The Sherpa's second serve: Dubya explores its powerful toys
Andy Smith
Issue date: 9/23/02 Section: Opinion
He's a goofy little slickster, isn't he? Even the cadence of his walk, filled with such pride. Look at these feet, my fellow Americans, one in front of the other, I don't even have to watch them! Have you ever seen anything like this? Nope. I haven't.
Watching George walk, you get the feeling he's having a pretty good time with this whole presidential gig. Helicopters, World Series tickets, a month-long vacation. He's a little boy at Christmas. And what does every little boy want for Christmas? A gun! Suddenly, Little Boy George has so many guns he doesn't know what to do with them. But he's got an idea: use 'em in Iraq.
Naturally, if you were one of the millions of Iraqis currently running for the hills — or if you were pretty much anyone residing outside of America — you might ask, "Why is George doing this?" You might be told, "Well, Mr. Iraqi civilian, there's this Saddam guy who even you don't like. There's a remote chance that in the future, he might possibly do something to us. Or someone we know. Or he might do nothing. But in any case, to avoid the vague possibility of future deaths, you must die now. Sorry."
This is a tough sell. It's a very abstract concept that we're trying to get across here and, unfortunately, most of the world doesn't have Tom Brokaw, Dan Abrams or Gideon Yago to hold their hands and explain it to them. In the absence of such astute analysis, these poor souls are left to make their own judgments of America as we gleefully approach war.
What they see is a country whose leaders passionately implore Israel and Palestine, and India and Pakistan to put down those nasty guns and just say yes to peace. Of course, any of those countries could present a reasonably convincing argument for resorting to war. Especially by George's low standards. So why does he get to pull trigger after preaching peace to everyone else? Just because.
George must think the rest of the world's pretty dumb. Repeatedly, he's justified the impending war by claiming that Iraqi citizens must be freed from Saddam's torturous regime. We're coming to save you, Mr. Iraqi! Just like we did in Afghanistan. Look how good they have it now!
Watching George walk, you get the feeling he's having a pretty good time with this whole presidential gig. Helicopters, World Series tickets, a month-long vacation. He's a little boy at Christmas. And what does every little boy want for Christmas? A gun! Suddenly, Little Boy George has so many guns he doesn't know what to do with them. But he's got an idea: use 'em in Iraq.
Naturally, if you were one of the millions of Iraqis currently running for the hills — or if you were pretty much anyone residing outside of America — you might ask, "Why is George doing this?" You might be told, "Well, Mr. Iraqi civilian, there's this Saddam guy who even you don't like. There's a remote chance that in the future, he might possibly do something to us. Or someone we know. Or he might do nothing. But in any case, to avoid the vague possibility of future deaths, you must die now. Sorry."
This is a tough sell. It's a very abstract concept that we're trying to get across here and, unfortunately, most of the world doesn't have Tom Brokaw, Dan Abrams or Gideon Yago to hold their hands and explain it to them. In the absence of such astute analysis, these poor souls are left to make their own judgments of America as we gleefully approach war.
What they see is a country whose leaders passionately implore Israel and Palestine, and India and Pakistan to put down those nasty guns and just say yes to peace. Of course, any of those countries could present a reasonably convincing argument for resorting to war. Especially by George's low standards. So why does he get to pull trigger after preaching peace to everyone else? Just because.
George must think the rest of the world's pretty dumb. Repeatedly, he's justified the impending war by claiming that Iraqi citizens must be freed from Saddam's torturous regime. We're coming to save you, Mr. Iraqi! Just like we did in Afghanistan. Look how good they have it now!