The Monkey Goes Where the Wind Blows
By DAVE TOMAR
Writer The Modern Tribune
Published by The Modern Tribune
Articles By Date (Click Date)

March 24, 2003
March 17, 2003
March 10, 2003
January 20, 2003

March 24, 2003

This week, the United States officially relabeled its decade old bombing operation in Iraq, upgrading its status from "indiscriminate murder" to "war."  Early Thursday morning, the first bombs fell on Baghdad, initiating what is now being referred to as Operation Iraqi Freedom, so named because, according to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "we all thought the irony was really funny.  Actually, it was the president's idea.  You know, a lot of people underestimate him, but he's really quite a satirist."  Bush's famous love for the comically ironic has previously manifested itself in a wide array of career spanning initiatives, including an "Economic Stimulus" package that eliminated 1.3 trillion dollars of federal income, a policy that defines the term "Wildlife Preserve" as "Active Oil Well" and a relatively consistent characterization of his reading capabilities as "literacy." 

"But seriously," Rumsfeld continued to define the war in Iraq after his laughter subsided, "we didn't just name it that for kicks.  There is also a very serious responsibility in this war.  We are bringing the Iraqis a wide variety of freedoms, among them the freedom to flee to other countries, the freedom to gather the body parts of their loved ones for proper burial, the freedom to accept the democratically elected leader that we assign them, the freedom to surrender to our overwhelming firepower and most importantly, the freedom to pledge its allegiance to the United States, which is a freedom that so many never get to enjoy no matter how hard we force it upon them.  And let's not forget, these people get first-row seats to one kickass display of military domination.  I don't think it would be insensitive to say that that's pretty cool." 

Reporting from an undisclosed location in the Persian Gulf, General of Armed Forces Tommy Franks commented on the success of Operation Iraqi Freedom thus far, explaining that "this is not like traditional wars where there are two sides.  Clearly, we're having a pretty significant degree of success here since there isn't actually a military, battle plan or any coherent form of resistance to contend with.  Thank goodness we've crashed a few of our own helicopters.  Otherwise, this would look like a fairly one-sided affair."  Franks went further to remind reporters that the United States had committed to war in order to subdue the undeniable threat that the awesome and unpredictable forces in Iraq represented to the integrity of world order. 

President Bush acknowledged the accusations against Iraq that the administration had levied in order to justify this war, discussing the matter in front of cameramen on the White House lawn.  He explained that "it's true, they're not very good at fighting a war.  But we've already presented very clear evidence that Saddam Hussein was about to destroy the planet if not for our prompt and heroic intervention."  Of Iraq's notorious weapons of mass destruction, which have yet to be seen by U.S. forces, President Bush said that "I suspect that Hussein hasn't employed any of the chemical, biological or nuclear weapons we said he has because we were lying.  Seriously, we made the whole thing up.  I'd like to see you do anything about it now."  He also continued to affirm the United States' resolve in eliminating Saddam Hussein, asserting that "Hussein would have proven himself to be the next Adolf Hitler if we had even given him a day longer than twenty-five years to rule over Iraq."

