Tomorrow is your day, on your websites, to make fun of Dick and Lynne Cheney. One site has fired a pre-emptive strike to soften up the Cheneys' resistance. Another has done so here. And check out this.
Dick Cheney. And his wife Lynne. Have 24 hours. To get a sense of humor. We will make fun of them relentlessly at a time and place of our choosing.
Now please continue reading below for today's actual content.
When the story of this war is told thousands of years from now by the rightful descendants of the great American empire, the villains will be played not only by the barbarian hordes of Saddam Hussein, but also certain media traitors such as Peter Arnett, Arthur "Scud Stud" Kent, and about half the retired military commentators on cable televison. If they know what's good for them, they'll stop questioning the war plan hatched by Donald Rumsfeld, who I've praised in this space before as "the greatest military strategist since Liu Kang, supreme ruler in the realm of Mortal Kombat."
Rumsfeld uses careful phrases carefully phrased. This is very important, because the media is trying to deny the undeniable. During wartime, the only true version of reality is the one put across by the Pentagon. If Donald Rumsfeld tells you that there is no humanitarian crisis, then there is no humanitarian crisis. If he says that Iraq is not suffering civilian casualities, then Iraq is not suffering civilian casualties. If he says that Syria is arming the Republican Guard, then it must be true. Every single human being in the United States military agrees with Rumsfeld's plan to begin the war with too few troops, limited supplies, and the unrealistic expectation, based on shoddy intelligence, that the people of Iraq would view us as righteous liberators rather than an occupying power.
Peter Arnett. We know where you sleep. You are but bunker-buster fodder for our mighty titanium fighting force.
But enough of creating straw men and burning then down with a righteous match. We need to remember what we're fighting for in this war. To liberate the Iraqi people. One of those people is Raul, an Iraqi teenager who miraculously still has access to email. His experiences and thoughts during the past few days are instructive. I share them with you now.
Friday: 7:30 AM
Dear Neal:
All video-game shipments from Europe have ceased until war's end. I've already played the hell out of Halo and Vice City. The new Zelda is supposed to be awesome. Tell the soldiers to hurry and bring me separate cartridges for my XBox and Playstation 2! Also, it's been really dry around here lately. All the dealers lived in the apartment complex you bombed yesterday. Could you please bring some weed? Preferably skunk. And am I just imagining it, or has Jimmy Eat World been like totally sucking lately?
2:30 PM
Good news! My cousin was conscripted at gunpoint today, so I get his bedroom! Oh, boy. My girlfriend is still alive, and she's coming over later. We've had sex three times since the war started, and it's been getting better. Saddam has said on the radio that we must have sex faster and more often to create soldiers to fight back the imperialist armies. Screw you, Saddam. I wear the glove, extra ribbed for the lady's pleasure.
Saturday
1 PM
This morning, my uncle returned from the market because it was bombed and 60 people died. As usual, my aunt cut into him. "You could have been killed, and you didn't call?" "For Allah's sake," he said, "quit bustin' my balls!" Then my father came home covered in blood and sobbed quietly in an alcove until my mother enticed him out with a tall glass of home-distilled firewater.
Through my binoculars, I can see smoke and dust. Saddam Hussein's killer ninjas roam the streets, executing children at whim. Just another day in Baghdad.
Sunday
9:30 PM
I write this from the last Internet cafe in Baghdad. My house is rubble, and my entire family lies dead. By the grace of Allah, I escaped injury because I was out skateboarding. But that doesn't change the fact that the United States, whether on purpose or by accident, has utterly disintegrated my hard-earned collection of nu-metal concert T-shirts. From here on, I am no longer an ordinary teenage boy named Raul. No. I am one of Saddam's mighty warriors, and I know no fear. Why should I fear, when my heart is but an empty hole? I will fight my conquerors using any means or any tactics. On your rules of war I spit. Your triumph will turn to tragedy as the world watches, cheering. Bring it, imperialist Yankee dog! Show me what you got!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ahem.
We won't be hearing from Raul again, will we?
Don't forget that tomorrow, April 1, is Make Fun of the Cheneys day, to protest their harassment of Whitehouse.org. Dozens of websites are already participating, including the highly influential Satanosphere and the hilarious Haypenny. Join us on the joyride! Make fun of the Cheneys!
Now please continue reading below for an unfocused yet poignant and important essay from Joel Turnipseed, author of the Gulf War memoir Baghdad Express.
Last week, late night. I'm sitting in my swivel chair, camera and hot lights shining down on my airbrushed face, as I hear reports of seven Army truck drivers assassinated by the Iraqis. Since I'm a war pundit for these minutes, I’m asked by the Washington correspondent how I feel about that and the fact that we’ve discovered a chemical weapons plant, which, I later learn, is not true. I'd like to say, “War is a complete and utter fucking waste. Pointless.” Instead I say: “Blah, blah, fuckity, blah.” Isn’t that what I’m being paid to say? Isn’t that, really, what you want to hear? Doesn’t it help, depending on your tastes, to quell your fears or fire your rage?
Read between the lines, people. When you see many of us on Fox News or CNN, it’s because we’ve crawled up the ass of the beast and are waving little warning flags to you from behind its eyes. It’s either me or some stooge who’s convinced that God waves red, white, and blue pom-poms and whose nephew owns a paint company that’s going to get the contract to draw stripes on the glass parking lot that will be the new Middle East.
Actually, let me raise this rant a notch. This war isn’t about good versus evil. It’s about a somewhat evil versus really fucking evil. It's about very damaged fuck-ups versus ignorant psychopaths. Luckily, most Marines are just very damaged fuck-ups, so we’re safer than we think.
It all became clear one night when I was busy getting drunk and taking a call on a North Dakota talk-radio show from my hotel room in New York. Bill called in to ask how come there’s so many Iraqis in Baghdad, because, “I know the Chinese ladies have three or four kids at a time like our pigs, but how they get so many of them people in the desert?” I respond by saying, “Well, Bill, it is the cradle of civilization. I guess they’ve just had a couple thousand extra years of urban living to get a head start.” His follow-up question is, “Well, how we gonna get rid of ‘em all?”
Meantime, on Bill's behalf, a US tank commander is sending a pair of 120mm shells down the alleys of Kifl, Iraq. The vacuum sucks the Fedayeen irregulars out of their hiding spots, where they are gunned down by M16s and M60 machine guns in the streets or run over by tanks. The tank commander refuses to tell Reuters his name, for fear of having his neighbors identify him and his future lifetime of nightmares.
In my last post to you I said that I would do my part by shutting up more often and asking others to tell THEIR stories. Well, as it happens, I shared my recent flight from New York to Minneapolis with a seventy-eight year-old WWII leatherneck. He’d joined the Corps when he was 16, and lost his right kneecap island-hopping in the Pacific. He'd quit school when he was in sixth grade, but still raised nine children and built an inner-city real estate empire in St. Paul and its immediate suburbs.
He said to me, during our flight, “Yeah, kiddo, you probably feel a lot of pain and embarassment about the Marines. But give it ten years. You’ll find your pride in the Corps. Me, it took me that long. Or longer.” Most of his buddies had died somewhere between Guadalcanal and Okinawa. Most of his kids, evidently, hated him. Most of this pain, and its recognition, was worn into the wrinkles of his face. Is there really pride somewhere in that? Maybe. Can we imagine it? Not sure. Is there pride, or dignity, for men like him?
There should be, but no talking head on the news can give it to them. No matter what we think of this war, we need to listen honestly to the stories of the guys coming home. Even the fuck-ups. Maybe, I should say, especially them.
Now a message from my soldier correspondent who must remain anonymous as he waits for his marching orders. It's a chilling preview of what's coming at the cataclysmic "Battle Of Baghdad."
NP
The urban fight takes place mostly at the small-unit level. It’s long, tedious, tiring, and often involves going literally door to door, never knowing what’s beyond the next hallway. Infantry “fire teams” of three to four men clear individual rooms, while platoons of six fire teams clear buildings. The majority of the men doing the shooting and door-kicking are junior soldiers, and so the battle is very tough for commanders to follow and support with what the army calls “combined arms assets”: artillery and attack helicopters.
It’s been my experience that the best thing I can do as a leader in such an environment is to find myself a nice secure spot where I can watch my teams go to work, and send reports on the radio. Because of the terrain, which is often littered with rubble, broken furniture, and everything else under the sun, one of the best things you can do is just stay out of the way. At the same time, while you may not be able to see everyone in your unit, you’d still better know where they are. In the 360-degree, three-dimensional battlefield, soldiers often get mis-oriented and end up firing back toward friendly units.
From the perspective of one man sitting in a room defending, it’s very easy to kill the first one or two men who charge through the doorway. You know you’re going to be killed eventually, the logic goes, but why not take out a few beforehand?
And urban terrain favors the home team. When we invade one of the large cities, the defenders will know their way around much better than we will. I’ve seen entire units get wiped out in training exercises before by enemy forces a tenth of their size – enemy forces that had seen the terrain and been in the buildings beforehand.
I had a fair number of friends who were involved in the firefight that became known as The Battle of Mogadishu. By most accounts, the battle was a defeat of American forces by Somali warlords. Osama bin Laden himself used this battle and the subsequent withdrawal of American forces from the region as evidence that Americans did not have the stomach for the ugly realities of sustained combat.
But Rangers and other Special Operations soldiers I’ve talked with who were in this battle describe a scene very similar to the one in both the book and film Black Hawk Down, with one notable exception.
“We killed a shitload of guys,” they say.
Indeed, some estimates have put the Somali body count upwards of 1,000 dead when compared to the American total of 18 Special Operations soldiers lost. Successive Somali assaults during the day and night of 3 and 4 October were cut down by the small band of besieged Rangers and their attack helicopters in the air.
One of my buddies confessed that “We would have killed a lot more if only we had more ammo and our night vision goggles.” Once the Rangers went on the defensive, things became very difficult for the Somalis.
These same men were faced with the gruesome realities of pregnant Somali women shielding the bodies of Somali militiamen from the Rangers’ fire. In such a case, it becomes very hard to limit civilian casualties, as almost every military leader I know would give the order to kill any “civilians” consciously entering the fight by shielding enemy combatants.
This leads me to my greatest fear regarding our current situation in Basra and, soon, Baghdad. My big fear is that the Iraqis will continue to dress in civilian clothes and assault American troops, as well as signal “surrender” with white flags before opening fire. I fear they’ll continue to disperse their combatants into civilian homes and thus decrease the allied ability to strike at exclusively military targets.
And of course, my stomach turns when I hear Saddam Hussein exhort women and children to flood the streets.This all bodes badly for the U.S. and Britain. If this ugliness persists, the civilian body count will rise dramatically. The average 18 year-old U.S. rifleman will begin shooting anything on the streets of Basra or Baghdad regardless of uniform and clothing, using the justification, “How was I supposed to know he/she was friendly? If he/she weren’t a combatant, then why was he/she on the streets?”
I’m not sure I could say anything to that. We have thousands of scared young men fighting in the streets of Iraq right now, and as time goes by and more of their buddies start to get shot and killed by guys in civilian clothes, the “rules of engagement” cards handed out at the beginning of the battle will go out the window.
In the murkiness of urban combat, there's a lot of gray area. Civilian and combatant are hard to differentiate. To make matters worse, the Rangers who fought in Somalia were some of our best soldiers, trained to discriminate between civilians and combatants, while the regular army soldiers in Iraq right now haven't practiced urban warfare nearly as much as they should have.
The ugliness which lies ahead on the streets of Baghdad promises to be a cold cup of coffee to anyone who still clings to the notion of a sanitary, quick, painless war in the Persian Gulf.
For many hours now, my readers have been begging me to comment on an important story out of Washington. Yesterday, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution calling for a national day of humility, prayer and fasting in a time of war and terrorism. Our elected representatives apparently want Americans to use this day, which will be announced by George W. Bush at a time of his choosing,"to seek guidance from God to achieve a greater understanding of our own failings and to learn how we can do better in our everyday activities, and to gain resolve in meeting the challenges that confront our nation."
