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"For me, satire is a powerful tool and it's not sufficiently used; it's not just for late-night jokes but really to promote fundamental change. And it's inevitable that when you attempt to change the status quo, you're going to make some people upset. That's the price of change."

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"Dubya may not be a rocket scientist, but his handlers learned the lesson from his father: the crisis must stay or you won't. We're at war with Eurasia. We've always been at war with Eurasia."

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"Bush's lame response to North Korea has made it quite clear that all he wants is to invade Iraq again. North Korea may be more dangerous in fact, but there's no oil there, and it simply doesn't figure in the grand eschatological design of Bush's theocratic circle. Pyongyang isn't even in the Bible!"

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"You can make nicely crafted things, whether they're poems, sculptures, paintings, records, CDs, whatever. But they'll just be that -- nice. They won't be unwieldy as personal expression often can be."

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"What do a toilet bowl and a woman's vagina have in common? They both need to be cleaned with Lysol."

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"There's some thing in our psyche, this kind of right or privilege to resolve our conflicts with violence. There's an arrogance to that concept. To actually have to sit down and talk, to listen, to compromise, that's hard work. To go for the gun, that's the cowardly act."

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"It's a done deal. By the end of 2003, Saddam Hussein will either be out of power or out of the realm of the living. So who's next in line for the coveted position of dictator -- uh, leader -- of Iraq, home to the largest supply of crude reserves on Earth? Here's the list of nominees."

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"For white people, it will be different. They will be advised to refer to the U.S. Federal Standard 595B Color Chart (or the Ralph Lauren color chip guide at Home Depot) to determine the range of colors permissible in a potential spouse."

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"I think that there's been a lot of difficulty in defining what is American, what is considered American. There's a lot of difficulty with acceptance within our community of foreignness at this time."

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"You really looking forward to Ashcroft's storm
troopers contradicting the will of our people by knocking over wheelchairs to confiscate a couple ounces of herb? Bush wants regime change so bad, I got his regime change right here."

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"That's an issue I'm dealing with here: what is going to happen with this next generation of kids? What is their culture but media culture? What hasn't been sanitized and homogenized?"

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"Word comes that brother Cat Stevens refuses to lend his support to our virtuous jihad. May this turncoat's Peace Train be laden with explosives and rammed into the Mountain of Mohammed, peace be upon him. "

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"America embodies mimetic relations of rivalry. The ideology of free enterprise makes of them an absolute solution. Effective, but explosive. Competitive relations are excellent if you come out of it the winner. But if the winners are always the same then, one day, the losers overturn the game table."

(Photo: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic)

by Ross Levine

As an American, I've been troubled of late. Not because I'm such a left-field pacifist that I believe it's feasible for human beings not to make war. And not because I'm such an Iraqnophobic rightist that I subscribe to the bombs-as-balm theory, that you can obliterate the world's ills by blowing them up. No, it's because I'm just your average conflicted citizen listening to the news and wondering what the hell is going on and how I'm supposed to feel about:

The Bombs
It's become quite clear that there are many different kinds of bombs -- smart, big, precise, errant, regular and decap, plus those that fly, fall, shock, awe, cluster or keep to themselves, not to mention the mighty bunker-buster -- but they all have one thing in common, their inner bombness. They explode. If not right away, eventually (which makes them the gift that keeps on killing). So here we sit before our computer or television screens as Iraq's architecturally impressive public buildings are turned into smokehouses, swirling plumes of blackness billowing into the Baghdadosphere, and suddenly we have a Gollum-Smeagol thing going on -- yes, we're striking at the evil rulers in order to free the Iraqis from bondage, but then again, how would we like it if some superpower did a September 11, 12, 13, 14 and so forth on our own beloved homeland? I figure Baghdad is slightly older than Indianapolis, so what priceless edifices might we be destroying? Then again, they asked for it, those uppity Baath-tards, and besides, our boys and girls are there now, so there's no standing on humanitarian ceremony -- better the home team gets obliterated than the visitors (a brilliant strategy, I might add, that the most compelling reason for making war is that it's wartime).