As he spoke, hundreds of bombs rained down on Baghdad, leveling buildings, lighting up the night sky and preserving Iraqi civilians in showroom condition.  According to U.S. military reports, there have been no civilian casualties in the city of five million residents due the pinpoint accuracy of America's satellite guided, precision missiles.  Though vague media segments have reported coalition forces' accidental firing of two missiles on Iranian soil and a friendly fire incident that claimed all the passengers on a British helicopter, an unidentified military official assured that "the only missiles that went astray were the ones you heard about. All the ones you haven't heard about landed exactly where they were supposed to."  When asked to comment on the incident in Iran, President Bush stated only that "we'll get to them.  Don't you worry." 
He too backed the American military claim that there had been no collateral damage to Baghdad during the so-called Shock and Awe campaign.  "Our bombs are not designed to kill people," he explained.  "That's how they do things in barbaric countries like Iraq.  We only make humanitarian aid bombs here in America."  But one conflicting report from the front line suggested that American media may not be delivering the whole story.  Lieutenant General Happy Spangler, who watched the impressive airstrike campaign from his stationment in Kuwait, described the effectiveness of the Shock and Awe method, explaining that "first they  was really shocked and now they's awe dead."  Lieutenant General Spangler was awarded a purple heart during service in the first Gulf War when he got his knee stuck in his own helmet.
And while there are conflicting reports on the ramifications of the massive bombing project to the ground, most ballistics experts agree that 21,000 pound bombs have a greater tendency than not to destroy most of the things that surround them.  But most reports in the U.S. indicate that, to the contrary, American bombs have inclined most Iraqis to greet troops with cheers, hand-shakes, American flags and fruit-baskets in lieu of being seperated into a million bloody pieces.  President Bush explained that "they're just so happy to be freed from Saddam Hussein's evil clutches that they've decided they like being bombed." 
This sentiment is given support by round-the-clock news updates on all of the major television networks and cable news stations who, according to an unidentified CNN programming executive "have been forced to collectively raise the bar for the field of journalism.  Since all of our stories are exactly the same, coverage of this war is all about putting your individual stamp on the graphics and synthesizer music."  In fact, most Americans agree that while the war in Iraq is of some importance, the real story here has been the excellent media coverage thereof.    Traveling in a force quantified by Pentagon officials as 500 large, American journalists have been embedded in various military divisions that defense department insiders have referred to as "Misdirection Units."  Operatives representing CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, among others, have provided the American public with twenty-four hour a day access to wartime footage stolen from foreign television stations, speculation as to the direction from which explosions seem to be coming and incontrovertible evidence that America was right to begin with. 

"It's not just the horror that makes our war coverage so fantastic though," explained Penny Fatsac, head of Public Relations for Fox News.  "Our broadcasts are a hypnotic pastiche of iconic American symbols, splitscreen war images, personal interest stories in which white people cry, a perpetually rolling banner of our "Sentence Fragment News Features" and an endless line of shell-shocked military veterans, homeless-shelter residents, Brookings Institute research specialists, county college professors, female boxing promoters, children of victims of the Franco-Russian Olympic Figure Skating Scandal, Newt Gingrich and one half of Hall and Oates, though we can't say which.  Fox News has, by far, the greatest variety of experts on the topic of filling dead air with pseudo-information.  However this war ends, it is certainly a triumph in the field of editing.  I think most people will agree that so far this war has been a lot of fun to watch."   

And remember as always, the monkey goes where the wind blows. 

March 17, 2003

This week, President Bush voiced America’s readiness for war with Iraq, proclaiming that “we’ve come too far as a species to resort to the archaic measures of peace and negotiations.”  Referring to the March 17th deadline imposed upon Iraq for complete disarmament, Bush explained that “it is time for the United Nations to prove its relevance by succumbing to the overwhelming influence of the United States.  I want the U.N. to show that it is a legitimate forum for international exchange by reflecting the interests of the Bush family as well as its shareholders and subsidiaries.” As American and British bombers undertook a third straight week of daily “practice drills,” that targeted “facilities routinely used to sustain Iraqi life,” the Bush administration maintained its stance that war could be avoided by way of complete disarmament, as determined by “an impartial team of Texas C.E.O.s with an interest in world peace.”  White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer promised, however, during a Wednesday briefing, that “if the United Nations is not willing to act on the wealth incomprehensible photographs, forged documents, outdated figures, religious tirades and unsubstantiated reports that we have delivered, then the United States is prepared to go it alone.  We are just that willing to protect the world from Saddam Hussein’s ownership of oil.” 

The president has characterized this afternoon’s decision, which is expected to determine whether Iraq’s population will be devastated unilaterally or multilaterally, as a moment of truth, “in that everything up to now has been complete falsehood on our part.” However, French Prime Minister Jacque Chirac’s announcement this week that France would veto any resolution prompting immediate military action in Iraq, has cast significant doubt on the likelihood of U.N. support. 

