“We Shall Rise Again,” Say War-Scarred Rebels

The slight, bearded man padded over to me in well-worn birkenstocks, and quietly murmured the code phrase. I repeated the one to which we’d agreed on the phone, and he led me into an alley. He placed a blindfold on me, and we progressed into a building and, apparently, an elevator. I had no other clues as to my whereabouts except for the scents as I passed through the native environment for these determined, if deluded fighters–deep Vienna roast, and the yeasty aroma of a patisserie.

On the brink of resurgence of military action in the twelve-year cold war between the west and Saddam Hussein’s regime, scrappy bands of rebellious journalists are positioning to take advantage of the upcoming confusion of battle. Their aim is to reestablish their crumbling empire, and restore their domination over American mindshare, lost during the war in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001.

Like confederate sympathizers of the American south, or lone Japanese soldiers on tiny Pacific islands decades after the end of the war, they are unable to accept defeat, or disavow the rightness of their cause–they vow instead to rise again.

I am traveling to a secret rebel camp, deep in a canyon on Manhattan’s upper west side, to determine their state of readiness for the new fight, and the level of their morale on the eve of renewed battle. Because of my earlier sympathetic treatment of their tragic plight in the field hospital, I have earned their trust.

As we enter their lofty lair, somewhere high in the western peaks of the island, my blindfold is removed.

Blinking at the sudden light, my eyes eventually focus to view a spartan room, bare of all but the most vital necessities: fax machines; computers with high-bandwidth connections; comfortable ergonomic desk chairs; multiple big-screen televisions tuned to the BBC and CNN; tables piled high with back issues of The Nation, The Village Voice, and the New York Times; electric foot massagers from the Sharper Image; an espresso machine; and an expansive view of eastern New Jersey, providing them with a keen insight into the heartland of America. One small portable television is tuned to the Fox News Channel, with the volume reduced, and a hood over it so that only one person at a time can view it.

“Know the enemy,” explains my guide. “We have one person keep an eye on them, but we don’t want to risk corrupting the objectivity of the troops.”

Hung in apparent reverence on the wall, next to the “Che” poster, is a fading portrait of Bill Moyers. There is also a picture of George W. Bush, but it is being used as a dartboard.

Over in the corner, huddled over a space heater, a melancholy young woman is quietly teasing a dirge-like version of “La Marseillaise” out of her harmonica. Sitting next to her, listening, but looking bored, an obvious newsroom veteran methodically cleans his keyboard in preparation for the rigors to come.

My guide takes me over to a corner desk, for my interview with their supreme leader, who goes only by the name, “Commandante Howell.”

“We’ve just about completed regrouping and rearming with new arguments after the setback in the Hindu Kush,” he explains. “Fortunately, the rush to war has been so prolonged that we’ve had plenty of time to assess our past tactical errors. We realize now that we were using the wrong historical analogies in our predictions of disaster for the US–we were fighting the last rhetorical war.”

Despite his brave words, it’s clear, looking around, that their ranks are much thinner now. Many of their unfortunate colleagues have been lost to them forever in the brutal education camps, in which they were taught to actually think. But quite a few managed to evade capture or injury, and others escaped rehabilitation before they became rational, and are now ready to fight another day.

There are some new, fresh recruits, but they have very little experience, having seen little action except an extended and losing battle over a men-only golf course. Still, it partly hardened them for the battle ahead.

But the rearming hasn’t been going well.

“In retrospect, it’s clear that the Vietnam analogy wasn’t appropriate for Afghanistan,” he continues. “Neither was the Afghanistan analogy. Actually, we’re still not quite sure what analogy would have been applicable, but that’s water under the barn now. Our focus is on finding the right analogy for this upcoming brutal massacre of innocent civilians in Iraq, that will lead to a bloody quagmire and thousands of young American boys in body bags, with millions of new recruits for Al Qaeda.”

I suggest that the first Gulf War, in which the Iraqi army collapsed quickly, surrendering even to second-rank Italian journalism teams, with most of the few American casualties from friendly fire, and nary a word from the “Arab street,” might be the most apt. He shakes his head impatiently.

