More Lunacy
The mad Dr. Strangekraut Lovehammer declares, “Mein Dubya! I can surge!”
We should have given up on Nouri al-Maliki long ago and begun to work with other parties in the Iraqi parliament to bring down the government, yielding either a new coalition of less sectarian parties or, as Pollack has suggested, new elections.
The choice is difficult because replacing the Maliki government will take time and because there is no guarantee of ultimate political success. Nonetheless, continuing the surge while finally trying to change the central government is the most rational choice because the only available alternative is defeat — a defeat that is not at all inevitable and that would be both catastrophic and self-inflicted.
So basically, we’re going to either:
a.) Topple the Iraqi government through “other parties” in the country (*COUGH!* Military coup! Go Chalabi! *COUGH!*)
-OR-
b.) Force the Iraqis to vote until they elect a government we approve of.
All of which makes me go…
“Bloob-blubba-bloob-blubba-bloob-blubba.”
This sort of “planning” is so stupid, that I’ve decided to concoct one of my own. Let me know what you think:
So after our release-wild-bears-and-pumas-into-the-streets gambit inevitably fails, I think we should work on a plan that will literally put the fear of God into the Iraqis until they all hold hands and sing Dan Fogelberg’s mellow brand of vagina rock throughout the hills of Basra (if Basra has hills, that is… since I’m a product of the American education system, I still don’t know how to read a map).
The first step will require the slaughter of every household’s first-born child. Moses used this technique to good effect against the ancient Egyptians, and I see no reason why it shouldn’t work this time. But if this fails to pacify the ungrateful Iraqis, I suggest a bold new strategy: we begin bribing insurgents not to kill people. For every week an insurgent goes without setting up a roadside bomb or opening fire in a crowded marketplace, that insurgent will receive $15,000 and a box of ho-hos. Given that there are roughly 70,000 or so insurgents in Iraq right now, I calculate that this plan will cost us $1,050,000,000 per week, or roughly half of what we’re paying to occupy Iraq right now.
Now that we’ve defeated the insurgency through a combination of wanton child slaughter and bribes, we’ll have to topple the current Iraqi government via a military coup. And what will we replace it with, you ask? Well that’s the best part! We’re going to take all the illegal immigrants currently working in America and deport them to Iraq, where they’ll become the de facto leaders of the country! This works out wonderfully, since those sneaky Meskins have been trying to reconquista the southwestern part of America for years. This is our way of saying to them, “Hey! Chicanos! If you have a hankerin’ for reconquista-in’, you can reconquista this li’l desert country over here! Hope ya like falafel! Ta-hilk-hilk-hilk!”
So what do you think, guys? Does this plan of mine make any less sense than what Krauthammer advocates?
UPDATE: Pere’s right, I need to fit giant robots in here somewhere. Maybe we can use them to “deal with” the illegal immigrants if they fail to gain legitimacy as a shadow government.
Gavin adds: How about a robo-Hussein? He’d be just like Saddam Hussein, except (and here’s the best part). . .a robot.
Does this plan of mine make any less sense than what Krauthammer advocates?
Not enough giant robots.
And what means “Ta-hilk-hilk-hilk!”? Is that the ever-popular Slackjawed Yokel laugh, more properly written (IMNSHO) as “h’yuck h’yuck!” Or is that the Slackjawed Islamist version “t’aawh h’ilk!”?
The first step will require the slaughter of every household’s first-born child.
Too jewish.
Too jewish.
Indeed it is.
Err, except Moses didn’t call for the slaughter of all first-born sons, the pharaoh did. Moses was the kid that survived because his mom put him in the reed boat and floated him down the Nile.
Outside of that, your plan makes just as much sense as Krauthammer. Maybe more.
What Hammer of the Krauts really desires is the return of a secular Arab-nationalist dictator to rule Iraq with an iron fist.
Herbert West could do some really nice work on Saddam.
Wait, wait, I thought that that was also the last curse Moses put on the Egyptians in order to get them to LET MY PEOPLE GO!!!
And the Iraqis will take the Mexicans and all that. But no Irish.
Krauthammer said “other parties in the parliament,” not mysterious *cough, cough* “other parties in the country.
It might be a lousy idea, but he’s talking about parliamentary maneuvering, not a military coup.
Otherwise, a good post.
Brad, boychik, rest easy. The Slaying of the First-Born was indeed the tenth plague, which finally convinced Pharoah to let the Jews go.
The first nine included Blood, Boils, Locusts, Murrian, Frogs, and other garage bands.