So in the days leading up to the deadline, the Bush administration has placed its focus on coming up with slurs to describe the French.  Bush expounded upon the trying process before reporters on Thursday, lamenting that “it’s not easy for me to come up with words to say things.”  But after sequestering himself to the war room with seven of his closest advisors, the president emerged on Thursday from a six hour conference that yielded a catalogue of names to be used to slander the French during the upcoming conflict.  The administration is excitedly anticipating a broad-based penetration of these derogatory terms into everyday American parlance, as the incubation of such prejudices “could help to stoke enough indiscriminate hatred amongst Americans to legitimize a war against anybody,” according to Bush, who reminded reporters that disrupting sixty years of friendship with Europe was one of his campaign promises. 

A White House official who requested anonymity, revealed that among the many terms that will be used to describe our formal allies, some of the president’s personal favorites were “wine-sucking whore-mongers,” “mold-munching child pornographers,” and “faggots.”  Subsequently, the unidentified officials admitted that “we came up with some much better ones than that.  But the president didn’t get any of them.  Ethnic slurs aren’t funny if you have to explain them to somebody.”  He defended the president thought, indicating that while he didn’t understand too many of the French jokes due to “his overall lack of cultural awareness,” he was always the first guy in a room to either laugh at or tell a high-concept racist joke.

Administration officials have spoken lightly of the invigorated squabble with France in many instances, such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s Friday press conference, during which he joked; “to show you just how much we care about France, I can tell you that the president doesn’t even know where it is on the map.  He swears up and down that ‘France is in Canada.’  Frankly, we let the president believe what he wants to believe.” 

The candid remarks, however, belie a much more serious effort in Washington to be protected from virulent French propaganda, that has manifested itself as a fundamental change in capital city policy.  As of this past Monday, conversation over the lunch table will be a lot different in the House of Representatives, where the cafeteria has restricted not only the use of the French language but even the use of the word ‘French’ when ordering food.  In accordance, French fries and French toast will henceforth be known as Freedom fries and Freedom toast.  And while the change has been met with approval by most United States representatives, many of whom have admitted to “feeling uncomfortable about purchasing foreign foods to begin with,” this momentous overhaul of culinary labeling catapulted the D.C. area into a frenzy of activity and speculation. 

The onion-ring lobbyist group, Americans for the Advancement of Fried and Breaded Onions, a historically influential political organization, voiced its discontent with the new title designated to French fries, releasing the public statement that “we feel, as do most Americans, that the onion ring, far more than the French fry, is a side-dish most synonymous with liberty, freedom, democracy and the things this nation stands for.  To refer to French Fries as Freedom Fries is a gross distortion of history, particularly when one considers the French Fry’s integral involvement in Fidel Castro’s revolution in Cuba, its well-documented stance as a Nazi sympathizer and an unfortunately under-publicized stint as a Cold War operative for the former Soviet Union.  Do not forget the onion ring’s great service to its people and its Constitution.”  While the loss of support from the powerful side-order group would be damaging to Bush’s bid for a second term, the White House responded to the complaint by advocating the HOR’s decision, asserting that “essentially, they’re all a part of the same Ore Ida political machine.” 

The alteration of French toast caused considerably more consternation however as the name Freedom Toast had previously been designated to toasted Italian rolls, which were considered treasonous under their ethnic title during World War II.  Italian Rolls, therefore, will be referred to as Freedom Bread.  The name Freedom Bread had formerly been applied to the Danish, a result of Denmark’s 1980 Olympic Figure Skating defeat of the United States.  “Consequently, Danishes will no longer be available in the capital” explained Chief of HOR Culinary Administration, Corbin Johnson of “both the pastries and the people.”  While the broad-based efforts to purge capital menus of foreign incursion have been criticized as petty and inane by some, such alterations are historically common, some of the most famous incidences thereof being the Cold War conversion from Polish Sausage to Liberty Pork, the WWII renaming of ‘sauerkraut’ as ‘milkshake’ and, in a recent White House effort to distinguish itself from Israeli policy, the conversion from the Kosher weiner to the Ari Fleischer.  And it may not end there.  Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has spent the last two months attempting to rally international support for a war on Iraq pledged that “if Mexico doesn’t commit to war, we’re simply going to take Mexican babies off the menu altogether.  Only Texan senators and Cheney order them anyway.”  Powell went on to promise that this effort would not prevent federal institutions from hiring their parents to wash dishes at gunpoint for a dollar an hour.

