November 5, 2004, The Ramadan Offensive
Having achieved their mission (the reelection of the Imperium), our military men and women now get their reward: the opportunity to kill hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent civilians in the course of an insanely ill advised all-out assault on Falluja. It is widely believed that the combination of the casualties and the resentment we will cause by doing this will help to undermine "the elections in Iraq scheduled for January" that we dangled out there to the rube voters here.
In the end, there was no reason for Bush to have done that. Our voters came out in record numbers to say "we don't care, big guy." In short, Iraq doesn't matter. Terrorism doesn't matter. The economy doesn't matter. Making a statement that we want to discriminate against gays-- that matters (though the veep points out that numerically, Bush didn't do marginally better in states with gay-bashing amendments on their ballots than he did overall).
No, mostly what matters is pure viciousness: Bush has seething fangs and hatred oozing out of his pores, whereas Kerry is perceived as a civilized man (and hence a pussy). Not that Bush isn't a pussy-- it's that he's vicious, unpleasant, and stupid.
As an attorney, I'm occasionally asked to pick a jury. The jury theory is "blood is thicker than water", meaning, pick jurors that will identify with your client (or, in rare cases, you). Usually, we make knee-jerk calls based on the gender, race, sometimes occupation, neighborhood, familial status and sometimes, just a gut feeling of affinity between juror and client. But the theory: a juror that will like our client, because they identify with our client, is generally accepted. Well, the irony is that the team with two lawyers got beat by this rule: the other guys had the Rovish jury consultant on their team, and he put the package together to convince Americans to vote for the side they identified with: narrow, mean-spirited, small-minded, bigoted, belligerent... Kerry tried to appeal to their intelligence, Edwards to their hopes and dreams.
Fools.
Well, at least 58 million Americans will doubtless be cheering as we force our own military to commit the grossest of atrocities at Falluja, just for our entertainment. I didn't get a harumph out of you... you better watch your ass...
Comments
I agree with your assessment except for the fact that 48 percent did vote for Kerry. But you're right on about the mean and the stupid thing.
Posted by buz at November 6, 2004 9:05 AM
TD...You're right. The fact that a majority of Americans endorsed Rove, who's evil antics are well known to anyone paying attention, is about more than I can take. The fact that our leader embraces those antics is disturbing, at best.
Posted by alicia at November 6, 2004 9:35 AM
I have a couple of Iraqi co-worker/friends (husband and wife, both Arabic teachers in Poland).
Interestingly, the husband (Kurdish) recently spent a couple of weeks in Iraq (against the advice of many people, including myself). He was actually hoping Bush would win because he thinks Kerry would pull out too soon and things could get worse. He's optimistic about the long term prospects though he says that the occupation has been _very_ poorly managed with many obvious blunders.
He also says the insurgents are almost entirely Baathists and non-Iraqis (especially Northern Africans). In the time he was there talking ot as many people as possible he only heard one person offer a (not very spirited) defense of Sadr (who he refers to as "that snot-nosed kid").
His wife (Shia) says that people in Fallujah are "Saddam's right arm" (his base, as it were) and as far as she's concerned the more bombs dropped on them the better. "It's all they understand."
FYI only.
Posted by Michael Farris at November 6, 2004 11:36 AM
Michael, tell your Kurdish friend that he is in my files. That is not a good thing.
Posted by Hassan Bar Sinister at November 6, 2004 1:00 PM
That's right! We need to get those people out of Fallujah. It's for their own good. They're such children. And instead of paying for it with paddleballs, we pay with... American soldiers' lives. What a deal!
Posted by irisclara at November 7, 2004 3:23 PM