The Screed

I don’t want to be a bloodthirsty fiend squatting on a heap of skulls, waving a lasso made of my enemies’ entrails over my head, whooping like Conan on Spring Break in Lemuria. I want nothing more than a well-ordered world of rational people, a globe where societies react with instinctive revulsion to barbarism and smother it in its cradle. Where a sociopathic rogue leader who seizes power is extirpated by altruistic neighbors - who promptly help the vanquished nation rebuild its civic institutions. I want a world in which international law is respected by all, because it reflects the aspirations of an enlightened species who value the gift of rational thought, and recognize the naked adoration of power as a challenge to human civilization itself.

Until that day comes, we are stuck in this world of lies, gross lusts, death-cults and swordplay. So when life hands you lemons, what do you do? Right: make a laser-guided lemon capable of taking out super-hardened subterranean smallpox labs.

People in my camp are often accused of being slope-shouldered keyboard monkeys channeling the spirits of Mars from our warm comfy rooms, urging war! war! war! against Iraq with no thought towards the consequences. The worst consequence, oddly enough, seems to be the defeat of Iraq. Why, this might destabilize the entire region. True. It’s also true that the defeat of Berlin ushered in a brief period of destabilization in southern France. What’s not certain is why stability is our friend - particularly when we are talking about a state, or states, that regard Americans as slick fat curs sucking the hind tit of Satan’s shitzu.

I do know this: an additional ten years of diplomacy and sanctions against Iraq would have the same effect as the last ten years. The technical term, as used by diplomats, is “bupkis, squared.” So it was with a cocked Spock eyebrow I read a piece by the invaluable Nick Kristoff of the Times, explaining why it would help to -

Whether or not we invade Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, let's go about this the American way. Let's sue him.

Fine, Nick. Here’s the subpoena. You can parachute down to the palace. Knock hard; sometimes everyone’s down in the biowarfare lab gassing bunnies, and it takes a while for them to get to the door.

The United States should launch an effort to prosecute Saddam for crimes against humanity. This would destabilize his regime at home, encourage more defections of Iraqi officials and military officers, and increase the prospect of a coup that, in the best-case scenario, would render an invasion unnecessary.

Stop. Right. Here. First of all, no reasonable person expects the Iraqi populace to rise up upon hearing news that Saddam had been sued. You could wave his severed head around the public square and people would still look around for informers, certain this was a trap. His military officers are more likely to defect if they know they will be converted to bone-flecked jam in the near future, and as for a coup - well, who’s best positioned to stage one in the absence of an imminent military threat? Someone who’s already angling for a promotion, that’s who. So we get Saddam Lite - a guy who mollifies the world by throwing open the doors to a selected number of research facilities, reaps the benefit of oil-trade normalization, keeps a thumb in the eye of the citizenry and continues his predecessor’s policy of paying the Palestinian families whose sons blow the heads off babies and old ladies. Stability uber alles.

That’s your best-case scenario. Unless, of course, Mr. Kristoff thinks that the Iraqi Chess Club will storm the palace, disband the Republican Guards, and proclaim an era of peace, democracy, normalization with Israel and Segways for all.

It also turns out that a British organization, Indict, is already pursuing an indictment against Saddam for war crimes.

And the Belgian organization Frown is already drafting plans to mount an international campaign of scowling, which will force his regime to divert precious resources to rubber chickens, joy-buzzers and Singing Telegram Gorillas to improve their standing abroad. Meanwhile, the French organization Surrender is drafting plans to cede Marseilles to whomever wants it, just in case.

Need I mention the plans of an American organization, Depose? They’re known informally as the Armed Services.

. . . Mr. Makiya writes that the best way to topple an Iraqi leader is to make him lose face. As an example, he cites the Ottoman-era practice of the people of Takrit (Saddam's hometown) of seizing the governor for the area, humiliating him (often by sexually abusing his women) and then releasing him unharmed.

The best way to make Saddam lose face is to do exactly that, preferably with precision munitions. “Hey, guys, I found it! Over here! Behind the sofa! And the mustache is still attached!”

Mr. Kristoff is hereby on record as opposing the mass rape of a leader’s “women,” lest anyone think he admires those lean, strong, Ottomen-of-action, but boy, sometimes you just have to purge 100,000 chickens to make an omelette.

