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Thursday, June 3, 2010
Well now. Israel, the Palestinians, and Gaza. It's a sad story, and we're terribly sorry about it all, of course, feeling pronounced Official Regret in our pronounced Official Regretbones, and we feel compelled at this juncture to demand a request for an investigation into the possibility of an inquiry into the formation of a select bipartisan panel looking into whether or not to request an investigation. Which would be conducted by Israel, of course. No need to get too pushy here.
Now, you might say this week's events represent an atrocity, a massacre, a savage and criminal slaughter of humanitarian aid workers by a paranoid, murder-happy police state to further prolong the suffering of a million and a half refugees penned up in an open-air concentration camp. And you'd be right. But what you'd be overlooking is the fact that Israel has a right to defend itself. In particular, Israel has the right to defend itself from the millions of non-Israelis stubbornly living on land seized from them by Israel. Indeed, every day the Middle East's Only Democracy finds itself surrounded by a deadly horde of beggars, children and amputees who would stop at nothing to live next to it, with nothing to defend itself but two hundred nuclear warheads and one of the best-financed militaries in the world. Who in that position wouldn't attack a flotilla of aid ships attempting to smuggle contraband food and terrorist medicine to the stockpile of potentially rogue humans in Palestine? Indeed, it's only at times like this that we can fully appreciate the Special Relationship between Israel and the United States. For is there any other country in the world that can so fully appreciate Israel's dilemma? To be hobbled by money, power, and privilege, menaced on all sides in a world in which there are too many Palestinians in Palestine, an overflow of Afghans in Afghanistan, a dangerous surplus of Iranians in Iran, a grave and growing stockpile of Pakistanis in Pakistan, and only we - we! - have to courage and conviction to do something about it. Labels: never say never again, rhymes with shmisrael, running the world, warnography
posted by the Medium Lobster at 12:57 PM
Thursday, March 11, 2010
It took seven years, three trillion dollars and a million corpses, but America has finally transformed Iraq from a cruel dictatorship ruled by torture and ethnic cleansing into a cruel dictatorship ruled by torture and ethnic cleansing where select survivors are free to vote for the torturer of their choice. And Jesus said "It is accomplished!"
Is Iraq a democracy? Of course not. But is it close to becoming a democracy? Ha ha, no. But it certainly does resemble, from a distance, when we squint, the vague shape of a notion of the idea of something that contains one particular rote procedural aspect of democracy - albeit one that happens to be attached to a military dictatorship. And certainly that must be worth something. And for the sake of argument, let's say it's worth, oh, I don't know, everyone America has killed, bombed, starved, maimed and tortured in Iraq over the past two decades. Because if it's not worth that, then that would mean the occupation of Iraq has not been a selfless nation-building project generously extended from the richest country in the world to one of the poorest, but a sustained and psychotic act of mass murder, a massive, nationwide industrial slaughter that deserves its place among history's great atrocities. And if that's the case, we might find, on closer inspection, more and more American entries in those ranks, from Iraq to Nicaragua to Chile to Vietnam to Korea to Japan to the Philippines to the Trail of Tears. And that would make the United States not an enormous force for good in the world but a monster of world-historical proportions, our leaders gore-guzzling psychopaths who wipe the blood from their chins just long enough to collect the occasional Nobel Prize, and ourselves their numbed, acquiescent followers. And we know that can't be the case, because look at all the good we're doing in Afghanistan. Labels: everybody loves a winner, never say never again, running the world, warnography
posted by the Medium Lobster at 11:03 AM
Monday, March 8, 2010
 VICTOREEEEEEEEE! After nineteen years of bombs and wars and torture and bombs and torture and ethnic cleansing and torture, America's mission in Iraq has finally been re-reaccomplished through the miracle of symbolic purple-fingered brown people! Oh sure, all the cynics and the critics and the nattering nabobs of payingattentionism will say "Oh but Giblets haven't we had five or six of these already, what makes these purple fingers different from previous purple fingers" and the answer to that is shut up. These purple fingers are the most purplest-fingeriest purple fingers to ever have been symbolically purpled! They stand as unique and compelling evidence of our nation's sincere generational commitment to transform a brutal impoverished dictatorship into a brutal, more impoverished dictatorship by freeing Iraq from the deadly menace of Iraqis.And with that under our belt it's time for America to pull up its pants, smack the dust off its hands, stuff a million dead Iraqis into the national crawlspace and move on.1 Wait! What's that! Is that the sound of a desperate Iran being terrorized by Iranians? Looks like a job for America! 1. Except for fifty thousand non-combat troops, who are to remain behind to shoot people and bomb things in a non-combat capacity. Labels: never say never again, running the world, warnography
posted by Giblets at 3:58 PM
Thursday, September 11, 2008
"Well we sure learned our lesson," says me standin in the middle a the smoke an the rubble an the burnin burnin cities, "and that's to never blow up someone else's country again."