I'm of several minds about this development. On the one hand, it seems desperately ill-advised for Congress to be issuing religious proclamations, Christian ones no less, when the United States has just invaded a country at the heart of the Muslim world. One could also call it hypocritical to ask people to seek guidance from "God," when nearly every major religious leader in the world has spoken out publicly against the war. Some extreme leftists might even wrongly say that Congress handed over its most somber constitutional responsibility--that of deciding when to declare war--over to a President who was installed in office specifically to declare war on as many countries as possible. Instead, Congress wastes its time renaming French fries and hypocritically calling for public displays of humility.
On the other hand, I could stand to lose a couple of pounds, and a day of fasting that's not Yom Kippur might be just what I need right now. I say, hooray, Congress! Hooray! Thanks for helping me slim down!
And now, a brief editorial from Christian Bauman, former soldier and also author of the Somalia war novel The Ice Beneath You. Christian has been providing excellent commentaries to this site since the war began, but he's recently been sending me so much material that I suspect he has fallen in love with me. Well, he's not the only one. I'm glad he's joined the ranks of the smitten, because this dude can write. His latest piece is about, for lack of a better term, the lighter side of war. Ladies and gentlemen, Christian Bauman:
3/27/03
A nice lady on the radio was just soliciting for letters and packages to send to our troops overseas. You write down some friendly, supportive words, throw in a few candy bars, and ship it off to Any Soldier, FPO Iraq.
Man, we used to love getting those envelopes. Of course, my two turns were in little wars, so we didn’t get busloads of Any Soldier packages like they did in Vietnam or Gulf War I, or the way they will in this war. We’d get a few small things, every few weeks. But it was great to get them. Great to know someone back in the world knew we were alive.
Whoever was on the mail run the day a bag of Any Soldier letters came in was a lucky bastard. All letters are not created equal, you understand. There would be fights over them: some were perfumed; always a good sign. Some had little hearts all over them; those promised to be keepers. I knew this kid who was on the mail run to the Kismaayo (that’d be Somalia, y’all) airport on one day the mail had an Any Soldier bag. He heaved it up into the back of a 5-ton truck, and stuck his head in, digging through, amazed at his good luck of being alone for thirty minutes with first dibs at the Any Soldier mail bag. The convoy got shot at on the way back to the coast, the drivers of the trucks and Humvees flooring it through the city, running over animals and anything else that got in the way. Back in the compound, it became apparent this kid had no idea of what had happened. He was too busy sniffing through the letters to notice his near demise.
The coup, of course, was getting the letters with a picture or two inside. Some sweetie from Oklahoma City. Or Laramie. I don’t know why, but the further west the return address, the more likely the envelope had a picture. And the more north, the more likely the picture was, shall we say, revealing. Triangulate this equation and you discover that the girls in the northwest get a real charge out of showing the troops exactly what it is they’re fighting for. And do the troops appreciate it? What do you think.
There was always a lot of food. And it was always melted. Or spoiled. We didn’t care. We ate it anyway. Nothing like a brownie from Vermont that’s been melted, reformed, melted again, reformed, crushed, radiated, and sniffed over. Yeah baby.
Lots of Bibles. Those were the sucker packages. You took your chances with one of the six brown packages in the mail pile, went to your little rock, sliced open the paper with your knife, already tasting the moldy three-month-old cookies that awaited you…and a Bible came out instead. There’s a hill near the port of Kismaayo (that’s Somalia, y’all) where I’ll bet a pile of those Bibles still sit today.
So this nice lady on the radio this afternoon, soliciting for Any Soldier packages. She ended her little speech with a giggle and the statement: “Of course, any kind of alcohol or pornography is strictly prohibited.”
“Lady,” I’m thinking. “That’s all we ever wanted.”
Early yesterday afternoon, I watched Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Principal masterfully deflect the blame back onto the Iraqi leadership for 14 civilian deaths in a Baghdad market. Then a general claimed, with absolute correctness, that all civilian casualties are the fault of Saddam Hussein because he doesn't love his people as much as we do. I was feeling very proud to be an American. So proud, in fact, that I released my beleagured antiwar manservant Roger from my wine cellar, which doubles as an enemy-combatant prison of my own devising. I asked him to prepare me lunch. Then I got a nasty email, and my mood soured. It went:
"Hey there, you fat prick. Who the fuck are you to judge whether the war is going well or not? And who are you to graft your own narrow-minded ideological biases onto combat situations you know nothing about? Somebody should shoot at your ass, motherfucker."
How offensive, I thought. Yet another deluded leftist turned anti-American thought criminal. Especially because he's wrong.
Fighting has never been my specialty. When I was at Eton, the boys would bout all the time, but I was too busy reading Catallus in the original Greek and helping my roommate perfect his dry-humping technique to partake. However, I've always been pretty good at figuring out who will win the fight, flattering him or her, and profiting mildly from the inevitable patronage that emerges from ultimate victory. When it comes to fights, my predicitions are right-on nearly 65 percent of the time.
Therefore, it's obvious that the civilian uprising in Basra is a sign that the Iraqis are embracing our conquering heroes, emitting the first sweet warblings of freedom as they sit down for a moveable feast with their G.I liberators. Also, the discovery of Iraqi chemical suits on the battlefield is conclusive proof that we were right to force the world into this cataclysmic war. The safety of all countries depends on the near-destruction of one of the world's ancient cities.
Remember one of the key elements, we're finding out, in this battle is the willingness of the Iraqi people to stand up to the Saddamite remnants. That willingness depends, in part, on their confidence that the allies are making progress.
Well, that last paragraph was from Andrew Sullivan. But you get the idea.
Some quick housekeeping. Remember that April 1 is your day to make fun of Dick and Lynne Cheney on your websites. Dozens of humor websites and blogs have agreed to participate in Make Fun Of The Cheneys day, to protest their attempted intimidation of Whitehouse.org. This site will feature commentary by me and a special feature by Todd Hanson, head writer of The Onion, assuming he can lift his tear-stained face from the pillow long enough to make deadline.
Also, I've once again received the press I deserve. Here you'll find a piece by Michael Wall in this week's Creative Loafing, discussing the important topic of my upcoming visit to Atlanta and Athens, Georgia. Never before has the insidious relationship between the writers of America's "alternative" big-city weeklies and their entertainment-industry "subjects" been exposed to such brutal public light. Also, the events in Georgia are going to rule. If that's not enough, there's a fine interview with me, unrelated to Atlanta, at the funny website Lunchboxing. Thank you, Lunchboxing. You've made me a man.
And, finally, the answer to all your questions about what I did at South By Southwest music festival, provided by two separate reporters at the Tucson Weekly, a newspaper published in Tucson, Arizona. Examine this piece and this one. Read them all the way through, because I'm smack in the middle of both. At last, the vicious sandstorm of controversy that swirls around my tormented career will abate, if only for a few days.
Since the war to liberate Iraq from a corrupt, evil regime began slightly fewer than eight days ago, I've done 75 radio interviews, all on Clear Channel stations, about the topic dearest to my heart. Over and over again, while also emphasizing that George W. Bush is the great Liberator of the unwashed quite possibly sent by the Star Creator to save humanity, I've made the point that bloggers are changing the face of blogging, and therefore journalism. I've been getting nearly 800,000 hits a day since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, or, as I call it, Operation Iraqi Freedom. My message is finally getting through.
This war is complicated, and I fear that traditional media aren't up to the task of explaining its complex complexities. The embedded reporters are plagued by combat inexperience, night blindness, or, in the case of the turncoat Brits, anti-American Fifth Column traitor tendencies. Not so us bloggers. We see through the muck that fills our TV and computer screens as we monitor them obsessively, not "pathetically," as our detractors in the old media say, 24 hours a day. We see what no one else can, because no one else is looking in the same places that we are. Our minds are very sharp pencils, and we're poking the world in the collective eye.
Just look at all the ground broken, on this site alone, since the war began:
--I was the first writer, by nearly 20 seconds, to declare the anti-war movement completely bankrupt because of the stupid actions of a small radical fringe group in San Francisco. Subsuquently, I beat everyone to the gym by accurately suggesting that American combat deaths are quite possibly the fault of anti-war protesters.
--Yesterday, no one else dared touch the story that the Turks may be whipping up sandstorms to help the Russians secretly funnel weapons to Saddam Hussein.
--As far back as last October, I was calling Jacques Chirac "the Rasputin Of The Seine, with halitosis." Imagine my non-surprise, then, when the French newspaper Le Monde reported over the weekend that Chirac is seeing a breath doctor. In Bergen-Belsen!
--Why, I ask you, haven't the mainstream media been providing us with a line-by-line analysis of every single one of Tony Blair's speeches? Because they know I did it first.
--Last Friday, I wrote that Saddam Hussein had done something bad to someone at some time in the past, and that the time for debate was over. This is war, I said. Our enemies can do no right, and we no wrong. Except for Shepherd Smith, the lack of moral courage on the part of journalists continues to stun me.
--At 1:37 PM yesterday, I reported, just by guessing, that Iraqis weren't fighting by traditional rules of war. "They may use dogs as human shields," I wrote. Sure enough, I was more or less correct, and by the end of the afternoon, my scoop had roared across the globe like a cartoon jet that turns into an eagle.
--Finally, only I am able to say, without qualms or even evidence, that the Iraqis are savage ape-monsters who don't understand law, hygiene, and, in many cases, English.
There you have it, my Beagles. Blogs. The new newspapers. You read it here first. Or at least I hope you did.
Now then: Keep reading below. I have new guest commentaries. The first is from Joel Turnipseed, who caught a virulent Gulf War memoir fever and wrote an excellent book called Baghdad Express, which can be purchased here. I must say that Joel's book makes an excellent companion to my own book, Beneath the Axis of Evil, which is only $10 here.
So Joel's is the first commentary. The second is by a solider friend of mine who's actually still in the military but must remain anonymous because, well, he's in the military. Read Joel, and then the other guy. And tune in tomorrow for more red-hot late-breaking sexy blog action!
Joel Turnipseed, my special guest today, lives in Minnesota. He's the author of the excellent Gulf War memoir Baghdad Express. Last night he sent me the following email while on his high-powered book tour:
Hey, folks. Neal asked me to say a word or two about sandstorms, and so, hotel glass full of port at my laptop, I offer you up the slightly-drunken, hazed thoughts of a Gulf Warrior on the storms of war.
1) The Haze of Experts. I am now, I suppose, a "War Expert." What this means is that, because I wrote 60,000 words on the subject and served as a Marine Corps Reservist in Version 1.0, I now know all about Apache helicopter maintenance, guerilla tactics, the Geneva Conventions, POWs, the politics of protest, and what the hell the young men are listening to on their Sonys. You may have seen me on ABC or Fox News, or heard me on Westwood One or CBS Radio declaiming on these things, along with the retired Colonels doing their best to imitate an East Village crank addict trapped in an AARP body. I know about some of these things directly, intensely, and some only peripherally. But mostly, I'm trying to help you and the rest of middle America imagine what it's like to go to war. All I can really say is that it's a horrible, ambiguous mess that takes ten years to write about half-well. Please remember this when you're chewing your popcorn while watching the War Porn. And that MY soundtrack for the last war kicked it old school with Public Enemy--"Welcome to the Terrordome."
2) The Haze of War. You will be watching lots of things about Sand. And storms. And how you do maintenance to keep things running. And what you do when you can't see. Well, the sand is often accompanied by rain. And oil smoke. It feels like a thousand dirty needles tatooing your face with the pain of deadly and exhausting work. But at least it keeps you awake, because sleep is certain death. Oh, and you can't see that the truck ahead of you has stopped and, in fact, because there was no maintenance you actually have very shitty brakes and crash into him before you are able to stop. Because you were only going five
miles per hour, your injury is a cigarette burn in the groin. You are lucky. Tomorrow a guy from Seattle is going to go through the windshield, requiring hundreds of stitches and a neck brace. The next day, or the next war, the wrong turn you took is going to become the wrong turn 12 unlucky soldiers take, ending in death for seven and the trembling captivity of five more. I urge you
to think of their mothers next time you snicker. Really. We can all laugh later.