“No, no…you don’t understand. What good is an analogy that doesn’t result in an obvious interpretation that disaster for America from this, or any military action is inevitable?! We must have an analogy of mass destruction (AMD). But don’t worry, I have my top military strategists working on it.”

He points to a couple bespectacled journalists, a man and a woman, poring over history books and maps. I ask him if they have any military experience.

“No, it’s very hard to find journalists with military experience–most of them are retired. But it’s actually better that way–people with actual military experience might not be objective.”

He coaches them–“You might want to focus on desert battles–that jungle deal didn’t work all that well above the tree line.”

As we continue to talk, they call out suggestions to the Supreme Leader as they find them.

“Here’s one. Little Big Horn.”

“Is America Custer, or Crazy Horse?”

“Crazy Horse.”

“Forget it.”

“Hmmmm…here’s one called El Alamein.”

“Did the Arabs win that one?”

“No, actually the Brits whipped the Krauts.”

This prompts only a glare.

“OK, How about this? Can you say Masada?”

“Isn’t that the one where all the Jews off themselves? I have to admit, it does have a certain appeal…So are the Americans the Jews, or the Romans, in that scenario?”

“The Romans.”

“Keep looking. Tell you what, maybe the desert thing doesn’t work that well. Expand the search–just stay away from the jungles.”

As they go back to their books, he walks me over to another room in which the soldiers are being drilled in their new battle mantras. More conventional armies have the men charge stuffed bags with bayonets. This one hammers on keyboards, frantically typing “going it alone unilateral rush to war smoking gun cowboy failure of diplomacy let inspectors do their work selected not elected no connection to Al Qaeda…”

The training can be brutal, and the ranks have been thinned even further with injuries, ranging from carpal tunnel syndrome, to many broken syllogisms after prematurely jumping to conclusions.

One veteran, no longer able to type, has been moved into a blow-dried brigade of talking heads, and practices reading the litany from a teleprompter.

From the other room comes a war cry of triumph.

“We’ve found it! If you ignore the fact that it’s winter instead of summer, and far eastern Europe instead of the Middle East, and that the French were vastly overextended, instead of having the essentially unlimited logistics capability that the Americans will have, and the fact that the Russians were actually fighting for their country against an invading dictator, instead of about to be liberated from their own, Napoleon’s march into Russia is the perfect analogy. Either that, or Stalingrad. In both cases, it was a disaster for the dictatorial invaders.”

“Hmmm…well, I don’t like the fact that it necessitates beating up on the French and the Germans, but at least the Russians get to win, so I guess it will have to do.”

He turns to me.

“I want you to take our message back to the Americans. We may seem weak and confused, and illogical, but that doesn’t matter, because we have something more important–a belief in the rightness of our cause. We know, despite all the evidence, that we’re smarter than you are, and with that knowledge, victory will ultimately be ours–you cannot hold down a journalism major forever.”

“Once our Stalingrad analogy is shown to be prophetic, despite the internet, and weblogs, and fair and balanced news channels, and educational vouchers, we will once again tell the American public what to think, and liberate them from having to do it for themselves.”

“Tell them, the arrogant media shall rise again.”

(Copyright 2003 by Rand Simberg)

“We Shall Rise Again,” Say War-Scarred Rebels

The slight, bearded man padded over to me in well-worn birkenstocks, and quietly murmured the code phrase. I repeated the one to which we’d agreed on the phone, and he led me into an alley. He placed a blindfold on me, and we progressed into a building and, apparently, an elevator. I had no other clues as to my whereabouts except for the scents as I passed through the native environment for these determined, if deluded fighters–deep Vienna roast, and the yeasty aroma of a patisserie.

On the brink of resurgence of military action in the twelve-year cold war between the west and Saddam Hussein’s regime, scrappy bands of rebellious journalists are positioning to take advantage of the upcoming confusion of battle. Their aim is to reestablish their crumbling empire, and restore their domination over American mindshare, lost during the war in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001.

Like confederate sympathizers of the American south, or lone Japanese soldiers on tiny Pacific islands decades after the end of the war, they are unable to accept defeat, or disavow the rightness of their cause–they vow instead to rise again.

I am traveling to a secret rebel camp, deep in a canyon on Manhattan’s upper west side, to determine their state of readiness for the new fight, and the level of their morale on the eve of renewed battle. Because of my earlier sympathetic treatment of their tragic plight in the field hospital, I have earned their trust.