"Unless there's a real good reason," says Giblets, "like self-defense or preemptive self-defense or defense from self-defense or revenge." "Oh well a course there's self-defense," says me. "I mean just cause we wanna stop blowin up other countries doesn't mean we gotta stop blowin up other countries when they blow up our country, or try to blow up our country, or maybe tried to blow up our country, or mighta been friends with somebody that coulda maybe tried to blow up our country." "But what if they haven't blown us up, and they haven't tried to blow us up, but they've got all kinds of secret deadly weapons they could use to blow us up, like nukes or bombs or guns or anti-bomb guns or very large bees?" says Giblets. "Oh well then we haveta blow em up," says me. "I mean we can't just sit around waitin for the bees to come for us when we could be deploying our tactical anti-bee pre-defense defense." "And what if they haven't blown us up, and they haven't tried to blow us up, and they don't have anything to blow us up with, but they are swiftly developing the potential capacity to eventually develop us-blowing-up technology?" says Giblets. "Well I guess you'd haveta blow them up too," says me. "I mean why would they have bee-making programs in the first place if they weren't plannin to use bees to attack our anti-bee attackers?" "Which we're gonna need to use to attack their bees," says Giblets. "So it's all settled then," says me. "We're never gonna blow up anyone else again, unless it's self-defense, or it looks like self-defense, or it could maybe one day become self-defense, or it's in preemptive defense from their self-defense." "What if it's a favor for a friend?" says Giblets. "Like what if there's this country that can't blow us up, and doesn't want to blow us up, and will never be able to blow us up, but one of our buddies kinda drops over on a Saturday night when we got nothin else to do anyway and they're all 'Can you do me a solid and bomb Iran'?" "Well there's nothin wrong with bein friendly," says me. "I mean you gotta stick up for your friends." "And your friends' friends," says Giblets. "And your friends' friends' friends. And your friends' friends' sketchy neighbor who keeps his other neighbors locked up in his basement sex dungeon." "Well it's not our fault if we just happen to have a lotta friends," says me. "I mean we can't help it if we're popular." "That's right, we're very loved," says Giblets. "So loved that everybody hates us, which is why we have to blow them up." "It's really very sad," says me. "But other than these very limited situations we should really stop blowin people up." "What if it's for a good cause?" says Giblets. "Whattaya mean?" says me. "Well like what if there's a genocide or an ethnic cleansing or a civil war or a flood or a malaria-starved orphan child on the tv that only we can save for the price of a cup of coffee and the only way to help them is by dropping thousands and thousands of bombs on their country?" says Giblets. "Oh wow, I never thought a that," says me. "No, you didn't," says Giblets. "It's a good thing you have Giblets around to remind you of these weighty responsibilities." "Could we send them food and stuff instead?" says me. "No, we can't," says Giblets. "All the food has been eaten. Eaten by bees." "Oh man!" says me. "If only we'd blown up the bee countries earlier! How about medicine, could we send them some medicine?" "Can it be delivered by cruise missile?" says Giblets. "I don't think we've got the technology." says me. "We'd probably better stick to bombing them then," says Giblets. "But only 'cause we care," says me. "I guess what we're sayin is, we will never blow up this particular country, that we are standing in right now, in this particular way, ever again." "Unless there's a real good reason," says Giblets. Labels: never say never again, running the world, warnography
posted by fafnir at 10:22 AM
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