3) The Haze of Experience. And what the hell, ultimately, are we supposed to do with all this information? These pictures? These reports from those who were there before and those who are embedded among the sorry, scared, but terribly brave young men and women dying and killing in the desert? I don't know,
really, but I know what I'm going to do: I'm going to seek them out and ask them, please, with all the emotional generosity I can muster: please, tell your story. And it's OK to cry.
Back to you, Neal.
Joel Turnipseed
Submitted to this site by my friend who is serving in the military but not currently in the Middle East. He sends me commentary from time to time.
--NP
The first sandstorm I ever experienced was in Kuwait a few years ago. I was standing in the desert on a cool fall night shooting my carbine at some targets we’d set up in the distance. After a while, we got bored and started shooting tracer rounds into the night sky, our carbines on automatic as we carved out violent shapes--smiley faces and Tic-Tac-Toe games--of burning magnesium into the Arab night.
In the west, the horizon got hazy. The stars began to disappear one by one. Soon, less and less of the western sky was visible. I thought it was steam rising from the desert sands, but it wasn’t long before my platoon sergeant and I were huddled in our Humvee, riding out our first Kuwaiti sandstorm.
The worst sandstorms tend to hit Kuwait and Southern Iraq in the early fall and late spring. They can last for days, like the one currently bogging down our troops. The worst I lived through lasted about 12 hours, during which I led a convoy through the desert, navigating the whole way using my global positioning system and a map because I couldn’t see more than 20 meters in front of my Humvee. The turret gunner got the worst of it. When we got back to base, he was covered with sand. Five of us stayed up the whole night cleaning his machine gun.
I worry less about the soldiers during this sandstorm than about how the equipment will fare. Small weapons and machine guns don’t work well when caked with sand and grit, and the oil we give our troops makes matters worse, because it just serves as a magnet for more sand.
But overall, this sandstorm should give our guys some time to rest. They’ve been going at a blitzkrieg pace the past five days and no doubt want some time to catch up on sleep before the big push into Baghdad.
Like most Americans of my income level and social standing, I have a satellite dish. While watching Pakistani television yesterday for signs of anti-American bias, I caught the controversial Al-Jazeera video of captured American soldiers. Unexpurgated, it was very disturbing.
Yes, the greatest fighting force ever assembled for the noblest cause in human history is marching inexorably toward Baghdad and weeks of horrific mutual slaughter unlike any ever seen on TV. Yet Americans are still uneasy about watching their children killed, live. One can't blame them, really, but I'm of the opinion that what the world sees, we should see.
Our opponents are so brutal, so inhuman, so outside the bounds of normal human behavior, that we must face them all day, every day, in our living rooms. Iraqis are not people like you and me. They're barbaric animals who operate by a different code; our television networks don't make that clear enough. So I must narrate the hostage video for you. What I'm about to write is very disturbing. But you have to look into the harsh light of reality before your eyes can adjust to the truth.
This, then, is the horrific true narrative of war:
Five U.S. soldiers sit in a room, on comfortable couches. They're being interviewed by an unctuous blond man with a bad haircut. He asks them if they're "psyched" for their "auditions." They glance around nervously. The first one, a woman, is called into an antechamber.
She faces three judges: a large black man, a cruel-looking fellow with crossed arms, and Paula Abdul.
"You must now sing Come Through My Window, by Melissa Etheridge," says the cruel one.
"But..." says the soldier.
"Sing it, sister girl," says the large black man.
A piano plays. The soldier sings, against her will. She has no stage presence, and seems to have forgotten the words. The tears flow.
"I don't think that was your best performance," says the large black man.
"Well, I thought you were great," says Paula Abdul.
The cruel one gazes at the female soldier, who quivers.
"Absolutely horrible," he says. "You're an embarrassment to your country."
She goes backstage, where the unctuous blond comforts her, but also mocks her. He then sends out the next soldier, a man, who the cruel one instructs to sing a Brian McKnight song.
"Fuck that shit," the soldier says defiantly. "I like the rock."
"You will sing what you're told to sing," says the cruel judge, "or you won't make the finals."
He sings. You can see him trying not to break down, but it's obvious that voice lessons were not part of the basic program at Fort Bliss. It's totally not in his range.
"I don't like your choice of song," says the black judge.
"I didn't choose that song, man!" says the soldier.
"Well, I thought you were great," says Paula Abdul.
"I'm very disappointed in the level of talent in the United States military," says the cruel judge. "You all need to find a different line of work."
The videotape continues from there. The judges force our fine soldiers, one by one, to sing songs by the world's worst songwriters. The cruel one reaps witty but obviously scripted scorn and humiliation, causing one soldier to pathetically beg for "another chance."
"No," says the judge. "You have failed. You will not be chosen."
"Well," says Paula Abdul. "I thought you were great."
The cruel judge stands.
"Silence!" he says. "She was not great. America is not great, either, and it will fall before the mighty Iraqi army! Soon, we will choose a soldier and name that soldier the American Idol. And then the world will see that the United States cannot sing!"
Donald Rumsfeld is right. This garbage certainly violates the Geneva Convention, and how. It's so much worse than holding hundreds of people indefinitely without charges at a military base in Cuba, driving many of them to suicide or madness. Cursed be the liberals who want to defend enemy combatants who wish to harm you and your pets. We'll win this war without them.
Also, read this excellent article. And now, to Baghdad! Ho!
I wonder if the antiwar protesters in San Francisco who were arrested yesterday have any idea that they're useful tools for a murderous dictator who has murdered dictators in the past. Do they have any knowledge of history, of politics, of literature, like I do? Obviously not, or else they wouldn't have blocked access to the city's public libraries, destroyed train tracks with their laser eye beams, or generally fouled that usually fine city with their hideous Fifth Column odor spray.
Some things are worth fighting for, even if it means flouting the United Nations, dancing around all known precepts of international law, and using forged evidence and poorly connected half-truths as a pretext for invading a country without provocation. Why, I think Operation Iraqi Freedom is a perfect little name for this jolly war! But don't take my word, though it is tradeable currency wherever intellectual credibility works as legal tender. Take the word of Raul.
Raul is an Iraqi teenager who somehow has access to the only working laptop computer in Baghdad. The last two days, as the howl of war has begun to whip across the desert, he's been sending me thoroughly credible emails, documenting his thoughts, feelings, and experiences. If you doubt why we fight, read these entires. For he is Raul. And he waits for liberty.
Thursday
4:35 PM
I want to see the bright lights and the explosions. This Shock and Awe we hear about should be most shocking, and totally awesome. The bombing so far is boring. I haven't seen anyone decapitated, despite the decapitation strike, and the toilet in my uncle's house still works. When the air raid began, the radio and TV stations remained on. It was a program of patriotic songs, followed by the great American TV comedy What's Happening! or, as it's known in Iraq, Fat Black Man Bouncing Down The Street. In the middle of the show, our favorite character, Repeat, began informing us that we were under attack. We think it was not a direct translation, and was probably government propaganda. An odd way to learn of the beginning of war.
5:34 PM
Have I told you how glad I am that the Americans are coming to liberate us through Operation Iraqi Liberty? It's a great name for the operation, because that's what they're doing. We are very excited to hear the sounds of the anti-aircraft artillery. That means, for me, that my girlfriend will get scared and come over to watch me perform magic tricks and give me hot sex. My mother gets mad because we make a lot of noise, but the explosions outside are loud enough so that Anja and I can really enjoy ourselves tonight. Let me tell you a little bit about our house. There are two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom. We all sleep in the kitchen and cook our dinner in the bedroom. My family is very strange. Outside, I hear gunfire, but it's just Saddam executing his final enemies. Please come rescue us soon!
6:30 PM
My uncle came home drunk tonight, which really made my aunt mad because he was supposed to go to the Ba'ath store for dinner provisions. Apparently, Saddam's Imperial Stormtroopers are controlling all market access, and when the sun goes down, all remaining shoppers are killed. Things will be different under the Americans. Oh, I am so hungry. I hope the Americans bring us food under Operation Iraqi Freedom with their Shock And Awe. Most of all, I want to eat fresh fish. Also, American chips with their jalapeno cool ranch flavor. At last the rule of this terrible tyrant will end.
Friday
1:30 AM
They interrupted TRL Live, with the band Good Charlotte, to let us know that the U.S. had bombed the headquarters of Al-Jazeera. I was glad. Al-Jazeera simply hasn't been the same since they hired Walter Issacson. I said this to my girlfriend, but she just wanted to have sex with me instead.
3:25 AM
The We're All Going To Die siren went off a few minutes ago, but it was followed by the Just Kidding siren. Sometimes I want to sound a Fuck You, Saddam, siren, but then I would be killed. I can't wait until the American liberators roll into Baghdad with their provisional government and their shining example of freedom and democracy! How we long for the day! I hope they bring delicious Hot Pockets. I've seen them advertised on TRL Live, and also, I am in love with the American starlet Jennifer Love Hewitt. My girlfriend is jealous, but I tell her that Jennifer Love Hewitt is skinny and stupid, that she can't sing and will soon be forgotten.
10:30 AM
Today in the morning I went with my father for a ride around Baghdad and there was nothing different from yesterday. We ate a small bowl of soup while sitting by the side of the road, and noticed that the traffic lights were still working. Then his car phone rang, which surprised me, because I didn't know he had a car phone. I do not know what my father does for a living, only that he often comes home with blood on his clothes and sometimes he screams when he is in the shower. Only a few bakeries were open and of course the Ba’ath Party Centers. We stopped at the bakery and battery store to buy some bread and batteries. The bread is to eat. The batteries are for my girlfriend's vibrator, but I tell my father it is for my transistor radio.
I went home and long into the night I listened to the Best Of Brent Musberger on Armed Forces Radio. My friends and I have filled out our NCAA tournament brackets, but we don't know what the NCAA is, or a tournament, or brackets. Our education has been inferior under Saddam, but once we are liberated by Operation Iraqi Liberty Shock And Awe, we can fufill every teenager's desire of reading Virgil in the original.
Oh, I'm babbling. But that's because a bomb just landed across the street and I can hear women screaming. The air is thick with dust and smoke. But at least I know that I will probably not die. I am a civilian, and when the liberators come, I will be free. Freedom! Hooray!
I wonder if the antiwar protesters in San Francisco who were arrested yesterday have any idea that they're useful tools for a murderous dictator who has murdered dictators in the past. Do they have any knowledge of history, of politics, of literature, like I do? Obviously not, or else they wouldn't have blocked access to the city's public libraries, destroyed train tracks with their laser eye beams, or generally fouled that usually fine city with their hideous Fifth Column odor spray.
Some things are worth fighting for, even if it means flouting the United Nations, dancing around all known precepts of international law, and using forged evidence and poorly connected half-truths as a pretext for invading a country without provocation. Why, I think Operation Iraqi Freedom is a perfect little name for this jolly war! But don't take my word, though it is tradeable currency wherever intellectual credibility works as legal tender. Take the word of Raul.
Raul is an Iraqi teenager who somehow has access to the only working laptop computer in Baghdad. The last two days, as the howl of war has begun to whip across the desert, he's been sending me thoroughly credible emails, documenting his thoughts, feelings, and experiences. If you doubt why we fight, read these entires. For he is Raul. And he waits for liberty.
Thursday
4:35 PM
I want to see the bright lights and the explosions. This Shock and Awe we hear about should be most shocking, and totally awesome. The bombing so far is boring. I haven't seen anyone decapitated, despite the decapitation strike, and the toilet in my uncle's house still works. When the air raid began, the radio and TV stations remained on. It was a program of patriotic songs, followed by the great American TV comedy What's Happening! or, as it's known in Iraq, Fat Black Man Bouncing Down The Street. In the middle of the show, our favorite character, Repeat, began informing us that we were under attack. We think it was not a direct translation, and was probably government propaganda. An odd way to learn of the beginning of war.