So in other words, it's better to have Baghdad burning than New York, and if they'd just surrender or catch a camel out of town, we wouldn't have to liberate them anymore. But further blurring the issue, for us Americans, that is, are the movies we love best; isn't it always the evil empire that possesses all the big firepower and lays it to the little guys who we hope and pray will find the chink in the death star's armor? Shut up, Gollum, screw off, Smeagol, whose weapons of mass destruction are more precious? And in the back of our minds, we ask ourselves, if our troops didn't have all their sophisticated killing apparatus, what would they have? The sheer will to emancipate the world, to bring the American dream to everyone from Baghdad to Beijing? What if our dream isn't their dream? What if there are people in Iraq who do hate Saddam and aren't Fedayeen but don't want to see their country remade in America's image? Not that we could achieve such a thing in short order, turning Nassiriya into Las Vegas, for example, but maybe their fear of the idea alone is why they're not throwing down their weapons and selling maps to Saddam's palaces on every corner.

Get this monster away from me! "Bush had obviously worn us down more than he had the 'Irackies.' And then came his cocky ultimatum -- 48 hours to pack up the kids and go." (Photo: AP/Haydn West)

Bush
Although his ascension to the Presidency was a real coup, Bush has outdone himself selling his war to Congress and the majority of Americans. Granted, his attempts at pawning it off on the rest of the world have met with rather limited success (he couldn't pay Turkey to take it), but six months of reminding us that Saddam is Osama without a beard have finally broken us down. Whether the Al Qaeda-Iraq connection materializes or not, it hardly matters, thanks to Bush's perseverance. Once he moved the troops into Kuwait, he had his war ipso facto. Even those basically against it understood what a tremendous waste of money it would be to prepare for a war and not fight it. Basically, it's a case of "coitus non-interruptus" -- once we had our manhood inside a Tomahawk launch tube, it was impossible to pull out without firing. Of course, the situation got mired in the U.N., what with months of inspections, slide shows and morning masses from Hans Blix, not to mention the endless repetition of expressions like "material breach" and "weapons of mass destruction" (where's a good acronym when you need one?) -- that had all of us in the States clamoring to "get it over with"; Bush had obviously worn us down more than he had the "Irackies." And then came his cocky ultimatum -- 48 hours to pack up the kids and go. Perhaps we subconsciously dug his bravado, which is ultimately why the plot twist of Iraq not rolling over and playing dead has been such a surprise -- the way Bush and company were talking, we thought the biggest obstacle to our advance would be flowers jamming the tracks of our Bradley tanks.

So naturally we didn't think the war would last more than a few hours or so, or be too deadly. That's why we're in a bit of a funk now to realize that no matter how many troops we send over, not all of them are coming home alive. And no matter how carefully we aim, we do kill innocent people. Supposing that the road to downtown Baghdad is indeed paved with good intentions, well, it's already looking pretty hellish. Bush told us we'd be freeing "Irackies," but we thought he meant from Saddam, not their own bodies.

Cheney
Where is he? Perhaps visiting his non-openly openly gay daughter? Before the war, he popped up on talk shows now and then, to regale us with his optimistic forecasts, but lately, well, surely he's not partying with his Halli-pals as they celebrate their lucrative contracts to rebuild Iraq (foreigners need not apply) -- even if, based on their expertise, it may be justifiable to give Halliburton and friends the job, how can we not squirm to see the foxes placed in charge of the fowl? If it looks fishy to us, imagine how it looks to the rest of the world (not that we care, but still). Then again, Cheney put energy policy in the hands of energy companies; it only stands to reason we'd put the spoils of war in the fingers of profiteers.