And while these efforts to protect Americans from foreign impurities continue on the homefront, the Bush administration spoke this week of its military strategy for dispatching of threats abroad, detailing the nature of the “Shock and Awe approach.”  The new type of warfare consists of an opening airstrike campaign that is so economically, psychologically and mortally devastating to the nation in question that the war’s conclusion is foregone from there on out.  Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said of the strategy during a briefing on Tuesday, “I know it sounds like we’re joking, using hyperbole to downplay what we’re actually doing.  But we’re not.”  In concurrence with the revelation of this approach, the U.S. detonated a test version of the Massive Ordinance Air Blast, a 21,000 pound bomb, in order to demonstrate that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and is a threat to world order and security.
And remember, as always, the monkey goes where the wind blows.

March 10, 2003

This week, the Bush administration finally released the official start-date of the U.S. war in Iraq, giving the United Nations a March 17th deadline by which to disband, or face total annihilation.  As a side-note the White House also designated that date as the deadline by which Iraq must be fully disarmed in order to avoid the gift of democracy.  Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to reporters after addressing the U.N. earlier this week, explaining that “even though we consider the destruction of the Iraqi people a major priority, our greater motivation is to completely undermine the United Nations as a credible or functioning entity in global affairs.  We wouldn’t be accused so consistently of violating international law if there was no international law of which to speak.”  Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld elaborated on that position Friday, chuckling that “that should take care of some of the crybabys.”  During the same briefing, Donald Rumsfeld addressed his notorious remarks that characterized the opposition to America’s war in Iraq as “old Europe,” clarifying that “when I used that term to describe countries like France and Germany, I just meant it in the respect that when we’re through with the world, they won’t have electricity, running water or gay bathhouses just like in Medieval times .” 

So as the deadline approaches, the U.N.’s fifteen member security council remains sharply divided on the matter, but President Bush has maintained his steadfast confidence in the necessity of action in Iraq, strengthened by his belief that “Jesus would never send a Yale man to Hell.”  In light of international pleas, from both nation members of the U.N. and a weapon inspections team headed by Hans Blix, to continue pursuing peaceful disarmament, President Bush stated during his Thursday press conference that “I think it’s clear beyond a reasonable doubt that we are still in a diplomatic phase right now.  War is not inevitable.  Saddam Hussein has until March 17th to decide.  If by then 2 million Iraqi people spontaneously die, Saddam Hussein drowns in his kitchen sink, the United Nations stops inventing treaties we don’t want to sign, oil becomes obsolete, Iraq changes its national anthem to “Downtown” by Petula Clark, I win yet another term without having to undergo a democratic election, my father stops referring to me remorsefully as “Barbara’s night of indiscretion with a sub-average Ferris-wheel operator from a genetically questionable Mississippi pharmaceutical town” and Iraq fully and finally disarms, then we can begin to make some peaceful progress.  It’s a very simple demand that has been met with resistance, lies and deception for more than a decade.  This is Saddam Hussein’s last chance to prove he can disarm to avert war.” 

Going into this weekend, Iraq responded to the American proposed deadline by quickening the pace of its missile destruction, under the observation of U.N. weapons inspectors.  By Sunday afternoon, the number of dismantled weapons had jumped from six to 46.  President Bush responded to these efforts of disarmament, opening and closing his remarks by indicating that “that’s not what we mean by disarmament.”  In order to better qualify the vagueness of America’s demands, the President explained that later in the week that “while we consider regime change in Iraq inevitable, we consider war completely evitable.” 

As the White House seriously contemplates the offhand possibility of war, cautiously weighing the costs and benefits therein, a quarter of a million U.S. troops have massed on the desert borders of Iraq, “for a military symposium on the importance of sand,” according to an unidentified officer stationed in Kuwait.  Armed Forces General Tommy Franks spoke further on the special event that includes such sand-oriented educational clinics as driving tanks in the sand, blowing craters in the sand and littering the sand with body parts, stating that “while the convention is geared toward tactical maneuvering in the sand, we are also acutely aware of our coincidental proximity to Iraq.  And in the unlikely event that President Bush orders a strike on Iraq, we are prepared to send our valued sand experts home and go to work.  We may be in the midst of a crucial training phase, but the United States army is always ready to answer the call of duty, no matter how suddenly it comes.” 