Hold on. I need to check with Megatron McCCCardle.
Ah! Phew! I thought I knew my biblical history better than that.
Heh. Vagina rock, indeed:
Put my old lover in the Cuisinarrrrrrt
set it on forrrrrrrrtyFIIIIIIIIVE
I let it run for an hour or MORRRRRRE
but she was still alive…
It’s not just me. The Late Great Jeff Webb contributed to that little ditty, as did an Eisner Award comics writer who shall remain nameless.
Here’s some Pure Webb madness, though:
I am a lineman for the county
and I play with live wires
electrocuted on a rainy autumn day
I see death over my shoulder
and I feel His cold touch
and the Wichita lineman
has bitten the dust…
I could do this all day!
When Captain American cleans his mighty shield
all dirt and dust and specks of rust must yield
it’s a higly polished thing
that he hurls with quite a zing
and if it hits you in the head you will be keel-ed.
Yeeha!
That should be ‘highly polished thing’.
I don’t know what a higly polished thing is.
Something from Harry Potter, I bet.
Am I the first person to point out that Charles Krauthammer looks eerily like Adrian Monk (aka ‘the defective detective’)?
Only Mr Monk has more people skills, I’m willing to bet.
If they adopt your plan, I’m sellin’ my Halliburton stock and buyin’ Hostess.
Wait, wait, I thought that that was also the last curse Moses put on the Egyptians in order to get them to LET MY PEOPLE GO!!!
A-yup, and the Hebrew families, while packed, dressed and eating a simple meal so as not to slow themselves down when they zoomed that night, sprinkled blood on the doorposts and lintel of their houses so the angel of death would “pass over” (geddit?) and not kill their kids.
Two different stories (and both are different from the “kill the little fuckers” order given centuries later by king Herod.
You know what, they just need Deibold to handle the elections. Then it will all be cool.
Two different stories (and both were appropriated by the evangelists for the story of the “kill the little fuckers” order supposedly given centuries later by king Herod.
Fix’d.
Seepeesate wrote:
Err, except Moses didn’t call for the slaughter of all first-born sons, the pharaoh did. Moses was the kid that survived because his mom put him in the reed boat and floated him down the Nile.
Dude, read on a little further. It gets even better!
That Herod dude was my kinda fella. Laugh a minute, that guy…
mikey
Dammit, if only the America-hating liberals hadn’t FORCED Teh Commander Guy to remove that perfectly secular Saddam!! Chuckie is a very serious thinker, you know. It is very hateful, vile, and uncivil to mock the fuck-wit, er serious-thinking guy.
I believe when you look back at this moment, people will say, it was right to encourage Ancient Nilotic Law in the Middle East. I understand some people think that it can’t work. I believe in the universality of YHWH; some don’t, especially those Jews from the time of Josiah’s monarchy. I’m going to act on my beliefs so long as I’m the President of the United States. Some people say, it’s okay to condemn people for–the depredations of Giant Robots. I don’t believe it’s okay to condemn people for–to the depredations of Giant Robots, particularly those of us who live in the Giant-Robot-free societies.
And so I will do my best to explain our foreign policy. On the one hand, it’s tough when it needs to be; on the other hand, it’s compassionate. The Giant Robots will have clamps of exquisite plushness. And we’ll let the polls figure out–people say what they want to say. But leadership requires making hard choices based upon principle and standing by the decisions you make, and that’s how I’m going to continue to lead my country. America’s immigration system is outdated, unsuited to the needs of our economy and to the values of our country. So they will be shipped to Iraq as the Honorable Reverend has proposed. And I will reinstate Hammurabi’s code for the Meskins, because they, as the Amorites, are a brown people, even though some people think brown people aren’t ready for the rule of law. But this one is about their speed.
-If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he can not prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death.
-If fire break out in a house, and some one who comes to put it out cast his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take the property of the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that self-same fire.
–
If a . . . or a . . . enter himself as withdrawn from the “Way of the King,” and send a mercenary as substitute, but withdraw him, then the . . . or . . . shall be put to death.-If he give a male or female slave away for forced labor, and the merchant sublease them, or sell them for money, no objection can be raised.
-If the “finger is pointed” at a man’s wife about another man, but she is not caught sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the river for her husband.
If Krauthammer was a baseball player, his batting average would be .039…
And he would be credited with having all the “intangible” qualities that help a team win games – but no capacity to play baseball good.
what, no sharks with frikin lasers on their heads? no modified attack baboons? tisk, kids these days…
Oops, my mistake. I got the wrong timeline.