As we enter their lofty lair, somewhere high in the western peaks of the island, my blindfold is removed.

Blinking at the sudden light, my eyes eventually focus to view a spartan room, bare of all but the most vital necessities: fax machines; computers with high-bandwidth connections; comfortable ergonomic desk chairs; multiple big-screen televisions tuned to the BBC and CNN; tables piled high with back issues of The Nation, The Village Voice, and the New York Times; electric foot massagers from the Sharper Image; an espresso machine; and an expansive view of eastern New Jersey, providing them with a keen insight into the heartland of America. One small portable television is tuned to the Fox News Channel, with the volume reduced, and a hood over it so that only one person at a time can view it.

“Know the enemy,” explains my guide. “We have one person keep an eye on them, but we don’t want to risk corrupting the objectivity of the troops.”

Hung in apparent reverence on the wall, next to the “Che” poster, is a fading portrait of Bill Moyers. There is also a picture of George W. Bush, but it is being used as a dartboard.

Over in the corner, huddled over a space heater, a melancholy young woman is quietly teasing a dirge-like version of “La Marseillaise” out of her harmonica. Sitting next to her, listening, but looking bored, an obvious newsroom veteran methodically cleans his keyboard in preparation for the rigors to come.

My guide takes me over to a corner desk, for my interview with their supreme leader, who goes only by the name, “Commandante Howell.”

“We’ve just about completed regrouping and rearming with new arguments after the setback in the Hindu Kush,” he explains. “Fortunately, the rush to war has been so prolonged that we’ve had plenty of time to assess our past tactical errors. We realize now that we were using the wrong historical analogies in our predictions of disaster for the US–we were fighting the last rhetorical war.”

Despite his brave words, it’s clear, looking around, that their ranks are much thinner now. Many of their unfortunate colleagues have been lost to them forever in the brutal education camps, in which they were taught to actually think. But quite a few managed to evade capture or injury, and others escaped rehabilitation before they became rational, and are now ready to fight another day.

There are some new, fresh recruits, but they have very little experience, having seen little action except an extended and losing battle over a men-only golf course. Still, it partly hardened them for the battle ahead.

But the rearming hasn’t been going well.

“In retrospect, it’s clear that the Vietnam analogy wasn’t appropriate for Afghanistan,” he continues. “Neither was the Afghanistan analogy. Actually, we’re still not quite sure what analogy would have been applicable, but that’s water under the barn now. Our focus is on finding the right analogy for this upcoming brutal massacre of innocent civilians in Iraq, that will lead to a bloody quagmire and thousands of young American boys in body bags, with millions of new recruits for Al Qaeda.”

I suggest that the first Gulf War, in which the Iraqi army collapsed quickly, surrendering even to second-rank Italian journalism teams, with most of the few American casualties from friendly fire, and nary a word from the “Arab street,” might be the most apt. He shakes his head impatiently.

“No, no…you don’t understand. What good is an analogy that doesn’t result in an obvious interpretation that disaster for America from this, or any military action is inevitable?! We must have an analogy of mass destruction (AMD). But don’t worry, I have my top military strategists working on it.”

He points to a couple bespectacled journalists, a man and a woman, poring over history books and maps. I ask him if they have any military experience.

“No, it’s very hard to find journalists with military experience–most of them are retired. But it’s actually better that way–people with actual military experience might not be objective.”

He coaches them–“You might want to focus on desert battles–that jungle deal didn’t work all that well above the tree line.”

As we continue to talk, they call out suggestions to the Supreme Leader as they find them.

“Here’s one. Little Big Horn.”

“Is America Custer, or Crazy Horse?”

“Crazy Horse.”

“Forget it.”

“Hmmmm…here’s one called El Alamein.”

“Did the Arabs win that one?”

“No, actually the Brits whipped the Krauts.”

This prompts only a glare.

“OK, How about this? Can you say Masada?”

“Isn’t that the one where all the Jews off themselves? I have to admit, it does have a certain appeal…So are the Americans the Jews, or the Romans, in that scenario?”

“The Romans.”