And while it bears repeating that the war in Iraq is still avoidable according to the Bush administration, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer warned Americans during a Friday press conference that “the coming war, which is being done to prevent terrorism at home and abroad, will certainly renew the great threat of terrorist attacks against the United States and its friends and allies.”  And to combat the routinely non-specific nature of Homeland Security’s recent terror alerts, he introduced the White House’s newest measure in ensuring the complete pervasion of an insane and unquenchable panic in the American public, unveiling www.itcouldbeyou.gov.  The new, federally maintained website will give Americans the opportunity to sign in, enter personal information and find out if they, individually, could be the next victim of a terrorist attack.

Fleischer described it as “a great way to assess your own vulnerability.  All you have to do is enter your name, address, social security number, credit card information, a copy of the deed to your house, the number of crimes you’ve been convicted of, the names of all the communists you’ve ever met, read or seen on television, you’re favorite pillar of Islam and three magazines that you’d most like to receive great subscription deals on and we tell you whether or not you, your family or your friends could be the next victims of a fundamentalist terrorist attack.  If the answer is yes, you will be presented with a list of products that could protect you from terrorism, thanks to an agreement between the administration and the Best Buy superstore chain.  The site will also feature such purchase options as anti-terror supply gift certificates, local militia recruitment videos and personal crowd control tasers.”  Attorney General John Ashcroft addressed the initiative during a recent television appearance, while wearing a black, hooded cloak and eating a meat that he would only describe as “Asian.”  He lauded the Homeland Security measure, asserting that “the great thing about it is that people who don’t sign on to it are automatically placed on a terror watch-list.  It’s like killing two Negroes with one bullet.” 

This new terrorist prevention method comes at a most welcome time, as the Bush administration paints an ever-clearer and more alarming connection between Iraq and the Al Queda terror network that manned the attacks of September 11th, which, the President has reminded an inattentive American public, claimed the lives of 3,000 war advocates.  He released new “evidence” during his Thursday press conference of Iraq’s co-conspiratorial role in the WTC tragedy, explaining that “the cousin of one of the guys who sold a fake I.D. to a guy who we thought was involved with the 9/11 hijackings but actually wasn’t and then mysteriously disappeared, well he once had a key copy made in a New York City hardware store owned by a family from Iran, which as we all know, is both very geographically close to and spelled very similarly to Iraq.  If you tell me that Saddam Hussein didn’t know that that stuff was goin’ on, than you just don’t understand the nature of Iraq.” 

And remember, as always, the monkey goes where the wind blows.

January 20, 2003
                
This week, UN weapons inspectors finally uncovered what the Bush administration has excitedly characterized as “several smoking guns,” all of which have illustrated the incontrovertible need for immediate military action in Iraq.  After two months of fruitless investigation in Baghdad, a newly dispatched corp. of inspectors bearing the name Team Alabama made the startling discovery in the home of Iraqi scrap-metal salvager Raqi Mareidi, just south of Baghdad.  Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld spoke of the revelation in a Friday press conference, explaining that “Mareidi’s involvement in a plot to destroy freedom became apparent beyond a reasonable doubt yesterday when inspectors found an egg-beater in his kitchen sink.  It is clear, according to the same American forensics experts that worked on the O.J. Simpson prosecution team, that this utensil was used to mix a fluid of some sort.  So there you have it.  Chemical warfare.”  Rumsfeld went on to reiterate the promise to Americans that “Iraq’s civilians will pay for this terrorism with their lives.”  Mareidi, who was subsequently taken into U.S. custody in a series of plastic shopping bags, commented only that “my family and I saved up for six years to buy that egg-beater.”  An unidentified American military official present at the time of his apprehension responded to the claim by indicating that “even if the egg-beater had indeed only been used to make a Denver omelet, UN sanctions imposed upon Iraq following the first Gulf War state clearly and in no uncertain terms that Iraqi consumption of eggs, waffles, pancakes, the Denny’s Grand Slam Value Meal or any other food commonly associated with the hearty American-style breakfast is strictly forbidden under penalty of total annihilation.  It’s the only way Saddam Hussein will learn.”

