Sugar Plum Fairies

In case you’ve been on a planet far, far away, I gotta break it to you; dreams of an American Empire are on hold, maybe forever.

On May 1, 2003, the empire reached its zenith of hubris when the Emperor landed on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and announced that major combat operations in Iraq had ended. Since then, dear reader, even if you have been on inter-stellar travel for the CIA, you must be aware that the `Mission Accomplished’ banner posted high above the cheering sailors has become the enduring symbol of a major league dream gone bad.

By now you’ve heard that Secretary of State Powell’s fabulous dog and pony show for the Security Council clearly marking all those weapons of mass destruction and chemical and biological laboratories has won him the Academy Award for the best original screen play of 2003.

Just weeks after the end of fighting in Iraq – is there something wrong with that phrase? – nasty little questions began to arise. Where have those biological and chemical agents gone? How about all that yellow cake uranium from Africa? It was about that time we began to hear the fairy tale that the weapons went to Syria; in the neocon storybook, weapons mysteries all end in Damascus

Sad, but the Emperor and all of his neocon brain trusters have been bailing water ever since. We knew that Saddam Hussein was bad guy, but just to be sure we have been reeducated on just how evil. Even out there way beyond Pluto you must have heard just how mean this cat, Saddam, was. Were you shocked to learn that he gassed his own people? Really! The Emperor also allowed as how Saddam had “tried to kill my Dad.” It must be nice to be an emperor and use the state army to avenge personal wrongs. But that phrase quickly made it to the cutting room floor.

Well after all the bailing, the USS Four More Years stayed above water – barely - until after Election Day 2004. Now Iraqi elections are coming right up so we can turn our attention to the other arms of the Axis of Evil, Iran and North Korea.

The original plan was to march up to the Iraq/Iran border and advise the Mullahs that if they didn’t fly straight, they’d be sitting in something akin to Abu Ghraib and playing cribbage with Saddam while we rebuild Iran and install that nice Pahlavi boy on the Peacock Throne. And after that stomping, we’d be off to Pyongyang for another victory celebration. Actually, neither of these scenarios was supposed to play out. After seeing how we’d changed the regime and delivered democracy to the thankful residents of Baghdad, there’d be no need to shoot. The Mullahs and Kim Chong-il would simply welcome us as liberators without a fight.

Sadly, it appears that many Republicans – not just those wimpy Democrats – think that our adventure in Iraq was a devastatingly bad idea that is hurting us in the War on Terror, so they’re beginning to give the Emperor fits and calling for the heads of the leading neocons. Can you believe it?

Where was I? Oh, yes, the neocons were snug in their beds with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads and some guy in a red suit was yelling out something that sounds like, “Merry Christmas to oil and to oil a good night.”

Sadly, on awakening, those smug little neocons, the smartest kids in their class, find that the neighbors don’t want to come over to help us celebrate and our sugar plums have turned to lumps of coal. But there’s a bright side, clean coal technology will permit our dreams of energy independence to flourish.

So, “…to oil a goodnight!”


Wildbill944