You Can't Be Syria [Apr 14, 2003]

The title of today's entry has little to do with its actual content, but I think you'll all agree that it's a most clever pun. By June 1, we'll all have read approximately one million words about Syria. Our minds will be racing with Syria-related thoughts and opinions. To help us process the muddle, I announce another one of my famous contests. Please send in your Syria puns. I will, in my methodically consistent way, post them on my letters page.

Now, a brief word about Syria. I deliver it in the unique vernacular style of George W. Bush:

Fuck Syria. We're taking 'em out.

From the war to come, we turn our attention back to the war that just was. Last Friday, much to my delight, I began receiving emails again from Raul, the last Iraqi teenager with access to the Internet. When we left our hero, he had turned against the United States and become a Fedayeen Saddam. It looks like he's changed his mind again, and I welcome him back. His transmissions began anew last Wednesday, the Day The Earth Stood Still.

5 PM

My friend Neal:

I hope you forgive the personal jihad I declared against you and your country. It was conceived in a fit of anger because an errant bomb had killed my entire family. But a few days heal all wounds. Plus, the U.S. plowed into town very fast, and, you know, Saddam is a dick. As Bright Eyes, led by the soulful Conor Oberst, sings, why die for a dick/ when you can get your love for free?

By now, I'm sure you've seen the amazing images of me getting pulled down the street in Baghdad. It sure was fun riding Saddam's iron head around the block! Liberation is amazing, like a free carnival. Later, I went to visit my girlfriend, who's working as a volunteer nurse at a hospital. She looked pretty tired. "What are you doing?" I asked her. She said she was burning important scholarly papers so she could make fire to boil water which would then be safe for amputees to drink.

"I rode Saddam's iron head down the street," I said.

She threw her arms around me.

"The amputees can wait," she said. "Let's have sex!"

Friday, 9 AM

I was interviewed by CNN today, which completely sucked. The reporter asked all kinds of dumb questions.

"What do you think about the daring rescue of Private Jessica Lynch?" she said.

"Like, I haven't been following that story, " I said, "because I've been exhuming Saddam Hussein's Secret Graveyard of Dissident Bones."

"We're not allowed to talk about that particular subject on air," she said, "because it would reveal our complicity in Saddam's crimes over the last 12 years. At the very least, it would reflect an extreme moral weakness and a frightening willingness to sacrifice the truth for the sake of ratings."

"That's so gay!" I said.

The reporter was totally embarrassed. She said, "Whoops! My mistake. What I meant to ask was, 'what do you think of the daring rescue of the seven brave men and women from the 543rd Ordnance Division who are returning home to their praying families?'"

I said, "Whatever. That story kind of passed me by because I attended a boring meeting of Hussein Killed My Relative For Speaking Out Against The Government Anonymous."

"Sorry," she said. "We have to cut this short because Donald Rumsfeld is about to spend an hour telling the world entertaining lies."

Saturday, 3 PM

Today, along with my surviving friends, I stormed the Museum Of Antiquities and scored myself a tapestry and also the oldest set of eating utensils known to mankind. I took the stuff down to the Black Market and I traded the utensils to a Marine for the X-Box version of NBA 2K3. My girlfriend came over to where my home had once stood and sucked me off among the ruins.

Monday, 9 AM

Man. Life is so fucking boring under U.S. occupation. I'm sick of it already. There's nothing to do at all, and the Marines totally don't understand what I'm about. Fuck them. I don't want to live under their authority. As Good Charlotte sings, Lifestyles Of the Rich And Famous/something/something/something. Last night, we burned down the national library, which was kind of cool, but also kind of lame. I mean, who cares if the entire historical record of the cradle of civilization goes up in smoke because an occupying army neglected to post a couple of guards? It's not like I want to read anyway. My dead parents don't understand me, you don't understand me. Nobody understands me, except for Bright Eyes and my girlfriend. It sucks to be a teenager in liberated Iraq.