. . .An administration official, acknowledging that there may be advantages to a preemptive indictment and adding that no decision has been made, expressed concern that a legal effort might distract from the task of "regime change," a term that means "squash Saddam like a bug."

It's a fair concern. But in Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic was indicted when he was still in power, in 1999. The indictment was one factor that helped result in his ouster from power in 2000. And in 2001 he was sent to The Hague for trial.

Number of days of the “Allied Force” military operation in Bosnian war: 78 Number of sorties flown: 35,000 Number of strikes against strategic targets: 6,000 Cruise Missiles fired: 310 Overall number of bombs dropped per day: 295 Military casualties: 5,000

One of the constraints that Washington faces in organizing an attack on Iraq is cold feet everywhere else on the planet (except those under Tony Blair). To forge a coalition against Saddam, we must build a case against him very publicly to demonstrate that he is not just another two-bit tyrant but a monster almost without parallel in recent decades.

A question for our Saudi friends, first posed by the indispensable Victor D. Hanson: remind us again why America has armed forces in your country. Who are we protecting you from? The IRA? The Montana Militia? The Pittsburgh Steelers? A Styx / Kansas reunion tour? Say there, you mullahs in Iran - remember that guy who bled you white for ten years in the most pointless, ruinous war of the 20th century - news flash. He keeps a meat grinder in his office for interrogating underlings, and his dogs are very well fed. Calling all Kuwaitis! Calling all Kuwaitis! We know that 70% of you, according to recent surveys, have an unfavorable opinion of Americans, but remember that distant day when the Republican Guard exercised their historical right to pry your hot-tubs off the patio and ship them back home?

Police in other countries use torture, after all, but Saddam's police cut out tongues and use electric drills. Other countries gouge out the eyes of dissidents; Saddam's interrogators gouged out the eyes of hundreds of children to get their parents to talk. Plus, he accumulates tons of VX gas and defies the United Nations.

Well, when the Arab nations learn this, they’ll fall over themselves to join our coalition. The land will be loud with the sound of the eye-scales clanging to the marble floor of palaces around the Gulf. Sure, they knew about the tongue-cutting and the eye-gouging and the testicle shocking with the hurting and the twitching mmmGLAVIN, but defying the UN? Such perfidy cannot stand!

Who, at this juncture in human history, is unaware of the nature of Saddam’s regime? Certainly not his neighbors, all of whom have been vigorously rogered by him at one point or another. Perhaps the European nations are unfamiliar with his crimes; perhaps they have turned a blind eye because Saddam owes them money; perhaps they regard the dispute between Iraq and the US as a he-said-it-said spat. Why, it’s a Noel Coward tune: You say he’s SADdam, we say SadDAM; we say mo’ sanctions, you say mo’ BOMBS - SADdam, Mo’ BOMBS, Sanctions, SadDAM - let’s refer the whole thing to a subcommittee on the legal standing of tongueless children to bring a lawsuit.

Extra credit question: the children of Iraq who have not yet had their tongues pulled out should live another year under his regime because . . .

Extra credit for those who said “because we don’t know if the next regime will be worse.” Explain, in 50 words or less, how this is possible.

When writing your answer, remember the new motto of the American Air Force: neatness counts.

You must have been polishing your liberal skewer-matic a long time for this one. LOL!

I'm still trying to figure some of our President's most recent gambits, like Powell's mission. Maybe the real point was to purposefully drag our feet, letting Powell be "humiliated" by waiting-- while of course for every minute he waited another Arab terrorist bit the schnitzel. I think the real point was, "you're either with us or against us," and we're letting the Israelis illustrate for the Arabs how those against us are going to be treated in the wider Middle East in the near future.

At least I hope so.

Don't be silly. The masochists of the state dept., infect everyone around them with shades of their unholy desires. The president was inoculated by 911, but now that appears to be wearing off, and reinfection has set in.

People in my camp are often accused of being slope-shouldered keyboard monkeys!

ROTFLOL!!! Bookmarked and bumped! All I want to know is how they managed to infiltrate a camera into my hose that has a view of my key-board! I must have forgotten to wear my tinfoil suit and hat that day!

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