The Mareidi discovery was not the only undeniable material breach of the American drafted U.N. resolution seeking full Iraqi disarmament.  According to a report on the matter, released by the White House late Friday, independent American reconnaissance revealed an Iraqi orphanage containing upwards of forty “bed-shaped items that we believe to be nuclear warheads.”  The report credited the information to “a series of grainy, unintelligible, still-frame photographs taken from the inside of an ice-cream truck hidden behind a mattress store in Oakland, California.”  As a pre-emptive response to the aggression implied by the photographs, American B-2 bombers already stationed in the region dropped 13 kilotons of explosives on the building.  As to an international allegation that the structure may have actually contained orphans, Armed Forces General Tommy Franks assured that, “if we hadn’t killed them yesterday, they would have starved to death anyway.” 

This new cache of evidence that Saddam Hussein is beginning to orchestrate a major global coup comes at a most crucial time, according to Bush administration officials.  The President spoke on the matter just after the discovery on Thursday afternoon, asserting that “this could not have come at a better time.  We were this close to admitting we were only in it for the oil.  But now we can get back to pretending it has something to do with weapons or terrorists or something.”  Bush went on to detail his anger with Hussein, proclaiming to be “sick and tired of Iraqi deception.”  The President followed up his strong words by succumbing to a crying fit in front of forty reporters.  He was quickly ushered from his dais, spoon-fed a bowl of pudding and put down for his daily afternoon nap.  White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer closed the day’s comments by discounting a U.N. request for a new timeline on completing weapons inspections.  As to an extension that would exceed the January 27th deadline for a full U.N. report, Fleischer explained that “the president can’t even read a bus schedule so a weapons inspection timeline is meaningless to him.  And we don’t see the need for such delays.  I mean, how hard can it be to find some missiles?  This isn’t rocket science here.” 

And as the White House waits patiently for a legitimate go-ahead for military action, the 250,000 plus American troops that have already been planted on the ground in surrounding nations such as Yemen, Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey, are operating under conditions of heightened readiness.  All military personnel have been instructed to practice common urban combat procedural techniques on the indigenous peoples of their temporary residences in preparation for the coming war.  Stated Joint Chief of Staff Richard Myers during a Wednesday briefing, “we like to keep our men limber and focused.  Fortunately, in most of the countries where our forces currently occupy ground, the inhabitants look exactly like Iraqis.  It makes raids and bombings on the unarmed civilians here seem just like the real thing.”  Most Bush administration officials are confident that the recently uncovered breaches of the inspection process will constitute necessary mobilization, and CNN has substantiated this assumption by repeatedly airing a two-second clip from a 1998 file in which U.N. inspections chief Hans Blix is heard to state, “um . . . yes.” 

As U.N. inspectors have grappled to interpret the new discovery in Iraq, tens of thousands of protestors gathered this past Saturday in Washington D.C. and San Francisco to rally for a peaceful solution to the Iraqi situation.  Vice President Dick Cheney spoke disparagingly of the resistance to White House policy during a weekend press conference, explaining that “this small group of dissenters does not represent the opinion of most Americans.  Most Americans have no opinion.”  The Vice President died and was resuscitated three separate times during that sentence.  Shortly thereafter, his body was returned to the massive latex chamber where he hibernates for three and a half weeks out of every month.  One aide who demanded anonymity said of the Vice President’s health condition and consequent public scarcity, “you can’t prosecute somebody you can’t find.” 

Finally, this week, the Bush administration has announced plans to honor the birthday of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose life will be celebrated this Monday, with a historical reenactment.  The White House released a statement extolling the virtues of “this great and cherished American,” promising to pay tribute to the memory of his heroic struggle for racial equality by turning fire hoses on unsuspecting affirmative action lobbyists. 

And remember, as always, the monkey goes where the wind blows.