“Keep looking. Tell you what, maybe the desert thing doesn’t work that well. Expand the search–just stay away from the jungles.”

As they go back to their books, he walks me over to another room in which the soldiers are being drilled in their new battle mantras. More conventional armies have the men charge stuffed bags with bayonets. This one hammers on keyboards, frantically typing “going it alone unilateral rush to war smoking gun cowboy failure of diplomacy let inspectors do their work selected not elected no connection to Al Qaeda…”

The training can be brutal, and the ranks have been thinned even further with injuries, ranging from carpal tunnel syndrome, to many broken syllogisms after prematurely jumping to conclusions.

One veteran, no longer able to type, has been moved into a blow-dried brigade of talking heads, and practices reading the litany from a teleprompter.

From the other room comes a war cry of triumph.

“We’ve found it! If you ignore the fact that it’s winter instead of summer, and far eastern Europe instead of the Middle East, and that the French were vastly overextended, instead of having the essentially unlimited logistics capability that the Americans will have, and the fact that the Russians were actually fighting for their country against an invading dictator, instead of about to be liberated from their own, Napoleon’s march into Russia is the perfect analogy. Either that, or Stalingrad. In both cases, it was a disaster for the dictatorial invaders.”

“Hmmm…well, I don’t like the fact that it necessitates beating up on the French and the Germans, but at least the Russians get to win, so I guess it will have to do.”

He turns to me.

“I want you to take our message back to the Americans. We may seem weak and confused, and illogical, but that doesn’t matter, because we have something more important–a belief in the rightness of our cause. We know, despite all the evidence, that we’re smarter than you are, and with that knowledge, victory will ultimately be ours–you cannot hold down a journalism major forever.”

“Once our Stalingrad analogy is shown to be prophetic, despite the internet, and weblogs, and fair and balanced news channels, and educational vouchers, we will once again tell the American public what to think, and liberate them from having to do it for themselves.”

“Tell them, the arrogant media shall rise again.”

(Copyright 2003 by Rand Simberg)

A Squeal From The Pig

Michael Moore has a stupid open letter to George W. Bush on his web site today.

I know it should be beneath me, and it’s an arcade game full of targets for cheap shots, but it’s just too much fun. Just in time for the President’s address, I herewith give it the fisking for which it begs:

George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC

Dear Governor Bush:

“Governor” Bush? Isn’t that the guy down in Tallahassee? You know, the President’s brother? He’s certainly gotten this letter off on the right (so to speak) foot.

So today is what you call “the moment of truth,” the day that “France and the rest of world have to show their cards on the table.” I’m glad to hear that this day has finally arrived. Because, I gotta tell ya, having survived 440 days of your lying and conniving, I wasn’t sure if I could take much more. So I’m glad to hear that today is Truth Day, ’cause I got a few truths I would like to share with you:

This is pretty rich, coming from a guy who has a best-selling book that competes with John Pilger’s in terms of numbers of lies per page. It’s worse than the pot calling the kettle black–it’s more like, ummmm…someone with the girth of, say, Michael Moore, calling Kate Moss morbidly obese.

1. There is virtually NO ONE in America (talk radio nutters and Fox News aside) who is gung-ho to go to war. Trust me on this one.

“Trust me on this one”? Trust you, the man who still claims that Eric and Dylan went bowling that morning?

Yup, we’ll just ignore all those opinion polls, Mikey, and trust a published purveyor of falsehoods.

Walk out of the White House and on to any street in America and try to find five people who are PASSIONATE about wanting to kill Iraqis. YOU WON’T FIND THEM! Why? ‘Cause NO Iraqis have ever come here and killed any of us! No Iraqi has even threatened to do that. You see, this is how we average Americans think: If a certain so-and-so is not perceived as a threat to our lives, then, believe it or not, we don’t want to kill him! Funny how that works!

Of course, this is a stupid strawman argument (putting it on par with most of his arguments), since even the most PASSIONATE supporter of the war has NO DESIRE TO KILL IRAQIS. The goal is to REMOVE SADDAM HUSSEIN. In order to do so, we will have to drop some bombs, and some of Hussein’s minions will be killed, and perhaps even some innocent civilians, but many more will die at his hands than ours, and unlike him, we’ll greatly regret it. Funny how that works.