In Kraut’s defense, there is something Jeffersonian about the idea of constant regime-change. Sure, Jefferson said once a generation or some crap like that, but that was before Blackberries and YouTube and teh Lohan. Things are faster-paced now. Coupla months should do’er.
Or you could just send Dan Fogelberg to Iraq. Line up a series of concerts, and before long the women of the country will demand a stop to war or else no nookie for the little insurgent, if you know what I mean.
Oh, vagina rock…such memories.
WTF?:
A self inflicted defeat, huh? How’s that work?
Things were going so swimmingly in Iraq, but then we just up and decided to be defeated. Just like that…
Does this smug ass clown realize that the policies of the current American Regime doomed us to failure from the mention of the name J Paul Brenner?
BTW- Go see No End in Sight!!!
Aside from infuriating, it really is a concise time line to exactly where we turned the corner from Bad Idea to Sucking Hind Tit.
Er, Bremmer, I mean. Dickhead.
Er, I mean No End in Sight!!!
I need more coffee.
Let’s not get confused here. Pharaoh ordered the killing of all male Hebrew babies, but unfortunately (for him) Moses slipped through the cracks. Later, when Moses grew up to be Charlton Heston and tried to get Yul Brynner to free the Hebrews, it was the Invisible Sky Fairy who decided to kill all the first-born babies. It was mostly Egyptians, though I suppose it might have also caught some Hebrews who had been unable to pick up any lamb’s blood that day. (There was quite a run on the stuff.)
Later, of course, Herod read Pharaoh’s memoirs and stole the “kill the male babies” routine for his own act.
Later, of course, Herod read Pharaoh’s memoirs and stole the “kill the male babies” routine for his own act.
SAT analogy:
Herod:Pharaoh::Karl Rove:William McKinley
I’m all for the giant robots. But I think you should hit the talk show circuit now, before the Bush administration steals it from you.
a defeat that is not at all inevitable and that would be both catastrophic and self-inflicted.
Not to pick nits here or anything, but when an enemy is attacking you in a war and you decide, “hey, you know what, I’d rather leave than keep getting attacked like this and spending all the money to fight these people”, the defeat is NOT self-inflicted.
Hemlock- you’re forgetting the very first rule of neocon theology, which is that external enemies can NEVER defeat the United States. Defeat only occurs when we Lose Our Will.
“We should have given up on Nouri al-Maliki long ago and begun to work with other parties in the Iraqi parliament to bring down the government…” How come no love, no FU’s for Jawad (am I the only one who still calls him Jawad?)? A year and a half in office and Doc K is saying he’s so over he should have been binned long ago?? Or is he bad because he hasn’t brought down the government yet? But isn’t he TRYING to bring down his own government? Shouldn’t we give him, say, six more months…
They’ve got to be protected
All their rights respected
‘Til somebody we like can be elected!
Tom Lehrer, “Send The Marines.” As relevant now as when it was written.
WF
Later, when Moses grew up to be Charlton Heston and tried to get Yul Brynner to free the Hebrews, it was the Invisible Sky Fairy who decided to kill all the first-born babies. It was mostly Egyptians, though I suppose it might have also caught some Hebrews who had been unable to pick up any lamb’s blood that day.
Well, that was only because Yul called for the first born of the Hebrews to be killed. Basically, Chuck said that whatever Yul decreed he would do to the Hebrews would be done to the Egyptians.
Of course, that only happens in the Chuck and Yul version…
Josh Marshall summed this column up perfectly in this post: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/040894.php
It’s worth reading the whole [Hoagland column] — especially as a riposte to the farcical column by Charles Krauthammer, who argues that the stars are now aligned for a grand bargain, in which war critics confess to the military success of the surge and warmongers blame everything that has gone wrong on Mr. Maliki.
This is an important point. It’s not just that Kraut continues to be mind-blowingly and willfully wrong about everything in Iraq. It’s that his political analysis of the stateside situation is even more brain-dead and delusional.
Ah! Phew! I thought I knew my biblical history better than that.
Biblical history, pshaw. You get the gist of it from “Creeping Death” by Metallica.
Your plan will have many side benefits! For instance, you mention falafel; the melding of Iraqi and Mexican cuisine is a sure fire gastronomic sucess story. Yes, they will sing songs about us when we’re gone. And belch.