5:34 PM
Have I told you how glad I am that the Americans are coming to liberate us through Operation Iraqi Liberty? It's a great name for the operation, because that's what they're doing. We are very excited to hear the sounds of the anti-aircraft artillery. That means, for me, that my girlfriend will get scared and come over to watch me perform magic tricks and give me hot sex. My mother gets mad because we make a lot of noise, but the explosions outside are loud enough so that Anja and I can really enjoy ourselves tonight. Let me tell you a little bit about our house. There are two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom. We all sleep in the kitchen and cook our dinner in the bedroom. My family is very strange. Outside, I hear gunfire, but it's just Saddam executing his final enemies. Please come rescue us soon!
6:30 PM
My uncle came home drunk tonight, which really made my aunt mad because he was supposed to go to the Ba'ath store for dinner provisions. Apparently, Saddam's Imperial Stormtroopers are controlling all market access, and when the sun goes down, all remaining shoppers are killed. Things will be different under the Americans. Oh, I am so hungry. I hope the Americans bring us food under Operation Iraqi Freedom with their Shock And Awe. Most of all, I want to eat fresh fish. Also, American chips with their jalapeno cool ranch flavor. At last the rule of this terrible tyrant will end.
Friday
1:30 AM
They interrupted TRL Live, with the band Good Charlotte, to let us know that the U.S. had bombed the headquarters of Al-Jazeera. I was glad. Al-Jazeera simply hasn't been the same since they hired Walter Issacson. I said this to my girlfriend, but she just wanted to have sex with me instead.
3:25 AM
The We're All Going To Die siren went off a few minutes ago, but it was followed by the Just Kidding siren. Sometimes I want to sound a Fuck You, Saddam, siren, but then I would be killed. I can't wait until the American liberators roll into Baghdad with their provisional government and their shining example of freedom and democracy! How we long for the day! I hope they bring delicious Hot Pockets. I've seen them advertised on TRL Live, and also, I am in love with the American starlet Jennifer Love Hewitt. My girlfriend is jealous, but I tell her that Jennifer Love Hewitt is skinny and stupid, that she can't sing and will soon be forgotten.
10:30 AM
Today in the morning I went with my father for a ride around Baghdad and there was nothing different from yesterday. We ate a small bowl of soup while sitting by the side of the road, and noticed that the traffic lights were still working. Then his car phone rang, which surprised me, because I didn't know he had a car phone. I do not know what my father does for a living, only that he often comes home with blood on his clothes and sometimes he screams when he is in the shower. Only a few bakeries were open and of course the Ba’ath Party Centers. We stopped at the bakery and battery store to buy some bread and batteries. The bread is to eat. The batteries are for my girlfriend's vibrator, but I tell my father it is for my transistor radio.
I went home and long into the night I listened to the Best Of Brent Musberger on Armed Forces Radio. My friends and I have filled out our NCAA tournament brackets, but we don't know what the NCAA is, or a tournament, or brackets. Our education has been inferior under Saddam, but once we are liberated by Operation Iraqi Liberty Shock And Awe, we can fufill every teenager's desire of reading Virgil in the original.
Oh, I'm babbling. But that's because a bomb just landed across the street and I can hear women screaming. The air is thick with dust and smoke. But at least I know that I will probably not die. I am a civilian, and when the liberators come, I will be free. Freedom! Hooray!
I was going to use this space tonight to craft a searing parody of Andrew Sullivan, who, as you all may have guessed by now, is a major satiric target of my little website. The idea was to have my "character" begin in his study giving a narrative about the duty of great nations throughout history in times of war, throwing in some fake quotes from Gladstone and Orwell along the way. Gradually, I intended the monologue to deteriorate into Bush-speak about how we will not use"half-measures" in war, and then deploy some rote Bush-style fearmongering about how if we don't depose Saddam now, there will be another 9-11, only this one will be worse. Then, gradually, I would start raving madly, until nothing was left but war-like monkey cries.
It would have been funny, maybe. But I can't do that tonight. I can't waste my time right now on preening idiots like Andrew Sullivan, who had the gall to say to the L.A. Times that he would be "blogging around the clock during the war." Well, whoop-de-fucking-doo, asshole. Thank god for you. But I, for one, will not wait until your round-the-clock blogging begins just so I can shoot you, the world's biggest fish in the world's biggest barrel. This war, writ large, will never end. And I have other days to waste on making fun of you.
Instead I'm going to publish something by a soldier friend of mine who's currently serving in the U.S. Army but isn't in the Middle East right now. The testimony must go unbylined to protect his anonymity. But, as our noble Commander in Chief would say, make no mistake. He's a real person.
His unembedded voice, like those of other soldiers either free of the propaganda machine or brave enough to dance around it, needs to be heard now. If there are other soldiers out there, either former or current, who want to add something to this real discussion of war, as opposed to the hyper-intellectualized version of the war shat out daily by our pundit class, then please send me letters or testimony. And now, some writing by a man who actually have something to say. One word by him is worth a year of Andrew Sullivan and his goddamn 24-hour blog cycle:
I don’t think anyone, with the exception of some hapless Iraqis in Baghdad after tonight, really understands what it means when the United States Air Force decides to visit your neighborhood.
Sure, our soldiers on the ground are great and loyal and well-trained and tough as all hell just like we would expect red-blooded American boys (no girls in the infantry) to be. But having seen what kind of destruction the Air Force can bring to bear upon an enemy of the United States firsthand, I'm left with no question as to how we won the war in Kosovo before a single troop hit the ground.
A year ago this month, I was sitting on a ridge in Afghanistan hunting down Al-Qaeda stragglers in a valley near the Pakistani boarder. As I sat watching the sun set over the mountains to my east, I couldn’t help but admire the sheer size and majesty of one particular snow-capped mountain. It was certainly bigger than any “mountain” I had seen back home in East Tennessee and it stood out from the rest of the mountains.
And then I watched the mountain disappear.
A huge red fireball of flames and sparks and smoke shot up thousands of feet into the air where a B-52 had just dropped a giant “Daisy Cutter.” The twilight darkness covering the valley highlighted the incredible size of the explosion.
My best friend, one of my squad leaders, was sitting by my side while we shared an MRE. We watched the explosion, sat transfixed for a few moments, and then stared at each other in disbelief.
“Holy fuck,” I remember one of us stuttering.
And then we started to laugh. We laughed because we had seen what neither of us would have ever thought possible, a bomb devouring an entire mountain. We laughed because we had just seen an ass-whipping of epic proportions and hadn't been on the receiving end. We were alive, but whoever the fuck was over on the other side of the valley sure wasn’t. We laughed because there was no way a band of ragtag terrorists could possibly defeat any nation that could make a mountain disappear. Who ever heard of such a thing?
As it turned out, there wasn’t any band of terrorists who could match the USAF.
As we walked that valley in the days that followed, we saw the carnage wrought. In places, not a single tree stood. Cave systems, which had been built to withstand the Soviets twenty years earlier, were completely collapsed. We found a body part here. Another there. And here was a dead Chechnyan, without his head.
We saw Al-Qaeda who had survived the bombing too. One of my friends captured a soldier, disoriented, his brain matter oozing out his earlobes.
For all the criticism, “Shock and Awe” is actually a good way to describe it. Violence--violence on a scale most will never comprehend--is another.
Before I get to my guest blogger for today, who is Christian Bauman,retired soldier and author of the excellent Somalia war novel The Ice Beneath You, I have a couple of brief housekeeping matters.
First, the Day Without Satire previously scheduled for April 1 remains on April 1. Only now, instead of asking websites to go "black," I'm encouraging all Internet humorists to make fun of Lynne Cheney, Dick Cheney, or both. This will be in protest of the White House's attempts to stop payment on Lynne Cheney parodies at Whitehouse.org. Don't worry, funny people. The war will be over by then. We still need to band together. Make fun of the Cheneys on April 1.
Residents of Georgia and other southern states: I will be appearing on April 2 in Athens at the legendary 40 Watt Club to help celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Chunklet magazine. Following me on stage will be David Cross. This is an honor I don't deserve. Then, on April 4, I will be doing my very own event at Criminal Records in Atlanta. It will include many circus freaks, and also rock music. Details can be found here. Again, let me repeat. The war will be over by then. It will be safe to laugh once more.
Now, Mr. Christian Bauman. You can contact him directly here.
3-17-03
There’s these two new Gulf War memoirs out; talk about good timing. A couple years back when my agent was trying to sell my novel, all we kept hearing was “no one’s interested in literary fiction with war in it.” The book came out last fall, but the sale was pre-9/11. I’ve heard too that even Bowden’s “Black Hawk Down” had trouble finding a buyer in the beginning.
These ex-Marines Swofford and Turnipseed, “Jarhead” and “Baghdad Express,” respectively, have stepped in it. Nice. It’s good to see someone swing and hit one out of the park. Lots and lots of press. Front page of the NY Times book review. Matter of fact, the Times has, at last count, now published three major articles on Swofford’s book.
Here’s the thing that’s getting me, that’s either cracking me up or making me want to cry, I’m not sure which: the underlying sense of surprise in these reviews/articles. The reviews are positive, and should be. And what you get from the literary side of the press corps is this feeling of surprise at the messiness of war and those who wage it, at the profanity. War is dirty, it seems, and the soldiers who fight it might not be worthy of dinner with Mom.
Maybe I don’t think about it because I was a soldier. But to be honest I don’t think I know a whole lot more now than I knew before I enlisted.
My point: what the fuck exactly did you expect? For goodness sakes, ladies, I know y’all read “The Things They Carried”; I’ve seen your blurbs all over the back of the book. You read “Farewell to Arms” right? Did you think us tricky novelists made that shit up? So why this polite, literary cough in these reviews/articles, this “wonderfully written memoir, really; but my goodness the way those boys carry on.”
Here it is, man: kids with rifles in their hands curse. A lot. They curse blue streaks and tell jokes about Susie Rottencrotch and dry ass fucks and they’re not particularly polite people. Most of them are just a few years past puberty, and they’ve trained to do their day job by jabbing a bayonet repeatedly into the torso of a human-looking model and yelling “Kill! Kill!” over and over again at the tops of their lungs. Experience like that makes for a rather edgy and shall we say less-than-cultivated sense of humor.
This might be a surprise, but in war people have parts of their bodies blown off. Sometimes they survive it, or survive it for a while. There’s blood and flesh flung about, and that kind of thing hurts a lot, so there’s likely to be men screaming. Really loud, really high-pitched.
Even before a battle -- even before you get on a plane to leave the States -- there’s going to be puke and snot and shit and piss.
And why is this surprising? I guess that’s what I don’t get. How else did you expect it to be?
My own sweeping generalization is thus: the very modern, intelligent, very educated, ivory-tower reviewers of literature are made distinctly uncomfortable by war and combat as themes, and the more in-your-face it is in a book, the more uncomfortable they get. So they try very hard to ignore it. When at all possible, they’d rather just not go there. Because, I think, it IS all a great surprise to them. The side of humanity that survives the stress of looming combat by having mass faux fieldfucks is very foreign to these people, and they don’t want to write about it or frankly even think about it. So they don’t. Until those times, like right now, when they have to because they can’t avoid it. And then they seem surprised at how filthy dirty it all is.
It’s funny to me, and I think it’s the same underlying reason why intelligent, well-educated people have allowed our leaders to take us to this point: because they have no knowledge of how bad war really is.
It really is that bad.
The saplings are heavy with the first buds of spring at the foot of Mount Winchester. I can see them from my turreted office, as the searchlights scan the moat below for signs of intruders such as the family of the postman who I had my friends in the Justice Department declare an "enemy combatant" because my Weekly Standard was soaked when it arrived. These are dark times in America.
Tonight, the ground is rumbling with the rubber hooves of mechanized war, and it's about time. How long were we to stand by while the United Nations and all the world's people begged us for a peaceful solution to a problem that we more or less invented for political convenience? Were we really expected to let the French outmaneuver us, to be held hostage by the greed of the black leaders of Cameroon, to allow our little brother Mexico to come out of the kitchen for even a minute?
Sadly, no. It is with a heavy heart, and an even heavier prostate, that I declare World War III in session. As I learned while fighting in The Second World War, doing secret intelligence work in Korea, and working as a "freelance" photographer in Vietnam, war kills people of all colors, of all religious backgrounds, and of all tastes in music. A guy who listens to James Brown and The Stooges might get disemboweled by a land mine while a guy with a Spiro Gyra CD will traipse across the battlefield like Julie Andrews through a field of Edelweiss. But we must not question death, or life, for that matter. The United States is the greatest country ever. If to prove that point we have to defeat Iraq, which has a dangerous navy of nine boats, then we will.