2. The majority of Americans — the ones who never elected you — are not fooled by your weapons of mass distraction.

Did Bill Clinton ever get a majority of the vote, let alone a majority of Americans, Mike? My vague recollection is that he only got 43% the first time, and couldn’t break fifty percent the second time, the one that was supposedly a “landslide.” After more than two years, this “selected, not elected” crap is getting stale, and covered with mold and flies.

We know what the real issues are that affect our daily lives — and none of them begin with I or end in Q.

Of course, judging by this, and his life’s CV, Mr. Moore’s thing beginning with I and ending with Q seems to be single digit.

Here’s what threatens us: two and a half million jobs lost since you took office, the stock market having become a cruel joke, no one knowing if their retirement funds are going to be there, gas now costs almost two dollars — the list goes on and on. Bombing Iraq will not make any of this go away. Only you need to go away for things to improve.

In what way would the president’s “going away” make any of those things improve, Mike? Have you ever taken a course in logic, and premises, and causality, and not mistaking correlation with causation?

You literally don’t have to answer that question.

3. As Bill Maher said last week, how bad do you have to suck to lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein?

I don’t know, Mike.

Maybe you can answer this one. How much does it suck to be part of a political movement that’s continually outwitted by a retarded monkey?

The whole world is against you, Mr. Bush. Count your fellow Americans among them.

Oh, no, the government that rolled over its own people with tanks fourteen years ago is against us. What, oh what, are we doing wrong?

When you say “fellow Americans,” which of the sixty-plus percent that support the war would those be again, Mike?

4. The Pope has said this war is wrong, that it is a SIN. The Pope!

And since when do you consider the Pope a moral authority? Do you agree with his stand on birth control and abortion, too?

What?! You mean you’re a cafeteria Catholic (not to mention one who was asked to leave the seminary)?

So why should we be interested in your hypocritical invocation of his authority in this matter, when you don’t accept it in many others?

But even worse, the Dixie Chicks have now come out against you!

But even even worse, the Dixie Chicks’ fans have come out against them! They’re having CD-smashing parties, complete with dreaded SUVs and tractors (you know, what know-nothing yahoos, and heretofore fans of the Dixie Chicks, drive?).

They’re off many C&W radio stations’ playlists. Run a poll of Texans as to which native they’re prouder of. If you believe that Natalie Maines will come out ahead of Dubya, you’re beyond delusional, Mike.

How bad does it have to get before you realize that you are an army of one on this war?

Well, one plus sixty-plus percent of the American people. Pesky things, those facts.

Of course, this is a war you personally won’t have to fight.

Quick, grant the South their independence! Reenslave the blacks! Lincoln never personally fought in the Civil War!

Just like when you went AWOL while the poor were shipped to Vietnam in your place.

Mikey, we understand your ignorance of the military, having never even been in appropriate physical condition to have served, even if you’d ever evinced a desire, but AWOL means “Absent Without Leave,” not “flew jets in the National Guard.”

5. Of the 535 members of Congress, only ONE (Sen. Johnson of South Dakota) has an enlisted son or daughter in the armed forces! If you really want to stand up for America, please send your twin daughters over to Kuwait right now and let them don their chemical warfare suits. And let’s see every member of Congress with a child of military age also sacrifice their kids for this war effort. What’s that you say? You don’t THINK so? Well, hey, guess what — we don’t think so either!

I’m sure he will, Mike, just as soon as you put your own pudgy lardass on the line and head over to be a human shield. Perhaps you could put your body in front of Saddam himself. Hell, with the shadow your blubbery corpus casts, I’ll bet you could personally protect his whole thuggish, torturing family and half of the tens of thousands of Republican Guardsmen.

Of course, you could only cover them from one direction at a time, and you wouldn’t be able to waddle around in time to help them from the rear if the Evil Enemy decided to come from that unexpected direction. But still, you’d be doing what you could to defend Saddam, and betray America and the Iraqi people, and the rest of the world that doesn’t want to get nuked by madmen.

Despite your intrinsic ineffectiveness as a human shield, I’ll even raise the money for the airfare myself–just losing you in the cause would be worth it. Maybe we can take the funds that were never used for the Shropshire Challenge, and buy a ticket for you.

