February 14, 2005, Pervez, Will you be my valentine?
Spanning the globe, to bring you the constant variety of snark, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat... I'm pleased to give you this story from one of the new entries on our news side bar, Dawn, a major English news outlet from Pakistan.
The story? Pakistan is going to be sold over $1.2 billion in United States military goodies, including some helicopters, missile systems, and the like, though not F-16 fighter planes. How might Pakistan get F-16 fighter planes? By prevailing upon Lockheed-Martin to make good on its threat to close the F-16 factory in Texas if their demands aren't met.
Given that Pakistan's perfidious Dr. Khan has run his underground Wal-mart for nucular weapons, which helped get nucular technology (if not outright weapons) into the hands of North Korea, Iran, and God knows who else, and Pakistan's response was to retire him with full honors... and while Pakistan has rounded up the usual suspects (i.e. seemingly minor Al Qaeda figures) to the point of an art form, it is widely believed that OBL and the nucleus (funny choice of words, TD...) of world wide Islamist fundamentalist extremist violence is present and operating out of somewhere in... Pakistan...
Naturally, Pakistan must be rewarded.
Some weapons systems will do, I guess. I am, somehow, reminded of something that struck me while listening (involuntarily) to the lunatic Michael Savage during a taxi ride home. It seems to be a tad paradoxical. We have evidently rewarded the forces of Shia Islamist fundamentalist extremism, as personified by the SCIRI group which was the big winner in the Iraqi elections, and others who, if not outright in favor of a nasty theocracy for Iraq, are certainly more friendly to the nasty theocracy across the border in Iran than... we might... prefer....
I did kind of think the whole "bring the war to our enemies" bit might involve, you know, defeating the forces of Islamist extremism, instead of, you know, getting them democratically elected to run a country that heretofore had been secular and no particular threat to us... (Might this a good time for a segue into my analysis of the Communist Manifesto, where I liken Karl Marx to a physician using diagnostic techniques featuring CAT scans and micro-biology, while simultaneously recommending treatment techniques featuring leeches and cupping?... Another time, perhaps... )
Well, I daresay there must be things manufactured in Texas that the new Iraqi government will need us to sell to it... and who knows... we might have just opened up a whole new market to sell military goodies to Iran as well... Yee ha...
Comments
http://www.americansforrice.com/
This is the answer. C. Rice for President. That way we have a Republican but also a black woman to keep the democrats happy.
She will award the contracts fairly.
Posted by seanarcher at February 14, 2005 10:38 PM
Let's face it, Sean-- NOTHING will keep the Democrats happy! Certainly not being shut out of the White House again, and by a figure so closely tied to the Bush Administration to boot!!! The Dems are now pluralistic (or at least bitter) enough to be swayed by neither Rice's black-ness nor her woman-ness...
Yes, I've had my share of less than stellar things to say about Dr. Rice. But if she is going to be the choice of the Republican money machine (and JEB will be sitting this one out) then we may as well start measuring her for her presidential bathrobe right about now. She does seem to have wrapped herself inside that Bush "untouchable aura"... and she can have Dick Cheney as the vice-president!
Still... can you imagine how much fun 2008 would be if it ultimately came down to George W. Bush's office wife vs. Bill Clinton's... wife? As they said in Robocop... "I'd buy THAT for a dollar..."
Posted by the talking dog at February 14, 2005 10:52 PM
Oh, God! That is a beautiful snark about the Iraqi elections. Everyone's been holding their fire for fear of looking defeatist. Thanks for bringing it back down to earth.
Posted by irisclara at February 15, 2005 4:03 AM
The IRAQI elections sans 20% of the electorate the Sunnis is a prescription for, take ur choice a Shia theocracy (get your chadors ready gals) or a civil war. Talk about the law of unintended consequences. Hey, we have to keep Pakistan happy by giving them expensive weapons to (sic) fight terrorism so why not give Iran Iraq? It all makes sense to the wingnut crowd and the hell with the rest of us were all traitors anyhow.
Posted by GlennK at February 15, 2005 8:28 AM
TD--
That's an incredible teaser about the Communist Manifesto. I'd love to read it, should such a rant be applicable to current events.
Also, buy your tickets now for the second liberation of Iraq, wherein we liberate Iraq from the new government it has just elected.
Posted by Tom at February 15, 2005 12:01 PM
EYaw, let us burn more fossil fuels.
Oh wait, didn't we (did not the soviet) learn lessons about flying helos through hostile mountainous territory?
What was it Ike said?
Posted by Thomas Ware at February 15, 2005 11:32 PM