The War on Noone In Particular

And it's one, two, three, Who are we fightin' against?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn
Next stop's gonna end in "-stan"

Let's stop being stupid about this. Or coy. Or polite. Whatever it is we're being when we use meaningless, couched rhetoric to describe the current state of worldwide conflict. Because as long as we do this, we're not gonna win.



Start by pointing out the obvious - that there's no such thing as a war on terror. How can there be? You can't shoot at terror. You can't find terror on the map and drop bombs on it. You can't torture it, imprison it, apply sanctions to it or blockade it. Most importantly - you can't ever really say you've beaten it. So declaring a war on terror is like declaring a war on bullets. Stupid. Silly. Nonsensical. Of course, that doesn't stop us from talking about it all day long.

Even Donald Rumsfeld has figured this out. For the first time that I can recall in his overstayed, miserable career, he is correct. He has been trying to get us to stop calling this conflict "The War On Terror" for a while now, unsuccessfully. He's tried unsuccessfully to invoke several stupid euphemisms for this war, and his latest is that he wants to call it "The Long War". Certainly that is a more accurate label for this mess. Notice however that the salient piece is still missing. That would be the "Who", Horton. You need a WHO.

The effects of not indenfying the enemy as part of the public consciousness are insidious. Witness the Shakespearian confusion over "Dubai or not Dubai". We scratch our heads and wonder if it is not an outlandish proposition to let an Arab government-owned company come in and manage our container shipments. Hmmm. Aren't we at war with those guys? We're not? Who are we at war with, anyway? Oh, that's right. Terror. Well then. Are the United Arab Emirates "terror"? Damned if I know. No wonder we can't make an informed decision on something as basic as who should or should not control container shipments to our ports.

A while ago we had "The Cold War". But the name stuck because we all knew the WHO. You could ask anybody - Who is the enemy in this Cold War? Well, the fucking Commies, that's who. And we knew where they were. In Russia, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba. They were all a part of the Evil Empire. We knew exactly where the bombs would need to be dropped and where they'd be coming from if it ever came down to it. There was no way the East German government was ever going to get a contract to manage US seaports while the Cold War was going on.

So who exactly is the enemy in this "Long War"?

It's not Iraq. We've conquered Iraq. (Even before we conquered Iraq, the enemy was not Iraq.) We have military bases there and we've set up a new democratic self-government. Sort of. Sometimes we refer to the war IN Iraq, but we're always careful to express our deep respect and admiration for the Iraqi People in the same breath. Since it's not the Iraqi people, or the Iraqi government we're at war with, this "war in Iraq" must be against some other people who happen to be in Iraq. Some "insurgents" maybe. But it's not just in Iraq, right? After all, we're fighting and dropping bombs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, too. So there must be some other people we don't like then, or who don't like us.

Could be the Extremists.


These Extremists. They're so.......EXTREME. GOD, HOW WE HATE EXREMISTS. This is a war on Extremism.

No it's not.

Listen. When we fought against Communism, we didn't go around saying -

Communism is not bad, really. In fact, Communism is actually quite benign. We've got nothing against Communism. Lotsa great people are communists right? I've hung out with several communists in my day and they have just been the nicest, most hospitable folks you ever could meet. How unfair is it to brand them all as evil? Totally. It's just a few communist EXREMISTS who are mucking things up. You know, the ones who are advocating violence and trying to spread communism throughout the world. Not that there's anything WRONG with communism, we just don't think it's right for them to be spreading it around like that.

We didn't go around saying stuff like that because that would have been utter bullshit. Communism, as it was being practiced, was everything Democracy and Capitalism was not. It was antithetical to our values of individual freedom and self-determination. The spread of communism was a threat to the American way of life and we said so from the highest pulpits.

And now so is the spread of Islam.

That's right folks, whether we want to admit it or not, there is no war on terror, there is a war on Islam. As with communism, we are at war with an "ism", an ideology. The difference is, this particular ism is also a religion. And therein lies the dilemma. You see, we Westerners believe in freedom of religion. We all agree that it's not appropriate to ban or even restrict any religion - that is contrary to our values. But what happens when we are faced with a religion that is not just a religion, but also an ideology that is inherently anti-democratic?

More on this in the next blog.

A Message From The Infinite

Greetings.

It's Me. The Creator of all things. Allah. Jehova. Whatever you call Me. I don't care.

Which is what I wanted to mention.

Let Me see if I can manage to put this into a perspective that you can wrap your tiny little minds around. Some people claim that I'm not omnipotent because I can't make a rock so heavy that even I couldn't lift it. Well, what's closer to the truth is that I've made a universe so big that I can't get puny little life forms like yourselves to understand how insignificant you really are.

Here's the deal. Remember that goofy poster that came out a few years back where it shows some galaxy and points to a spot that says "You are here"? This one:

It's supposed to give you a sense of how insignificant you are.

Well it's wrong. You are much more insignificant than that. See that galaxy in the poster? That galaxy is insignificant compared to the rest of the universe. If I were to drop what I was doing and go to the point labeled "here" in the poster, I'd still need to magnify things 8 million times just to be able to make out your twirpy little solar system, and your planet would still be the size of a pimple on a gnat's ass. Imagine what YOU would be.