6. Finally, we love France. Yes, they have pulled some royal screw-ups. Yes, some of them can pretty damn annoying. But have you forgotten we wouldn’t even have this country known as America if it weren’t for the French? That it was their help in the Revolutionary War that won it for us? That our greatest thinkers and founding fathers — Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, etc. — spent many years in Paris where they refined the concepts that lead to our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution?

Yes, Mike, I think that even the President knows that. I think we repaid that bill with usurious interest last century. What have they done for us lately?

That it was France who gave us our Statue of Liberty, a Frenchman who built the Chevrolet, and a pair of French brothers who invented the movies?

Yes, Mike, France has produced some great men, but note that many of them (like Mssr. Chevrolet) had to come to America to achieve their greatness. We are always greatful to all countries that send us their best and their brightest, but that also serves to explain the poor behavior of the dregs left behind. That’s what Mr. Rumsfeld called so fittingly, “old Europe.” One of the reasons that Eastern Europe is so vibrant (and not anti-American or anti-Bush) is because, having thrown off the stultifying yoke of communism, many expatriates are returning there. I don’t see a lot of emigration to France and Germany from America, though.

And now they are doing what only a good friend can do — tell you the truth about yourself, straight, no b.s. Quit pissing on the French and thank them for getting it right for once. You know, you really should have traveled more (like once) before you took over. Your ignorance of the world has not only made you look stupid, it has painted you into a corner you can’t get out of.

Oui, oui, we are so simplisme. Praise the heavens that we have friends that lecture us, and chide us and some of our European friends for missed opportunities to shut up, all the while making their own oil deals, selling banned weapons to Saddam, and calling us “arrogant.”

Well, cheer up — there IS good news. If you do go through with this war, more than likely it will be over soon because I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of Iraqis willing to lay down their lives to protect Saddam Hussein. After you “win” the war, you will enjoy a huge bump in the popularity polls as everyone loves a winner — and who doesn’t like to see a good ass-whoopin’ every now and then (especially when it ‘s some third world ass!). So try your best to ride this victory all the way to next year’s election. Of course, that’s still a long ways away, so we’ll all get to have a good hardy-har-har while we watch the economy sink even further down the toilet!

Yes, Mike. We’ll see who has the last “hardy-har-har”…

So far, it’s always Mr. Bush, and that just has you eating your ample liver, doesn’t it?

But, hey, who knows — maybe you’ll find Osama a few days before the election! See, start thinking like THAT! Keep hope alive! Kill Iraqis

Now, finally, here it comes, the obligatory chant, without which no mindless leftist spew would be complete. I was afraid that he was going to leave it out, but it just turned out he saved it for the very end…

they got our oil!!

Ah, the world is in balance once again.

Oy Gevalt!

These talking gefilte fish are getting out of hand.

The Israeli man who opened the gefilte fish jar, Garel S. Karp of Bnei Brak, said that the voice was speaking in English, but with a Yiddish accent. “I twisted the cap off the jar, there was a little pop, and suddenly there was a squeaky little voice saying: “Oy, vey, tomorrow’s the day. Time has come for Mister Saddam to show his bomb.” Karp expressed uncertainty over whether the last word might have been “bum.”

Karp’s wife, Sadie, confirmed his account. “I couldn’t believe it. Garel and I were sitting around the dinner table and we hear this little voice coming from the jar, just after he opened it. I looked inside the jar and I could see the jelly still quivering.”

There was no independent confirmation of the Karps’ claims. The gefilte fish was unavailable to answer this reporter’s questions, since the couple apparently consumed the fish soon after its utterances. “I don’t know whether its remarks were in good taste,” Sadie noted, but it sure tasted good.”

That Saves Some Time

Iraq has rejected Bush’s ultimatum. I was afraid he might have delayed things by saying he’ll “think about it.” Does this mean that we don’t have to wait any longer?

“The only option (to secure peace) is the departure of the warmonger number one in the world, the failing President Bush who made his country a joke,” Sabri said on Monday.

Someone should go back and compare this kind of stuff to the nonsense that the Taliban was spewing just before the bombing started. These guys seem long on bluster and insults, and short on much of anything else.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!