A modest solution to Iraq

How America can hit the trifecta

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
11/20/05
http://zeppscommentaries.com/Humor/dittoboom.htm

When Jean Schmidt, from Ohio’s Second District, stood up and strongly implied that 37-year Marine and veteran of Korea AND Vietnam John Murtha (D-PA) was a coward for wanting to withdraw the troops from the failed fiasco that is Iraq, it caused a loud uproar. The uproar, both in Congress and across the country, was so loud that Putsch, clear over in China, heard it. The day after his whorish little press secretary, Scott McClellan, tried to lump Murtha in with Michael Moore (presumably hoping to smear Murtha but succeeding only in reminding people that Moore was right), Putsch all but apologized to Murtha, effusively praising Murtha’s courage and staunchly defending his right to speak his piece, even if he disagreed with the administration. Putsch must have been very frightened indeed to say things like that.

Jean Schmidt had her remarks stricken from the Congressional Record, but like Putsch, didn’t actually apologize. These brittle little ideologues of the far right don’t do apology, you see. That would appear weak.

It has to be humiliating to the people of Ohio’s second district. They just recently elected this harpy in a special election, by a couple of percentage points in a strongly Republican district, passing up an opportunity to be represented by Paul Hackett, the Iraq vet who is now running for the Senate in ‘06.

The swiftboating of Murtha seems to have hit a mine as public opinion reacted with unusual heat to the GOP smears and lies. It will be interesting to see if Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly even MENTION Murtha when they come back to work on Monday to resume the business of lying to and radicalizing America. I already saw one republican clown who snarled that Murtha had been “feeding at the public trough for 70 years.” 37 as a Marine, and 13 as an elected representative. Shameful. Just shameful.

John Warner (R-VA), head of the Armed Services Senate committee, is probably cruising to get swiftboated himself. Bad enough that he co-wrote (with a suddenly distant-from-the-White-House Bill Frist) a resolution demanding an exit strategy that passed the Senate easily, 79-19. Warner seems to actually be taking an interest in what problems the military is facing in Iraq, and recently brought in ten mid-level staffers from the Pentagon who had been in Iraq for some time to give him a “spear-tip view” of conditions there. Conditions, of course, are appalling. The staffers detailed how the military simply isn’t able to cope with the Resistance, which is growing, not only in manpower, but in sophistication and deadliness with each passing day that the hated Americans continue to occupy Iraq. They noted that the forces skip from town to town, trying to clear out the Resistance, only to find that it has reemerged in the town they just left. They noted that the Resistance consisted of at least 25 different groups, often working at cross purposes, but united in targeting Americans.

The testimony made it clear that America had few friends in Iraq (Ahmed Chalabi, and Kurds who find Americans useful idiots, mostly) and that any two given Iraqis who might be trying to kill one another will cheerfully take a break in order to stop and kill an American.

The war, unwinnable to begin with, is lost. The administration is simply throwing away the lives of Americas best and brightest out of a craven political inability to admit they were wrong. For two years, it had been possible for someone with good heart and the nation’s interests at heart to support the war. They might be wrong, but at least they were sincere.

That is no longer possible. Anyone who supports the war now is, at best, lying to himself, and at worst, guilty of the worst type of cowardly pseudo-patriotism, the type that wastes and destroys lives to no possible gain but which cannot admit defeat.

One of the elements Warner’s commission covered was the fact that the military has about 2,500 bomb experts, and they say that they need to double that in order to keep up with Iraq’s biggest growth industry – roadside bombs that keep getting bigger and more sophisticated.

This makes for a happy confluence that can solve two problems at once through the judicious application of a little bit of money.

Have the military run ads on Faux News, CNN, Rush Limbaugh, and in papers such as the Moonie Times and the New York Post. Explain that bomb sniffers are desperately needed in Iraq, and offer $10,000 a month, and a pay-out of one million and a lifetime $3,000 a month pension for bomb sniffers’ families.

This would motivate the people who watch and read such stations, the people who are writhing in guilt because, despite all their patriotism, they haven’t sacrificed anything for this war. They could sign up and make money they never dreamed of, and should some unfortunate event occur, their families will live well.

You wouldn’t use them to poke at a suspicious package in a crowded restaurant or at the entrance to the Green Zone. No, you would have them walk up and down the streets that Americans patrol every morning, with big sticks, and they would poke or rap any object that looked suspicious. The experts could be saved for serious, life threatening bomb scares, where finesse and precision are needed, and it’s important that the bomb not go off.

The advantages are that the military can keep their expensive, highly trained and valuable personnel for dire emergencies. The well-paid volunteers would only require about two days’ training, enough time to a) recognize suspicious or unusual objects on the side of the road and b) whack at them with a stick. Fans of Bill O’Reilly might require three days of training.

The Iraqis are bagging lots of Americans, so they are happy, while not doing America any real damage. America, in the meantime, is putting a dent in the people who believe that liberals hate freedom, that evolution is a atheistic plot, and that judges should be answerable to politicians.

It’s a win-win-win situation, and the total cost would be less than that of a typical Halliburton no-bid contract.

Contact your elected representative, and urge him to support “Operation Dittoboom!” today!