Now don't even try to pretend that you're Me. Every time you do that you get it dead wrong. Pretend, instead, that you're you. And you're standing in the middle of the Sahara desert. And on one of the million billion grains of sand about 600 miles away and about 600 feet underground there is a community of a billion or so completely clueless microscopic organisms. And one of these meager, pathetic, trifling, miserable, inconsequential, infinitesimal creatures draws a cartoon making fun of you.

Imagine how insulted you would be.

Not.

But here comes the really funny part. A bunch of the other pathetic little creatures get all upset because they're concerned that maybe you might have been insulted by this. I guess they feel that when it comes to microscopic, insignificant creatures, you have very little tolerance for humor on their part at your expense. They need to avenge you, so they start burning and killing and calling for the death of all organisms that share the nationality of the one who drew the cartoon.

Hee heee hee hee hee. Those are some swelled-headed ameobas, eh? Ya think? Imagine a bunch of sorry-ass microscopic loony bins killing each other because they think you give a flying wazoo about any one of them? Does it get any funnier than that?

You know what? That's YOU! HAAAAA. What a hoot. Hee heee. Oh, man. I'm dyin' here.

But I digress. What I wanted to explain to you humans is that I don't care. Really. How could I? Please get some perspective, you idiots.

Regards,

The Lord Of The Universe

An excerpt from the first draft of President Chimpanzee's speech

Prior to extensive editing by White House staffers....

"Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. Folks, I just figured this out. I mean, prior to this year, I didn't really give a rat's ass about being addicted to foreign oil. As a matter of fact, I instituted policies that led to an increase in our dependence on foreign oil. We went from 58% of our oil being imported when I took office, to 65%, which is where we are now, thanks in a large part to me and Dick. Well, mostly Dick.

See, up until recently I had a different plan. Actually, Dick and I had a different plan. Actually, Dick had the plan and I thought it was a good one. Anyway, our plan was to take over the Middle East. First, we would invade Iraq, install a puppet government and grab their oil supplies for our exclusive use. Then we would use our newly installed military bases to control the remaining oil supplies in the region. That is, after we swept all the flowers thrown at us by the emanicipated Iraqi people off the runways and such.

Dick, hand me a banana. Thanks.

OK, so that didn't pan out. Those idiot insurgents keep blowing up the oil pipelines faster than we can repair them, so we're not getting shit in terms of oil from Iraq. Now, the Iranians are threatening to go nook-ular on our asses. So I figure, I'll fix those bastards. We'll stop buying oil from them and they won't have a power plant to piss in, let alone one to enrich uranium in. But my energy secretary tells me that if we do that, we're screwed because we need their oil to keep our economy afloat and they can just as easily sell their oil to Vladimir Putin, that rat bastard. Had him over to the ranch and everything and I still can't trust him as far as I can throw him.

Condi- would you check and see if there are any lice in my hair? Thanks.

That brought me to my recent epiphany, namely that this whole addiction to oil thing needs to stop so I can just annihilate those Iranian scumbuckets. Hold on for a second while I talk to the Iranian people. People of Iran - I respect you. But you need to remember what happened the last time I spoke directly to the people of another country in a speech. That was the Iraqis. I told them how much I respected them and then I threw a few million tons of missiles at them. So now listen to me: I Respect You. Got it?

Where was I?

Oh yeah, here is my plan to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil:

First, we're going have breakthroughs. That's right. Breakthroughs. I mean don't you think it's about goddam time we had some breakthroughs? I'm calling upon scientists to figure out how to make some cheap biodeisel from corn, wood chips, cow dung, New Orleans stagnant water, whatever - I KNOW they can make biodeisel from all of that shit. That is, as long as they intelligently design it and don't try any evolution hocus pocus on it. And I promise the American people that no stem-cell will be harmed in the process.

Second, I'm going to continue taxing the oil companies at 11% instead of the standard corporate rate of 18%. This will do absolutely nothing to help wean us off foreign oil - in fact it will pretty much undermine our other efforts, but Dick says I have to keep doing that so I will.

Third, we're going to invest in zero-emissions coal-fired plants for energy generation. We're not going to invest much, because I'm cutting the allocation for renewable energy resource funding by $50 million as part of my new budget proposal, but....what's that? I'm not supposed to mention that? Sorry, Dick. Zero-emissions coal-fired plants is what I'm talking about. We're going to have those. And more nook-ular plants too. Lots more.

Fourth, I'm setting goals. I hereby declare that we will decrease our dependence on Middle East oil by 75 percent within the next, say, 20 years. How, you ask? I KNEW you would ask how. If there's anything I've learned over the past 5 years as king, er, president it's that every time I say we're going to do something, some divisive, partisan, nitpicking liberal will be up my ass wanting to know how. Well here's how. We're going to use hybrid cars. And hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. And all kinds of cool new stuff that doesn't use oil. We are. I just know it. And it's going to be better for the environment, too. Not that there's anything wrong with the environment, and not that I've gone treehugger on you or anything, but it will be even better. The environment. Will.

No Need To Write Anything This Morning

I only need to link you over to this article:

Greetings From Idiot America.

A must-read.