My war reverie is interrupted. Roger is at the door with my Yerba Mate and Pepperidge Farm Mint Milanos.
"Shall I come back later, sir?" he asks.
"No, no, Roger," I say. "All's quiet on the Western front."
"It's just that I ordinarily leave you alone when you're staring out over the water, rubbing your hands wickedly."
"This is different," I say. "This is war."
"Yes."
"Our good faith has not been returned. The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament."
"Indeed, sir."
"The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends and it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of Al Qaeda. The danger is clear: Using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other."
"Very logically thought-out, sir."
"Please bring me Peggy, our clone baby," I say.
"Of course, sir," says Roger.
"We are a peaceful people," I say, "Yet we are not a fragile people. And we will not be intimidated by thugs and killers."
Later, as I gaze upon the sleeping moonlight visage of my genetically-engineered daughter, I compose this country song that I hope will give our troops courage in the face of swirling clouds of nerve gas:
People in the streets saying peace on earth
Doctors not allowin' teenage moms to give birth
We face our evil enemies in foreign countries and at home
Cause we're the biggest empire since Greece or maybe Rome
So don't let all those hippies and those moms against the war
Make you forget the differences between after and before.
Never forget that we're under attack
Todd Beamer died for all our sins
And now we've got his back
Never forget the charred rubble and the screams
All the crispy critters and their half-forgotten dreams
Osama bin Laden sure as hell ain't won this war yet.
Never forget.
There were bloody corpses strewn all over Chambers Street
Our noble sons and daughters were reduced to luncheon meat
They won't let us see the images, they think we'll be afraid
But now the bill's come overdue and man, it must be paid.
The French and German pansies can't reign in the dogs of war
Our bombs are ten times bigger than they've ever been before.
Never forget that we're under attack
George Bush will die for all our sins
And we know he's got our back
Never forget that evil people are afoot
Like the ones who covered us with all that awful soot.
Osama bin Laden sure as hell ain't won this war yet.
Never forget.
Now I've been there with the soldiers
Who are just there followin' orders.
And I wished I were at Starbucks
Or, in a pinch, at Borders.
Well, get ready, mother-raper cause we're gonna attack
You're going into exile
And you're never coming back
The children that you murdered
Could rise from their mass grave yet
Never forget.
Never forget that we're under attack
Todd Beamer died for all our sins
And now we've got his back
Never forget the charred rubble and the screams
All the crispy critters and their half-forgotten dreams
If you oppose this war, you're Saddam's accidental pet.
Never forget.
Hello, friends, readers, and lovers both former and current. I've returned to your screens just in time, for soon American bombers will rain almighty death upon the infidels and not kill any civilians in the process. Thank goodness my return is today, and not, say, tomorrow. In this important historical moment, when four world leaders have just spent the weekend partying away their differences on the island of Ibiza, the opinions of Internet pundits could spell the difference between proper interpretation and tragic misinterpretation of meaningless semantics. If the world is staggering toward endgame, you'd better get the details right. As always, I'm the one you can trust.
Many thanks to the spectacularly untalented Rob Diener for filling in while I worked a very special kind of rock n roll voodoo on the citizens of Austin, Texas, during the South By Southwest music festival. I would definitely say that besides Willie Nelson, Supergrass, Mudhoney, Cat Power, Yo La Tengo, Hot Hot Heat, and Camper Van Beethoven, my band, The Neal Pollack Invasion, was among the 750 best-known festival acts. As yet, the local press hasn't published a review of my show, because they're afraid of getting put on my infamous blacklist, but one website dared post a picture. Doesn't that look like fun? Don't you wish you'd been here?
Sadly, my time at SXSW was not all blowjobs. While performing at a festival pre-party on Tuesday night, I made some unfortunate statements about President Bush between songs. Anyone who's met me will tell you that I would ordinarily never say anything like: "Texas, huh? Yee-haw, motherfucker! Man! You guys gave us President Bush! Thanks a lot, you bastards! Hey! Did you hear that President Bush is a faggot who likes to fuck babies up the ass? Did you know that? You should be ashamed!"
I did say it. But I was drunk, and also stoned, and also on cocaine and ecstasy. So at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. But because the music press is comprised of vipers who like to nip at the ankles of my career, my comments were widely reported and soon they spread over the Internet like a mysterious pneumonia. On Thursday, the ripples turned into waves, and then into a giant wall of water that threatens to destroy us all unless Tommy Lee Jones can figure something out in time.
A bookstore in Kansas City held a protest, encouraging everyone in town who's read my books to come toss them into a raging fire. The seven people who showed up were pissed-off and righteous. By Friday, radio stations across the country weren't mentioning my name at all, and I was mysteriously absent from all television. Bookstores in other cities followed Kansas City's lead. In Portland, I was denounced at Powell's by members of the Punk Porn Coalition For War. In San Francisco, 1500 people showed up at City Lights because they'd heard a rumor that I was going to give a reading and also because they thought I was Dave Eggers. No one attended the book-burning at St. Marks Bookshop in New York. That would have been SO 1998, and besides, Fischerspooner was playing in the secret basement of a club with an unpublished address in Greenpoint or maybe Red Hook.
What I'm really trying to say is that I'm sorry. President Bush is not a homosexual who fucks babies, at least as far as I know given the tight controls that the White House has placed on the media. I would like to retract my statement from South By Southwest, and instead offer this alternate statement:
"I believe it is the right of every American, especially after a few beers, to call the President a pedophiliac. However, I must admit that this particular President probably does not molest children. My big mouth has gotten me into trouble one time too many. Therefore, I retract everything I said and beg you to buy a copy of my new book, Beneath the Axis Of Evil, the story of a man who believes he is a messenger of God, which makes him arrogant, ignorant, and strangely paranoid. Then he will kill us all. It's fiction, of course."
I think this new statement will appease the press and the America's growing class of angry literary hipsters. Next time, I'm just going to say, "I love George Bush. I love America. Now I'm gonna play an uninformed song that uses fear-mongering to justify an ill-advised war."
That won't cause me any problems.
(Hi. Rob Diener. Again. Yes, I know. I can't help it. I just love to wear out a welcome. Anyone who knows me well will tell you I am the Eternal Houseguest. But that is neither here nor there. Before we get to the real entry, I just wanted to quickly address the one question that seems to be on everyone's mind: How did I sucker Neal into allowing me this space? Simply put, I went to high school with young Jonathan Foer, who I knew simply as Johnny. As far as I knew, he had no middle name, and I wish I still didn't know. Still, he was a very nice, eager guy, the younger brother of one of my favorite people, and I, unlike the rest of the world, do not resent his success. I'm not wild about 'Safran', but I suppose he knows better than I do what sells. Also, while my birthday is today, it will not be officially celebrated until Monday, when scores of pasty, thick-set old men will amble in formation through the streets of Manhattan, singing incomprehensible songs of praise in my honor. I recommend holding off on your own Robert Diener Day festivities until then. And now, on to the hackneyed garbage I churned out earlier in the week...)
I am maybe a little ashamed to admit that I was listening to some old Jack Benny radio shows (as opposed to new Jack Benny radio shows) this afternoon, but I am not ashamed to say I enjoyed ‘em. That Jack—what a cheapskate! Seriously, though, it’s funny stuff, and you should get your hands on some. I mean, even the ads are funny. Check out this one:
“It’s good to know that fine tobacco picks you up when you’re low, calms you down when you’re tense, by putting you on the right level to feel and do your level best. That’s the Lucky level. Smoke a Lucky to feel your level best. Smoke a Lucky to feel your level best. Get on the Lucky level, where it’s fun to be alive! Get a carton of Luckies and get started today!”
You couldn’t get away with a gag like that these days. People are way too sensitive. Besides, TV sucks. People rave on about all that HBO crap because it’s better than everything else, not because it’s actually that good. Six Feet Under can, frankly, eat my ass. And the Sopranos is nothing more than Goodfellas on Prozac. That’s right, I said Prozac. What of it? Anyway, here are some ideas for TV shows that might help save entertainment from the greedy clutches of the Big Fat Greek people.
The Flautist – Lee Horsley of Matt Houston fame is back in the world of broadcast television high adventure, only now, instead of Matt Houston, he plays Chuckie Buckles, the pickup-drivin’ good ole boy first flautist for the Washington Philharmonic by day, and a free-wheelin’ vigilante with a fancy for bloodshed and a hatred for the law by night (though often, due to his fairly flexible schedule, he may be a vigilante by day and a flautist by night, and sometimes he will manage to squeeze in both identities during either the day or the night, or maybe even both. It’s this flexibility that will allow the show to grow and keep growing). And then I guess he has a hot secretary or something.
Meatloaf! – Horrible pop crooner Meatloaf will be unleashed upon unsuspecting audiences once again, this time as a formerly hard-partyin’ rocker who is now trying to atone for his wicked ways by becoming a Lutheran minister and adopting twenty-seven children (each one more disabled and/or ethnic than the last!). Add to this a dog, a horny Italian neighbor, and Tea Leoni, and I say we’re cookin’ up a meatloaf full of gold!
Soleil, Out on Her Own, Trying to Make It Big in the Big City – A vehicle for Soleil Moon Fry, this series places its title character right in the heart of New York City as a writer for Big New York City magazine. As the magazine's advice columnist, Soleil is constantly horny and pathetically accident and error prone, but her co-worker friends are always there to save her in the end. Despite the show's endless comic possibilities, though, Soleil, Out on Her Own, Trying to Make It Big in the Big City will allow plenty of time for Soleil to explore her problems (most of which involve her always-on-the-cusp-of-romance relationship with one of her big dumb stud co-workers) in a serious light, because research shows that women prefer shows in which women explore their emotions in a serious light.
The Hospital – several highly developed characters, most of them doctors, work in a busy hospital.
Celebrity Go To The Beach – Eight celebrities (Roger Ebert, Wendy Jo Sperber, Joan Collins, Ed Lover, Wings Hauser, Vicky Lawrence, Countess Vaughn, and Joe Garagiola) have to spend a week living together in the same beach house. On the show's final episode, viewers will be able to call in and go online to vote for which celebrity gets to walk away with the book rights.
Investors may contact me directly at
simply peruse our prospectus at www.funnsylvania.com.
Well, fans, time is running short for me here. It has been strange, like sleeping with a friend’s wife when he is just one town over and knows fully well what’s going on, to the point that he will call you and tell you where she likes to be touched. Overall, though, it’s been an incredibly fulfilling experience, like sleeping with a friend’s wife when he is thousands of miles away and has no idea what’s going on. The response, inasmuch as there was any, was overwhelmingly positive, except when it was overwhelmingly negative. But even the negative I choose to take as a personal positive, for I may never receive another death threat as long as I live, and even if I do I will always cherish those first few. We’ve had our fun, haven’t we?
Still, I regret not being able to find the time to talk about Congressional target="_blank">freedom fries and freedom toast, and my subsequent proposal to start calling German chocolate cake, “Joschka Fischer can suck it cake.” And oh how you would have marveled at every word of my account of my daring rescue of Elizabeth Smart from the dastardly clutches of a coven of unwashed religious paranoiacs. And you surely would have nodded your collective head in agreement at each of my “20 Suggestions for Ameliorating the Rancor Between James Gandolfini and HBO.” Not to mention laughed your collective underpants brown at the comedy gold that surely lies in them thar comedy hills. But, no, there’s no time for that now.
But you are not the only ones who lose out by my departure; Saturday is my birthday, and I would have really relished the opportunity to let you know that also celebrating birthdays on the Ides of March are Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Terence Trent D’Arby, Judd Hirsch, Fabio, and the Iron Sheik, or that on March 15th, 1954, precisely twenty years before I was born, the Chords recorded “Sh-boom” and changed popular music forever, or that, on the same date in 1939, the Nazis took Czechoslovakia. How I wish I could have shared some of that with you! Any of that! If only we had the time!