I refuse to believe that the puma-and-bears surge won’t break the back of the insurgent dead-enders.Go Wild Bears and Pumas!!!
it’s so weird how krauthammer writes a column about getting rid of al-maliki the same week that we learn that Haley Barbour’s PR shop has been paid by allawi to tear down al-maliki.
and replace him with allawi, funny enough.
what a fucking scumsucking shill you have to be to pass along as original thought some bought and paid for bullshit coming from a bunch of PR hacks. Variety wouldn’t publish this shit if steven seagal’s PR flack sent it out, but shit man, CK has NO PROBLEM dumping feces into the washington post op-sewage system. a pox on the lot of them.
So then… I guess the purple ink on all those democratic Iraqi fingers finally wore off, eh? Good job we have such sharp observers of international politics like Der Krautenfuhrer to keep an eye on those wayward digits… time to pull democracy down again, troops!
Personally, I think the idea of a military coup in this situation is brilliant – simply fucking brilliant.
WHAT is this “We” shit dribbling out of your mouth, Chuck?
You pestilent sycophant!
Less sectarian parties? Which ones are those exactly?
Do these guys not get that it is self-parody at this point, all the talk of so-serious people and their serious ideas?
Personally, I think the idea of a military coup in this situation is brilliant – simply fucking brilliant.
Why go to so much trouble? The whole Iraqi government is on vacation this month, right? Why not just change the locks at the Parliament?
I am looking forward to tabbouleh with cilantro and salsa, however.
The Robo-Herod will be a bastard, but at least he will be our bastard.
The plan needs to involve meerkats somehow.
Shorter Davros Shithammer:
“See? Didn’t we all tell you that these arabs were dumb as a box of rocks? That’s why we don’t let them vote in Israel.”
Another vote for Benny Netanyahu,The peoples candidate.My head hurts….
Dateline, Baghdad:
In a near bloodless coup yesterday, the government of Nouri al Maliki was toppled by a shadowy group with strong military support. At approximately eight pm, a 550 pound black bear entered the Prime Minister’s compound and ate most of PM al Maliki. The rest of the elected government, along with the cabinet ministers, all deemed it prudent to resign, most by telephone or email.
In a brief press release, the bear announced the formation of a government of national salvation, and said he would be naming the key members of his new administration at a press conference tomorrow. He did announce that the minister of defense would be a 225 pound adult female puma and the oil minister would be a family of meerkats “because they are not only cute, but tasty”….
mikey
JEEBUS!I could only get through about 10 pages of the comments and NOT ONE positive comment.All essentially contemptuous of old Doc Strangle.Why do they keep this,I hesitate,person?Please,can someone tell me?I’d really like to know.Any ideas?
For the love of holy fuckpuppies, do they even listen to themselves when they talk?
Here’s an educational musical interlude on how to deal with the aforementioned giant robots and why it’s probably a good thing they were left out of B.R.’s plan to begin with:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/287468
G-d only knows why they keep him!! The commenatriat @ WaPo is pretty harsh, when Bloody B. Kristol wrote his puff piece on Bush last month or whenever, it was the same thing: 30 or 40 pp. of “what a maroon,” & about three comments in favor. I think part of the deal is that Katherine Graham died, & her heirs are Nazis or something, plus the Overton window effect, & general right-wing pressure. If the editorial pages are far to the right, the whiners about Left-wing media bias are less likely to bitch & moan about content in the news pages. Check this from The New Republic.
From someone who has no real idea, just edjimicated guessing.
Thank’s Bouffant.I’ts like quantum physics.
“Vagina rock”! Yes! I love it!
You know, I once decided long ago that if Sigmund Freud had met Dan Fogelberg he never would have had to ask, “My God! What do women want?”
[…] Welp, today is Day Two of our drive to fix Iraq by, you know, setting packs of hungry bears and pumas loose in Baghdad. […]
Personally, I think the idea of a military coup in this situation is brilliant – simply fucking brilliant.
Me too
Kittens.
That’s it. A kitten for every house in Iraq. They’re so cute and cuddly, all the Sunni and Shi’a will be holding hands and singing Kum-bai-yah in not time.
And even if it doesn’t work, at least they’ll have something to eat.
“Whiskey, Democracy, Sexy!” er, “Whiskey, Sexy” er. . . . .
[…] Selections from the Norton Anthology of Iraqi Bear and Puma Poetry: […]
Re the meerkats . Not sure how the Irish dancing will fit in with the Mexiraqi thing. (And it’s bad Irish dancing at that. No matter how many times I tell ’em, they keep using their arms . 🙁
Other than that, it’s a fine plan .
Especially when they’re lemurs . ( Wrong photo)