Ever since the Gulf War began, people have been asking me when I was going to write a humorous column about it, and I have begun to feel like a Pompeii resident asked to think of something funny to say about lava.
Now, if my editor would let me, I could probably write enough Persian Gulf material to fill this entire newspaper. As it is, I have been limited to 20 inches. I suggest you write an angry, obscenity-ridden letter to my editor (his name is Eric Grimm) and complain about this injustice.
At any rate, the War topic I have chosen is: ANTI-WAR DEMONSTRATORS. These people began sprouting up like weeds almost before the missiles hit the ground, chanting such catchy slogans as “No Blood for Oil!” and “Peace Now!” and “Ice Ice Baby!” They would stand in the streets, yelling and marching for peace, starting riots and getting in fights, and doing everything that good, peace-loving citizens would do, if they had a few beers in them.
Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against war protestors, and I would probably be on their side, were it not for the fact that I think they are completely wrong and should be DRAGGED OUT IN THE STREET AND SHOT LIKE RABID SQUIRRELS!
Pardon me. I sometimes become irrational when I’m talking about the war, particularly when it comes to those IGNORANT MORONS WITH PICKET SIGNS AND LOUD VOICES WHO GO AROUND PROTESTING LIKE A BUNCH OF COMMUNIST WEASELS!!
Again, you’ll have to excuse my behavior.
The reason I am not an anti-war-related person is that I don’t think the war is really such a bad idea. To quote George Bush, I think it was the “butt-kickin'” thing to do. (Or perhaps it was Dan Quayle who said that. It doesn’t matter.)But the people who are against it are against it, for the most part, because they don’t want to trade blood for oil. “No blood for oil!” is their motto, and I think that sums it up quite nicely.
Now here, I can see their point. They think the only reason we are in this war is for low gas prices. If they are right — if we are fighting for oil — then I say to that: “So what?”
I mean, if we were fighting for dirt, or fighting for Ginsu knives, or fighting for sole broadcast rights to “Charles in Charge,” well, then, yes, I would be against it. But oil is a pretty darn important part of the American way of life. If we didn’t have oil, we wouldn’t have gas. And if we didn’t have gas, we wouldn’t have smog. And if we didn’t have smog, then all those government-appointed, tax-fed Smog Reduction Committee Persons would be out of work, which would raise the unemployment rate, which would cause President Bush to go on TV one night and frown and say words like “prudent” and “juncture,” and I think the last thing this country needs is a frowning president, particularly during times of crisis like these. So oil is pretty important.
But all of this is beside the point, because oil isn’t the only reason we’re there. We are also there because Saddam Hussein did a naughty thing, and the United States, having been named by the United Nations to be the Pushy Over-Bearing Mother to the World, had to go and beat the snot out of him.
Now I can hear you anti-war persons saying, in a gravelly, hoarse voice that sounds like it has been yelling a lot recently, “If that’s why we’re fighting, then why don’t we go force China out of Tibet, Russia out of Lithuania, and Japan out of America?”
The reason is that those countries aren’t run by crazy people who would take over the whole world if given half a chance (well, I guess Japan is). Hussein, though, isn’t likely to stop at Kuwait. I know I wouldn’t. “This is it?” I would say, in Arabic. “All it is is a bunch of sand! I’d better go invade another country, too!” And I imagine that’s what Hussein would do, too, if we let him.
I think the main reason that people are protesting is that it’s the trendy thing to do. A lot of them have parents who protested the Vietnam War, so it just seems like the natural thing to do for this one. Many of the protesters, I think, aren’t even aware of most of the circumstances surrounding the conflict, and if they were, I think a lot of them would change their minds. It’s like Dan Quayle. People make fun of him because he’s relatively young and has made a few slips of the tongue. But I’m sure that if we investigated, we would learn that he’s also an idiot who drools on himself.
So maybe that was a bad example.
Trust me, at the time, this was a very observant, intelligent column. The only reason it didn't get published was that I was waiting a few weeks until the war became something we could talk about ... and then it ended before we got that far. Lousy war.
Actually, it's just as well it was never published, because the first paragraph was stolen directly, almost word-for-word, from the great comedian Tom Lehrer, in the introduction to his songbook. I'm so embarrassed to admit when I was stealing, but I feel I owe it to you, the reader. Enjoy my shame!