And I never got the chance to defend why I choose to live in L.A., or to mention the article I once read that claimed southern Californians spend more on clothes and less on books than people anywhere else in the country, or the person quoted in the same article who claimed that the reason people here don't read books is because the weather's too nice to waste time like that. And speaking of wasting time, it looks like I’ve done just that. Oh well. It was nice knowing you.
p.s. Come back tomorrow for a special BONUS ENTRY. It was written on Tuesday, but I believe it will still be as fresh tomorrow as it was three days ago.
p.p.s. Oh, and this is Rob Diener. R-o-b D-i-e-n-e-r. Not Neal Pollack. N-e-a… you get the point. But don’t despair—Neal will be back in time for you to start your workweek the right way (i.e., without me).
Sweet bleeding Jesus, I hate political humor. It is almost always more political than it is humorous, and politics are almost always tiresome, especially when they’re other people’s. But Neal fucking Pollack has been good enough to give me this forum, so who am I to, say, post a 500 word essay on what I would like to see on Broadway instead of following Neal’s direct command to address this so-called “war” we’re supposedly about to unleash on so-called “Iraq”? I’m Rob Diener, that’s who! And nobody tells Rob Diener what to do. So, without further ado, my wacky take on our war with Iraq…
Iraq, as I understand it, is a particular make of the Chevy Camaro. I’m not sure what the difference is between it and other Camaros, but it must be significant, or else why would we want to attack it? Ha ha ha, but of course I am kidding! That is the Iroc . There’s no pulling anything over on you!
Anyway, the reason we are going after Iraq has something to do with Saddam Hussein killing his own people and possessing a handful of slightly modified missiles and a single drone aircraft, or something like that. It doesn’t strike me as a good reason to go to war, but then I am no Curtis LeMay. However, I’m of the mind that this is all a ploy by our government to scare Saddam into exile, since we can’t possibly be serious about wanting to drop 10 ton MOAB bombs on people because we think there might be a chance that their leader may someday want to aid somebody who wants to harm us.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not exactly against going to war with Iraq, and I refuse to buy into the “this is all about oil” argument, and furthermore I tend to feel that anyone who has ever carried an anti-war placard deserves to be beaten to death with a pro-war placard. At the same time, I’m not one of these maniacs who spray paints “Death to Saddam!” on the side of my car and, not being a defense contractor or oil baron, have nothing to gain by our attacking Iraq. So where do I stand?
Well, I’m not quite sure. Forgetting for a moment what he does to his own people, Saddam Hussein is an obvious menace, a despot with a penchant for expansionism. It is also extremely likely that he carries a deep grudge against the U.S. and would relish the opportunity to take us down a peg. Looking at it in that light, there is very little to lose by our taking this guy out of the picture once and for all. On the other hand, of course, we are AMERICA, God’s Chosen Country, and as such (and given our shaky reputation overseas) we must lead by example, part of which must surely be not going to war unprovoked. But then, maybe we have been provoked. Maybe all that information really is too sensitive for the government to reveal to the masses. I suppose we won’t find out until it’s too late.
So you can understand why I have so much trouble picking a side in all this; the hawks are all blood-thirsty racists who just want to see somebody—anybody—get killed, while the doves are all a bunch of faggots who think that if we all get together in a big circle and hold hands and wish hard enough, then there will be no more war. I guess, in the end, all I really want the government to do is whatever it takes to ensure that I, Rob Diener, will live a long, fulfilling, and excessively wealthy life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the underground bunker. Toodles!
p.s. If you have anything to say to me, say it to me. Let’s be adults about this. In other words, don’t go tattling on me to Neal Pollack. He’s a busy man and probably doesn’t care anyway. Oh, and to the person who was incensed by my description of the new peanut allergy medication: I like to think my cavalier stupidity is what makes me funny. But, as a person who cannot eat carrots, apples, and a half dozen other fruits and vegetables for fear that my throat will swell shut and I will fall into anaphylactic shock, I am acutely aware of the seriousness of peanut allergies, and by no means intended to downplay the legitimate significance of this medical breakthrough. However, I do think it’s hysterically funny whenever someone dies from eating peanuts.
p.p.s. Go here.
At the behest of Mr. Pollack and against my better judgment, I’m going to attempt to discuss current events. (NOTE – Due to technical issues, I’m writing these pieces a day in advance. In other words, right now is yesterday, but it’s also tomorrow, so these events may no longer be current by the time you read them, or maybe won’t even have occurred yet. I’m not quite sure how it works. Right.) So let’s see what’s in the news…
Korea? No, you know all about that one already. Iran’s nuclear program? It’s pretty newsworthy, but I, for one, don’t consider nuclear proliferation very funny. Thinking about it, though, it’s comforting to know we have several options for the war after the one with Iraq.
Okay, let’s see what’s in the NY Times. Oh, goody! Scientists have come up with a pill that will allow people who could not previously eat peanuts to eat peanuts—as many as nine peanuts in a single sitting! The article goes on to say a lot more, but I will not bother to read it. There’s also an article about rising popular support for war against Iraq that essentially says that most people are still in no great hurry for it. Ha ha ha!!! That’s funny.
Also funny is the Washington Post’s story on the hubbub over Rep. Jim Moran’s (D-Va.) bizarre statement that Jewish support for an Iraqi war is the main reason the anti-war movement is failing. A bunch of rabbis are incensed and say that this recent statement was just one in a string of anti-Semitic attacks from Moran, a bunch of Democrats are saying Jim Moran is a great guy who loves Jewish people, and Moran himself claims that what he said is not at all what he meant, and if we doubt his intentions, we need look no further than the fact that his daughter is marrying a Jew. My feeling is that if Moran had actually said something obviously anti-Semitic (Jews are cheap, pushy, whiny, stingy, annoying, tightfisted, miserly, penny-pinching, etc.), it would have been better than his perpetuating the notion that Jews control the world. (Goddamn it! Excuse me for boasting, but Hot Damn! I am on fire tonight! Funny, funny stuff!)
Another funny piece in the Post is Anothony Shadid’s article on the popularity of Egyptian crooner Shaaban Abdel-Rahim’s latest smash hit, “The War with Iraq.” With provocative lyrics like, "Do you want to partition Iraq or what do you want exactly?”, the delightful song has got the Arab world dancing in the Arab street. Mr. Abdel-Rahim, the article says, previously had a big hit with “I Hate Israel.”
And, uh… I guess that’s what’s in the news. Sorry.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I wish Neal Pollack hadn’t called me all those horrible things. Not because I don’t like being called horrible things, but because I’d planned to spend a good portion of my week here slandering the guy, and I fear I’ve lost the element of surprise. But we must press on, because otherwise we’d have to come up with something else, and we are very, very lazy. So, to the defamation!
Neal Pollack is a racist. Don’t believe me? Well, perhaps you’d believe Neal Pollack. The following statements come from a series of columns he wrote for Mother Jones in 1987:
“If Jesse Jackson wants credibility, then Jesse Jackson better turn white.”
“It sickens me that ‘people’ like ‘Refrigerator’ Perry are famous. The only one of them who should be famous is Crispus Attucks. At least he had the good manners to get famous by being shot and killed.”
“Martin Luther King??? This is someone we’re supposed to admire? For what? Being a communist spook who cheated on his wife? Or is it because he’s the only black man who never killed somebody over a drug deal? Who are we supposed to admire next? Wayne Williams?”
“I don’t much care for Mexicans.”
And the list goes on and on. Feel free to draw your own conclusions. But if you’re still not convinced that Neal Pollack is the Devil, then perhaps you’re unfamiliar with “family man” Neal’s misogynistic side. The following come from a column Neal wrote for the Utne Reader in 1990-1:
“Boy, that Betty Friedan is a bitch. I bet ya she wouldn’t mouth off so much if she weren’t so goddamned fat and ugly. Even a woman like that needs a dick in ‘er every now and then, and I'm a guy who'll put my dick in just about anything that has a big enough hole in it, but, shit, man, I wouldn’t fuck Betty Friedan with Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s dick.”
“The problem with Gloria Steinem (other than that she’s a woman) is that she thinks she’s smart. Dumb bitch. There’s no such thing as a smart woman; in fact, there are only two kinds of women: pretty women and ugly women. A ‘smart’ woman is just an ugly woman with glasses. Look it up.”
“Women are only good for two things: fucking and punching.”
I expect you get the point. No? Well, here's what he had to say about the lower classes in a 1986 piece for The Nation:
“Hands Across America? How about Hands Across a Couple of Job Applications, you impoverished filth!”
“One the chief complaints these working-class scum make is that their apartments are too cold in the winter. I say we let them use the homeless as heating fuel, thus killing two birds with one stone.”
“Oh, boo hoo hoo! You say you're hungry? Then eat your squeegee, ya lowlife!”
Yeah, okay, I realize that many of you are probably thinking, “Neal Pollack writes satire. Which means that if he said those things, it's actually the polar opposite of what he means.”
Well, you're wrong, folks. On two counts. First of all, Neal Pollack doesn't write satire, he writes crap. Second, satire doesn't have to be the opposite of anything. And third, even if Neal Pollack does write satire, Utne, Mother Jones, and The Nation have strict editorial policies that would have prevented such work from being published. Case closed.
So there you have it, Rob Diener fans. I know whose side I'd rather be on.
Do you?
Hi. I'm Rob Diener, and I'm only here because Neal begged me to be here, and now that he's labeled me a lonely, perverted Jew, I'm thrilled to have accepted. I'm only a Jew because my parents are Jews, okay? I didn't ask to be a Jew. In fact, I've asked several times not to be a Jew. Anyway, since we are most likely meeting for the first time, why don't we allow someone whose judgment isn't fogged by bitter jealousy to tell you a little more about me.
I am beauty incarnate. I am the mint left on your pillow which, upon further inspection, turns out not to be a mint at all. I am the faint smell of sulfur on the hands of a Viennese prostitute. I am the Ma Rainey of tomorrow. I am bombast masquerading as a whisper. I am the tattered, stinking rattan clothes hamper of which your toddler daughter has availed herself during a spirited game of hide-and-go-seek. I am a licensed notary public working out of a tiny travel agency in Galveston, Texas. I am the distant glimmer of potential sex flickering in the night sky. I am a raisin
in the sun and a dried apricot on the moon.
I am the threat of a rubella outbreak in your local school district. I am the hand that fashions the band-saw that cuts off the other hand. I am the dog that lies at your feet and secretly wonders what it would be like to kill you and eat you. I am Tony Danza. I am a cloistered monk with a $1000 a week cocaine habit. I am the last muddy puddle in the dried-up creek that runs past Ted Nugent's house. I am the west coast's third largest manufacturer of custom-fitted latex bondage masks. I am the box of unspeakably horrible photographs hidden below a loose floorboard in your favorite uncle's crawlspace. I am the urine in your coffee.
I am the opening act for a C&C Music Factory cover band. I am the
twelve-inch tuna sub a spiteful coworker hid in the heating duct nearest your office. I am your grandmother's dildo. I am your teenage son's burgeoning fascination with Hitler. I am the inventor of the collapsible top hat. I am the Pygmies' best and last hope. I am truth, I am light, I am sick of this fucking bit and I'm stopping it now.
I hope this clears up any misconceptions.
As for what to expect from me this week, I'd prefer it not be much. Be pleasantly surprised when I do well, be gentle and nurturing when I fail, and no matter what, never forget that I love you.
(I'll be back again tomorrow, but if you need me before then, I can be reached at www.funnsylvania.com or, if it's an emergency, rob@funnsylvania.com. See you soon.)
On Thursday, March 6, Christian Bauman, author of the war novel The Ice Beneath You, spoke at a National Press Club event on U.S. troop preparedness for chemical and biological warfare. The event may have been shown on CSPAN3, but I didn't see it, and if I didn't see it, neither did you. His speech went as follows:
"I was a soldier for four years. I joined the US Army as an E1 Private at the tail of the Gulf War, and served in two major deployments: Somalia and Haiti.
Now I make my living as a novelist. Novelists deal in the world of fiction, generally speaking. Not facts. Not so different from the Department of Defense.