Look everyone, I can only honestly answer questions that fit into this box. "Being the straight-talker that he is, of course we wanted to believe everything Rumsfeld said. The fact that Iraqis, it seems, prefer sabotage to surrender, well -- instead of coming out and admitting he was wrong, Rummy blames our enemy for cheating." (Photo: AP/Dennis Cook)

Rumsfeld
He claims it wasn't his fault that we thought we only had to attack Baghdad and not Iraq. And word is that, after making so pointed a distinction between the new and old Europe, he divided warfare into the same categories, the "old" fought by a military bogged down by armies and men, the "new" a sleek, trimmed-down force mopping up after smart bombs and mentally gifted missiles do their work. Are we, the American public, so naïve as to believe that technology is omnipotent enough to win our wars without us sacrificing a single grunt? Of course we are -- has technology ever betrayed us? OK, forget global warming, environmental destruction, species extinction, carcinogenic pollutants, three-legged frogs, nuclear holocausts, genocide, poisoned children, black lung -- on the whole, technology is our best buddy. And Rumsfeld being the straight-talker that he is, of course we wanted to believe everything he said. The fact that Iraqis, it seems, prefer sabotage to surrender, well -- instead of coming out and admitting he was wrong, Rummy blames our enemy for cheating (a subject I'll get to in a sec). Was he trying to keep the price down by not bringing in enough men? Or did he really buy all that "schlock and awe" malarkey he tried to impress us (and a fight-to-the-death dictator) with?

The Generals, Colonels, et al.
These are the military men with deep, unflappable voices who brief us daily on the progress of the campaign. Much has already been made of their Hollywood set in Doha, Qatar (which, depending on who you talk to, is pronounced "Welcome Back, Kotter," "Coast Guard cutter, " "catarrh" or "cater"). We certainly look forward to seeing them there; they are so reassuringly self-composed. They tell us just what we want to hear, what we're desperate to hear: Everything is going according to plan, we're making good progress, there is nothing happening that we cannot handle. Sandstorms, suicide bombers, guerilla soldiers in Toyota pick-ups -- not a problem. We are the good guys, they insist, and we believe them, even those of us who remember Westmoreland and crew insisting victory in Vietnam was right around the rice paddy, where it remained for nearly a decade. Not that this could be another Vietnam -- Reagan himself (perhaps with an Alzheimered eye to the nuclear button) promised no more of those -- but maybe the generals are being too careful, trying overly hard to seem more like do-gooders than fighting men, insisting they have no intention of hurting people. I don't think you can fight a war in a country of over 20 million people crammed into a narrow valley without some collateral gut-spillage. We know that but we try to block it out, though with every pre-empted civilian life, we are painfully reminded this is a pre-emptive war. And how long can our fighting men put up with soldiers in civilian clothes carrying out ambushes and suicide bombings before we're in My Lai land again? The more confident the generals behave, the more we suspect they're lying. Suppose they say the enemy is fighting hard, we're altering our strategy, we aren't as prepared as we might have been? At least we could believe them. But when you're in a hospital bed and everybody insists you're fine without telling you when you're coming home, well, that's when you know your days are numbered.

Have I told you lately that I love you? "If this were The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Blair would have the Jimmy Stewart role, he being an authentic advocate for civilization, as opposed to John Wayne Bush who, in the end, is the one who actually shoots Liberty." (Photo: AP/Susan Walsh)

Tony Blair
At least we're not completely alone, and Blair, who is English and therefore sounds vaguely intelligent, lends some legitimacy to the conflict. (As do those British soldiers with their petrified upper lips: "I say, we're on the outskirts of Basra, we have absolutely no control over the city, there are militia fighters everywhere, the citizenry have no food or water, but things are going just splendidly.") If this were The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Blair would have the Jimmy Stewart role, he being an authentic advocate for civilization, as opposed to John Wayne Bush who, in the end, is the one who actually shoots Liberty (sorry, couldn't help myself). Whether Bush will end up plugging Saddam in the grand finale is anyone's guess, but I think many Americans hope Blair's more cooperative world vision prevails over Bush's. If it weren't for Blair, the war in Iraq would seem considerably more imperialistic that it already does, especially given Collin Powel's recent use of the word "dominating" to describe the U.S. role in the governing of sans-Saddam Iraq.

