cream. Well that's it. Under the Fafnir Plan I expect there to be a working liberal democracy in Iraq by say Christmas. Lets get started.
posted by fafnir at 4:10 PM
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