I speak to you today, though, not as a novelist, but as a citizen and a veteran. And it seems to me that the most important thing I could ever do to save the lives of fellow soldiers didn’t happen in Somalia, nor in Haiti. My time in those places was eye-opening and
sometimes scary but harm-free. No, the most important thing I’ll ever do to save life and limb of a fellow soldier is what I’m doing right now.
Anyone who tells you that DoD wouldn’t think of sending its people into harm’s way without being fully protected is lying. I was sent to Somalia in December of 1992. The deployment came with plenty of warning. I had training filters in my gas mask, and a heavily
used training MOPP suit in my rucksack. Even supposing the real equipment works correctly, I didn’t have it. Nor did anyone in my platoon. I wouldn’t have survived teargas, let alone a chemical or biological attack.
Was there a true chemical threat in Somalia? Well…does it matter? There wasn’t supposed to be ANY threat. We went to Somalia to help stop a famine and ended our stay there with the bodies of American GIs being dragged through the streets. That’s the definition of preparedness: you make sure ALL systems are go
beforehand, because war and conflict follow their own schedule and have their own rules.
But what is really frightening is that in the First Gulf War, chemical and biological attack WAS expected. And the members of my platoon and company who’d deployed to the Gulf did so in the same way I later went to Somalia: with training filters in their masks and heavily used training MOPP suits in their rucksacks. And the stuff was never upgraded while they were in-country. Every night, the Scud missle alert would sound, and they would go to MOPP 4, and as the missiles exploded over their heads they were
essentially unprotected, in gear that either didn’t work or wasn’t meant to work.
Colonel David Hackworth, the most decorated living American soldier, has a quote he uses a lot, from George Washington: "The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly Proportional to how
they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated…by their Nation."
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to tell you that the soldiers in the field now in the Gulf stand in harm’s way because of their own faulty equipment, and they know it. On so many levels, they don’t trust it—and experience points to the fact that they shouldn’t.
What’s worse, they know it didn’t work for the veterans who came before them, and they’ve seen how the Pentagon has brushed them off.
Perhaps it’s easy to brush off 160,000 Gulf War Syndrome casualties, months and years after the fact.
It won’t be so easy to brush off entire battalions of American soldiers laid to waste in the face of a full-out chemical attack that they are not properly equipped for."
Thank you, Christian Bauman, patriot.
I know I promised all of you, my gentle readers, live streaming coverage of the United Nations today. But after last night's Presidential press conference in which George Bush said, seemingly on Quaaludes, that he didn't give a hoot about the the United Nations, I've decided to abandon that plan. I feel terrible saying this, but Hans Blix is boring, and I don't want to watch him talk all day. If our government's not going to listen, why should I? They're just going to do whatever the hell they want anyway.
Instead, I'd like to call your attention to an important issue that affects us all: The Bush Administration's attempts to repress satire. John Wooden, the extremely funny editor of the parody website Whitehouse.org, recently received a letter on official White House stationery. The letter requested that he remove a satirical biography of Lynne Cheney from his site. He responded by posting a picture of Ms. Cheney with a clown nose and blacked-out teeth. I quote from yesterday's New York Times story about the letter:
"This is to request adjustments in the content of your Web site," the letter begins. It cites court cases, and says it is important to avoid using Mrs. Cheney's "name and picture for purposes of trade" without her permission, and important "to avoid portraying her in a false light."
Bullshit. Lynne Cheney is a public figure, and an obnoxiously outspoken one at that. Her husband is, arguably, the most powerful man in the world. They are fair game under the First Amendment and any subsequent Supreme Court interpretation thereof. How dare the Cheneys attempt to use their power to intimidate a cabal of genius humorists operating out of Brooklyn?
Of course, our hero isn't defenseless. Wooten has responded to the letter hilariously, and it looks like the New York Civil Liberties Union is going to defend him in court if the evil duo doesn't back down. But I still think we should let John Wooden know that he's not alone.
That's why I call on the world's parodists and satirists to join me in a protest. I call it A Day Without Satire.
In solidarity with our oppressed brothers and sisters at Whitehouse.org, I urge writers of Internet satire to let their screens go black on April 1, April Fool's Day, the holiest day of humor. If all goes according to my plan, not one satirical word, not one parodic image, will appear on the web that day.
For sleazy porn peddlers, for the geniuses at The Onion, and even, reluctantly, for Michael Moore, producing satire is a sacred right of citizenship in a democracy, one that has a long tradition going back at least 30 years, maybe longer. The preservation of our satirical heritage is vital, especially now. We live in times that seem to combine elements of the Great Depression, Vietnam, Prohibition and McCarthyism, not to mention the worst elements of the Reagan years, times ten. The language of government finally sounds like, and I mean exactly, not vaguely, the screenplay for Dr. Strangelove and the final chapters of 1984. During the last two years, satire is the only thing that's kept me sane, besides sex, but like I'm getting any of that. I know that many of you feel the same way.
Our role is important, fellow satirists. Our place in the world is important. And John Wooden is one of the best we've got. We can't let the White House drum him out of existence, or even try to, because we could be next. Why not? Nothing is out of bounds these days.
Let's stop this idiocy before it escalates. Band together, men and women who try to be funny. Let your screens go black on April 1, A Day Without Satire. All day. And if anyone who's not directly satirical wants to join us, then they're welcome. Let the whole damn Internet go dark for 24 hours. We'll see who truly believes in the power of satire.
This isn't a joke. We can beat back these jerks. Write to me and let me know you're in. I'll publish a complete list of participants when I come back from my hiatus on March 18, and even after that, the list will grow and grow.
Fuck you, Dick Cheney.
Fuck you, Lynne Cheney.
We'll beat you, because we're funny, and you're not.
See you all in about 10 days. Until then, enjoy my replacement, the intermittently funny Rob Diener. Remember, people: A world without satire is a world without satire. How true that is.
NP
The United Nations will hold its most important session ever on Friday, as our natural European enemies and a turncoat Pope attempt to prevent us from prosecuting the most important war in world history. This is too important an occasion for me to ignore: None of us want the French to get an wedge in the all-important battleground of Internet opinion. So I'd like to announce that from the beginning of Friday's session, I will be providing constant streaming live commentary, updated every five to ten minutes. This will continue up to 2 PM Eastern time, when I'll have to leave for a doctor's appointment. When I get back, I'll provide a wrap-up before heading off to play Frisbee golf. Tune in to this space incessantly, and tell everyone you know, because my point of view is gold.
I'd also like to announce that I'm taking next week off to participate in the South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, as I do every year. A complete schedule of my rock star activities can be found here. I think my duet with Junior Brown at the Austin Music Awards will be the highlight, or maybe the sex I've got scheduled with Lucinda Williams on Thursday the 13th at 3:35 PM in her room the Driskill Hotel. She'll write a song about it for her next album, due to come out in 2007. Remember that when Lucinda sings "my heart died in Lafayette," she really means, "I had sex with Neal Pollack."
While I'm hanging on the porch with Willie and the babes from Sahara Hotnights, my substitute blogger will be Rob Diener of Los Angeles, California. He maintains a website of sorts called Funnsylvania. Please give him your support. Like all great humor writers, he is a sad and lonely pervert. He's also Jewish, and in the face of rising global anti-Semitism, he deserves your support.
Speaking of rising global anti-Semitism, you'd think the Europeans would have learned by now that if you start dissing, or even killing, Jews, the U.S. will be occupying your ass within a few short years. But the situation has become quite dire, especially in France, where Orthodox Jews rarely do anything except eat and pray from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, lighting their homes only with candles out of fear the government will track their whereabouts through electric currents. The current wave of prejudice has touched me as well. The other day, I called the offices of ANSWER, the Stalinist anti-war traitor organization.
"Hello," I said. "This is Neal Pollack. I'd like to speak at your next demonstration."
"Hang on," said a person. "Let me get an organizer."
I waited nearly 20 seconds, an eternity for a Jew who is being discriminated against.
"May I help you?" said the organizer.
"Yes," I said. "My name is Neal Pollack and I'd like to speak at your next antiwar demonstration."
"I don't think that will be possible."
"Why not?" I said.
"Because..."
"I'll tell you why!" I said. "It's because I'm Jewish."
"No, Mr. Pollack. It's because you're not actually against the war."
"Oh, really? How did you know that? Is your organization spying on Jews?"
"No. We read your op-ed in The Wall Street Journal."
"Fine," I said. "But you're still anti-Semitic."
"No we're not."
"Yes you are."
"Goddamn it, Pollack," the organizer said. "Shut your Jew ass."
BINGO!
While I have your attention today, I want to talk briefly about The Lysistrata Project, an effort by Fifth Columnist Earth Mothers to attempt to poison the minds of college sophomores everywhere by simultaneously performing the Lysistrata in dozens of different cities. I studied Greek theater at Oxbridge. I played Agamemmnon in a production of Orestes. And I highly disagree with their interpretation of Lysistrata as an antiwar play. Thank goodness I missed Monday's worldwide misreadings, but this is still Lysistrata week, so I'm going to contribute my piece. I translated the play from the original, and I present an excerpt here:
LYSISTRATA: Boy, I can't wait until my heroic soldier husband returns from the war so I can fuck his brains out!
ANTIGONE: You're telling me! Why, I just spent three weeks on the front lines handing out blowjobs to soldiers. It was fun. And I totally support my government's efforts in this War On Terror, a just war that cannot fail.
MEDEA: Mmmm. Just thinking about dead Iraqis makes me wet.
LYSISTRATA: Oh, god, me too. I'm so horny right now!
ANTIGONE: Let's have a three-way and videotape it for the boys on the U.S.S. Nimitz!
LYSISTRATA: Great idea! I'll get the lube!
THE END
My dear friend Christopher Hitchens brewed up some strong fact-based opinions about the sinister Turks yesterday in his groundbreaking Slate column, "Fighting Words." Let me add another to Hitch's litany of Turkish sins. Unreported by the Western media and unbeknownst to the Eastern media, the Turks more or less seized control of Latvia from 1952 to 1957, sucking the country dry of nearly 12 percent of its natural resources and completely exterminating at least five ethnic Wasabi in the north. Only a moral monster can examine the evidence and think that the Turks are our allies in this just fight that cannot fail.
I also think it's important to make the point that though Saddam Hussein is destroying weapons, he's not destroying weapons. The destruction of weapons is not destruction of weapons of mass destruction. Weapons are not even weapons if you don't use them, therefore Hussein is complicit in not complying. To reiterate: Bombs are not bombs if you destroy them. Therefore you are not destroying bombs.
That's why I grow weary of talk of the "heroism" of antiwar protesters. Is there any way we can develop a missile that will only kill dissenters? The bravery of our men and women in uniform should not be diluted in the media by simpering actors like Mike Farrell, who played P.J. Honeydew, the least funny guy on M.A.S.H. Particularly irritating is Moveon.org, a puppet shadow organization of the depraved Clintonian left, headed by Noam Chomsky's graduate assistants at MIT. They seem determined to tie up our nation's phone system with abstract calls for "peace." The time has come for all serious men and women to realize that the war is started, we're already kicking ass on multiple fronts, and the sad little phone trees have failed. The only virtual march is yours, MoveOn, into obscurity. If you try to protest the day before the war starts, or the day after, you will be pummelled into shock and awe like other traitors of the realm. Remember: We are at war with Iraq. We have always been at war with Iraq.
Now let's meet the next five contestants in my marriage derby.
Hi, my name is Manuela. I'm 35, and I'm from Chichicastenango, Guatemala. Ever since my first husband, an activist for the rights of indigenous people, was killed by CIA-trained death squads, I've been looking for the perfect man to help me take care of my son, who is now a glue-sniffing street teenager living in a fetid Guatemala City slum. If you choose me, I promise to be meek and subservient until one day I find the courage to bear witness before a reconvened truth commission.
I'm Christine, and I live in Denton, Texas. I'm 25 years old and a bartender at a club that's so punk rock it doesn't have a name. I don't give a shit about Neal Pollack or anyone else, for that matter. I just like drinking Maker's Mark, listening to my Descendents records, and fucking all night long. If Neal tries to control me at all, I'll shit on his face and name the turd Charlie.