Saddam Hussein
We try to see him as Hitler, and he's surely just as cruel, but whether he's dead or alive, why can't he make a fiery, tyrant-like speech now and then? He just sits there and moves his mouth like some understated pervert, and OK, he shares power with his own family, but haven't the Bushes done as much? Hitler was laughable too until he blitzkrieged Poland, and obviously, we didn't want to wait until Saddam was marching into Trenton to confront him, but, considering he came to power in the late '70s, we can't help but wonder why it took so long for him to become the anti-Christ. His threat to Israel has certainly been more than apparent since the early '90s, when he lobbed missiles at Tel Aviv -- yet it wasn't until last year that suddenly the security of the entire world depended on his demise. We realize that anyone who has more than one palace is either a ruthless dictator or the CEO of an American company, and certainly all those pictures of him that our soldiers keep ripping down lend a 1984ish quality to the society he has so mercilessly engineered. We cringe to see the rest of the world and the peaceniks giving him moral legitimacy by describing him as the leader of a besieged nation, although now we can't help but see him that way, at least to some degree; basically, many of us wish we hadn't been put in the position of either supporting a war justified with fuzzy math or supporting a murderous despot. When Saddam, or one of the many pseudo-Saddams he's purported to employ, talks of cutting off the head of the snake, we start to understand that demonization is a two-way street that's dangerous in any direction.

Embedded Reporters
So nice of the Pentagon to ferry the press around. Perhaps they wanted to subject doves on the home front to byte after byte of the Iraqi welcome wagon. Or maybe they just wanted the cameras rolling when the nerve gas hit the fan. They may now regret their decision, given that the reporters are overhearing officers and enlisted men complain of insufficient supplies and ferocious resistance. They may be ready to kick the media out of bed, but I doubt it. With the reporters' lives dependent on the soldiers, the reporting tends to be fairly laudatory; in fact, reporters are sounding like the troops, using military euphemisms such as "softening up" to describe, I suppose, the gentle massaging we're giving the enemy divisions. In my opinion, the army and the press being together twixt the sheets may result in yet another permutation of "don't ask, don't tell," thus putting the kibosh, at least for now, on the real war happening so many time zones away.

Taking a rubber bullet for peace. "It seems we can tolerate people protesting a war until one starts. Then, suddenly, they're traitors who are not supporting our troops and become objects of national derision. There is an appalling logic here -- that it's OK to speak your mind at a theoretical level, but once you start referencing actual realities, you're an enemy of the state." (Photo: Reuters/Tim Wimborne)

The Protesters
It seems we can tolerate people protesting a war until one starts. Then, suddenly, they're traitors who are not supporting our troops and become objects of national derision. There is an appalling logic here -- that it's OK to speak your mind at a theoretical level, but once you start referencing actual realities, you're an enemy of the state. In other words, free speech is OK in general but not in particular. Considering we're fighting this war to supposedly instill democracy in the Arab world, it's ironic that we're so frightened of it here. When Michael Moore gave his little spiel at the Oscars, most of America saw it as an affront to our principles, when in fact it was really an affirmation of them. Or can it be that we can't have our freedom fries and eat them, too? Of course, on the other side of the fence, let's hope the peace movement will desist from turning this latest crisis into just another dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

Rules of Engagement
I've saved the best topic for last. The civilized world sat down in 1949 and came up with rules for fighting wars, and though, at first thought, that might seem as sensible as anarchists convening a constitutional convention, well, if you think about it, even war can have its excesses. The irony is, of course, that it's OK to kill your enemy, but if that fails and you capture him, the world expects you to suddenly be concerned for his welfare. But forgetting all that, is it realistic to expect a militarily inferior nation like Iraq to, in the face of such disparate odds, not resort to certain un-kosher tactics? Wasn't it our own beloved Indiana Jones who, confronted with a sword-wielding warrior, took out his gun and shot him? The audience roared with delight, because in wartime, honor is not a matter of playing by the rules, it's just a question of fighting any way you can for whichever side or cause you happen to believe in. We mustn't forget that our capable leaders, believing that the Iraqis might very well use chemical weapons against us, could not possibly have dismissed the possibility of "lesser" infractions, like dressing as civilians, using women and children as shields, or depending more on Toyotas than tanks. And returning to the topic I began with -- bombs -- do the Iraqis per chance have any right to claim that we're violating the rules of war by dropping too many of them? What kind of rules can these be that allow the unlimited release of explosives but prohibit one's adversaries from not lining up in uniform to be shot?

And of course I'm not the first one to say that the U.S., by appearing to have skirted the United Nations in order to act on its plan, has suggested to the world that rules are made to be broken. How do we Americans feel about this? Some of us are no doubt glad to be free of the shackles of that international Star Wars bar the U.N., dismissing it as a bunch of Third World bandidos who despise us anyway. But the fact is, there is a world out there, and we are part of it, like it or not. And hopefully we won't be reminded of that any time soon, at least not the way we were a year and a half ago. It's not our fault we're strong and prosperous (or, as Jerry Falwell suggested, just promiscuous and gay), but it may very well be our fault that, in not turning to war as a last resort, the unavoidable horrors that come with it are seen not so much as something that can't be helped, but rather something not (in our eyes) heinous enough to stand in our way. The War on Terror, which began with people hurling themselves from the burning Trade Center, now finds dead American soldiers lying in the sand and the lives of Iraqi innocents snuffed out by, yes, weapons of mass destruction, albeit from Raytheon and not Saddam.

Does this mean I'm against getting rid of him? Not at all. But there is a price for it, and covering up the Guernica mural at the United Nations can't hide it. At the next Geneva Convention, perhaps they can write the rules of peace, but I'm afraid there are a lot of nations who won't sign on, including, most notably, my own.

08 April 03

The Bottom Line Here's a hard question for the war hawks. Just where exactly is Dick Cheney? After all, he was cozy with Saddam as recently as a few years ago. Arianna Huffington -- and millions of inquiring minds not ready for another oil war -- would like to know . . . MORE	Reality War TV According to Tommy Franks, the television war to end all television wars has begun. But just how far removed are embeds, video game graphics and images of dead soldiers from snuff films? And how much will that mediation denature what may be the bloodiest conflict since Vietnam? . . . MORE	The Spoils of War Before a bunker buster was launched, the Busheviks had already lined up a few corporations to divvy up the billion-dollar government contracts to rebuild Iraq. But there was no bidding war -- the prizes simply went to fat-cat donors. Does anyone else smell a master plan here? Arianna Huffington does . . . MORE
Corporate America's Most Wanted There are many financial wizards in our world that you should take advice from, but these swindlers are definitely not some of them. Together they've given offshore tax shelters front-page coverage, ruined the lives (and accounts) of millions, and helped rebuild Saddam's Iraq, only to deny it later. Be afraid. Very afraid . . . MORE	Name That Regime! They've greedily sold chemical weapons with but one purpose in mind: to kill as many humans as possible at once. Plus, they've imprisoned thousands of their citizens up without due process. So exactly who are these civil liberty party animals? . . . MORE	The Gunfight at the Iraqi Corral With terms like "cowboy" and "outlaw" being thrown America's way from, well, just about everyone, now's the time to pitch the Western that the Bush dynasty has been filming for two decades. After all, you can't trust wimps like "old Europe" to deliver justice at the end of a barrel . . . MORE