My name is Rachel Weisz. I'm an extremely beautiful and intelligent British actress, 32 years old, and I'm so in love with Neal Pollack. Really, I have been my whole life. If you choose me, can a three-way with Kate Winslet be far behind?
Greetings, America! My name is Stephanie, and I'm a 48-year-old witch from Ypsilanti, Michigan. My coven has chosen me as the representative to hypnotize Neal Pollack and bring him to our secluded forest glen, where we will cut out his liver in a secret ceremony and feed it to our wolf totem. He has a 50-50 chance of surviving the night, slightly more if we can find fresh echinachea at the Whole Foods in Ann Arbor. If he lives, we crown him King of The Upper Peninsula and he will rule over us for all eternity. If he dies, then we toss him in a ditch and run like hell.
Hi. My name's Rochelle. I'm 28 years old and I'm from Philadelphia. There's no way that Neal's going to pick me because I'm black, and black people never win these kinds of contests. You know, because we're not interested in getting married or anything.
There you have it. The ten contestants. In two weeks, we'll present a final three. And then it's time for you to vote!
We are at war with Iraq. We have always been at war with Iraq.
I think we can uniformly agree that the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed represents a major victory in the War On Terror, a just war without any discernible endpoint. I have two brief points to make regarding this evident triumph. The hundreds of millions of lunatics worldwide who are protesting our upcoming invasion of Iraq need to take a long, hard look at themselves. How can the United States be as evil as this man just arrested in Pakistan? It cannot. He killed 3,000, so we get to kill at least 3,000 in return, more if you count the interest. It's only fair.
Second, I received an email yesterday from Jeff Makos, a loyal reader of this site, regarding the now-famous arrest photo of Mohammed. The email was titled: "We've captured Ron Jeremy!" This joke is excellent and requires no further comment.
But enough funny business for one day. I have to attend to the very serious business of choosing a wife. As I've discussed in the past two weeks, I'm attempting to take advantage of federal funds that "promote" marriage. I owe a lot of back taxes. But because I live in a castle on top of a mountain and only come down for speaking engagements, I don't get to meet a lot of women. So I held a contest.
Over the last few days, my beleaguered manservant Roger and I have viewed hundreds of videotapes. We've narrowed the field down to ten finalists. A panel comprised of Roger, departing CNN head Walter Issacsson, and Naomi Judd, will winnow that field down to three while I sit in a soundproof isolation booth. Then, next week, we'll announce the three winners in this space and you, my readers, will get to choose the woman with whom I'll spend at least part of the rest of my life. Now, without further ado, the candidates. We'll present the first five today, and the second five tomorrow. I leave you to the ladies...
CANDIDATE #1
Hi, everyone. My name is Amanda. I'm 27 years old, I'm from Boca Raton, Florida, and I'm a dancer for the Orlando Magic. In the offseason, I work as a stripper on a cruise ship. I need the extra money to pay for schooling for my three children, all of whom are severely developmentally disabled. I've learned a lot about myself both as a person and a woman these past 27 years, but I haven't found that one special guy to share my life with. I love beaches, and dogs, and, of course, fucking, but only on a cold floor, in total darkness. I don't eat meat except chicken sometimes. If I'm selected to marry Neal Pollack, I promise to be a good housewife but also to sometimes unleash my "wild" side. Pick me!
CANDIDATE #2
My name is Lisette. I am 31 years old and I live in Basel, Switzerland. Every day at the stroke of noon, I leap from my third-story window. As yet, I have not died, which leads me to believe that I must seek a husband. I hold an undergraduate degree in semiotic anthropology from the University of Grotz, and a doctorate in medieval biology from The University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Since 1997, my vagina has been dry as a bone, and no medical science seems to awaken my desires. Only photographs of Neal Pollack even make me vaguely tingle. I long for an American to break me of the ways of the Old Europe. Choose me as Neal's mate, and end my cycle of attempted suicide.
CANDIDATE #3
Hi, I'm Lisa. I'm 28 years old and an attorney who lives in Brooklyn, New York. I'm tired of all the guys I meet in bars and on Craigs List. Neal wouldn't have to worry about taking care of me, because I'm very independent, and even don't mind cooking for myself. That I'm gorgeous, a Harvard graduate and a former Olympic swimmer shouldn't influence your decision as much as the fact that everyone says I'm the most giving, loving, generous person they've ever met. I guess I want to marry Neal Pollack because I enjoy his books and think he'd be a cool person to hang out with. I'm also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and have been searching my whole life for a man who doesn't smell like daddy.
CANDIDATE #4
Well, hello, people, yes hello, people. This Carol Channing. I'm 82 years old. You may know me best from my Tony-winning performance as Dolly Levi in the original Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! or as the lovable Millie in the movie Thoroughly Modern Millie. I want a husband who can see the real me, not the wrinkled hag-like gay camp icon I've gradually become. If I marry Neal Pollack, I promise to leave him all my corsets and false teeth after I die, and he can sell them on Ebay. Remember to take all your belongings with you, and please ask your driver for a receipt!
CANDIDATE #5
My name is Georgette Orwell, though my original name is Erica Blair. I'm 33 years old, and I live in Finsbury Park, London. The ideological battle against Islamofascism knows no stronger fighter than I. In the past two years, I've written three books and dozens of newspaper and magazine articles urging people to wake up and prosecute the War On Terror with the moral seriousness appropriate to a conflict that will determine the final outcome of human history. How I long to gaze into Neal Pollack's eyes as we stand together on the front lines of this epic battle of ideas! The fact that I'm a legless mute should not affect your decision to choose me as his companion, now and forever.
Despite stunning recent events, which I urge you all, in your blogs, to refer to as The Turkish Reaming, it's still obvious to me that we're going to war with Iraq. We're not only going to win, but it's going to be a blowout. In fact, as my dear friend and mah jongg partner George Will likes to say--albeit using more references to Hannibal than I generally prefer--the war has already begun. U.S. warplanes are strafing the no-fly zone. Special Ops soldiers, as I write this, are slitting suspicious throats under cover of darkness, not to mention destroying villages in order to save them. And, in a program to encourage independent publishing among the Iraqi survivors, we've dropped more than a million 'zines in the northern half of the country. The Baath, I hear, are especially fond of Rollerderby, the Kurds are familiar with hipster literature about serial killers, and everyone loves Maximum Rock N Roll.
That said, it might take a couple of weeks for us to wrap up the war. Then it will be time for post-war reconstruction of Iraq's civil society. In this week's New York Times Magazine cover story, George Packer, a very bad writer and possibly an unapologetic Communist, implies that George Bush is simply not up for the job. Packer writes: "His articulation of political aims and postwar plans has been sketchy to the point of empty cliche."
Well, I never! George W. Bush was sent to us by God, and he is definitely one of the 43 best Presidents of all time. Packer has written a scabrous smear job cleverly disguised as the most thoughtful and comprehensive article to date on the difficulties of cratfing a stable post-war Iraq. Well, Mr. Packer, you're a big poopy pants! The United States has a very large stomach indeed. We definitely have enough king's horses and king's men to put Iraq together again.
As ordained by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Scooter Libby, and Paul Wolfowitz years ago, it's our destiny to spread our trademarked brand of democracy over the earth. As an unofficial member of the Project For the New American Century's media mole board, I have access to top-secret reforms that lie in store for Iraq. It will be such a wonderful country when we're done. They include:
--A program of secret lawyerless detentions for people specially classified as enemies of the state.
--Legal spying on public-library and bookstore patrons.
--Random searches of cars entering and exiting airports.
--Replacing state-owned media with media owned by three or four megacorporations.
--Draconian penalties for people convicted of minor offenses such as selling drug paraphernalia.
--Government funding for mosque construction, disguised as a social-service program.
--Free reign for factories to belch pollutants into the air and water, through laws labelled as environmental reform.
--Deliberate and systematic concealment of all government documents from the public and the media.
And that's only the beginning! Who knows what other democratic delights are in store for Iraq over the next few years? All I know is that once a government that treats its prisoners cruelly and unfairly is replaced by United States military occupation, everyone will rejoice.
To close today, I want to express my sympathies to New York Yankee pitcher David Wells, who's facing scorn because he wrote a book claiming that he was "half-drunk" when he pitched his legendary perfect game. Well, I say, so what? I was 100 percent drunk when I wrote my bestselling book, The Neal Pollack Anthology Of American Literature, and not a word of Beneath the Axis Of Evil was written without the aid of that magical weed, marijuana. My forthcoming novel, Never Mind the Pollacks, is the product of seventh months of constant amphetamine usage. Great art, whether it be literary, musical, athletic, or otherwise, is often perpetrated by wastoids. The New York Yankees need to lighten up and focus on more important matters, such as whether or not Derek Jeter had fun at his last birthday party.
Lord, why doesn't the war start already? I really can't wait any longer. Bring it ON!
Considering that I am a certified wimp who's never seen a gun outside of a police holster, a hunting-supplies store, or just about every movie ever made, I consider myself fortunate to have befriended a soldier. (Note: this entry is not in "character.")
This soldier is an actual working officer in the U.S. military, and as such has many important things to say about our current geopolitical situation. He took objection to something I wrote recently, and I print his response below. I also want to take this space to recommend two excellent books by former soldiers. The first is The Ice Beneath You, a novel by Christian Bauman. The second, just published but almost sure to be a bestseller, is Jarhead, Anthony Swofford's Marine memoir. Read these books, as well as Beneath the Axis Of Evil, my latest offering, which tells the final truth about the War On Terror.
Now, the letter:
"NP,
Usually, I am a thoroughly uncritical supporter of you work. And your most recent blog posting was right-on-the-money in its criticism of the Patriot Act, an evil bill with an equally evil-sounding name. (Explaining why "The Patriot Act" sounds so scary is like trying to explain why little girls are the creepiest characters in horror movies. I just can't, but you know what I mean.)
Anyway, getting on to the Criticism of Neal part of this e-mail, I felt Part II of your post was a little offensive. Speaking as someone who has been vaccinated against BOTH smallpox and Anthrax in the past week, I not only have two sore shoulders but also feel I have a right to weigh in on the whole debate about the mass burial and burning of soldiers exposed to bio-chem weapons.
First off, burning the bodies of such casualties makes a ridiculous amount of sense, and I have consulted experts in the field (special ops bio-chem warfare specialists) on this. We do the same thing (burn the corpes in mass pyres) when Ebola or Plague outbreaks occur in Africa. The idea is to neutralize the harmful agent at the expense of the host body.
Second, we have seen time and time again that the U.S. military will go to any lengths necessary to recover the bodies of dead Americans so they can be buried or cremated in the states. One of the reasons my unit is the most decorated unit in the post-9/11 military is because we jumped onto Takur Ghar in the Ghan to recover the body of a dead Navy SEAL, at the cost of three Rangers' lives. 20 Rangers fought 200 Al-Qaeda for a full night over a fucking corpse. And if you saw/read Black Hawk Down, I need not lecture you that the "Never leave a fallen comrade to
fall into the hands of the enemy" credo runs deep not only within the Rangers but throughout the army as well. We do everything we can to bring the boys (and girls) back home. Saying we do anything less is an insult. Thus, it follows that burning the bodies of its soldiers before they can be buried back home is something the military would do very, very reluctantly and only if necessary for the welfare of the living.
Third, I feel you used this issue not out of concern for soldiers so much as an opportunity to needle an administration and war you don't support. And that bothers me, even though I do like to think that you are genuinely concerned for the welfare of the troops (me in particular). But I'm here to tell you: soldiers in the army are sick and tired of anti-war protesters using them as a slogan, as a way to fight a bigger battle with the Bush administration. It reminds us of a mom and dad using their children for leverage in a bigger argument unrelated to the children's welfare. We want
to scream something akin to what you said in The Stranger: Shut the fuck up. Stop using us.
Finally, I hope all is well. Sorry for my oft-unintelligent rant there. It's just that we soldiers are tired of being caught in the middle of this ridiculous fight between the powers that be and the protesters, neither of which are rational or mature at the moment.
Peace,
Ex"
Point taken, my friend. Shutting up now.
