Off Topic But Funny

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A Subliminal War
The Average Possum Could Do It Better

Yesterday I sat on the stump in the front yard and tried to figure out the
War on Terrorism. It was hard going. It didn't seem like there was a war.

Of course, I've been wrong about the War before. When those camel molesters
dropped the buildings in New York, I didn't think the funny little countries
over there would let us fly over them so's we could bomb Afghanistan. Was I
ever wrong. Maybe I can work at the State Department.


Those Bush fellers can do some coalitions. I have to give'em that. I reckon
if you left George I or W. on an uninhabited planet, a week later he'd have
a seventeen-nation coalition. The family cat could probably get half a
dozen. I notice we sure are starting to have a lot of presidents from that
family. Maybe they'll start one of those dynasty things like that Egyptian
guy Two Ton Kamen did, or maybe didn't. Another Bush or two and we can start
a Hedge.


Anyway, after New York, we had a huge uproar, like when the Baptists held
their picnic on top of the yellow jackets' nest. Everybody was patriotic for
a week and stuck little flags everywhere. They didn't join the army, though.
I guess they forgot. They probably figured that when Afghanistan found out
we all had little flags on our radio antennas, they'd give up. That's what
usually happens.


So Mr. Bush said we were going to have a War on Terrorism, and catch Bin
Laden, and smack the terrorists upside the head, which they must have
expected because they were already wearing bandages. (One ol' boy from North
Fork thought Bush said War on Tourism, and figured it meant he could shoot
yuppies from Washington.) Anyway, America was on the war path. Look out
A-rabs. Like somebody said, when your leaders are named Bush, Dick, and
Colin, somebody's going to get screwed.

I can't figure out what happened to the war. Best I can tell, we didn't
catch Bin Laden. Maybe we decided we didn't want him. I don't. Most likely
he's water-skiing at Tahoe.

We dropped bombs on Al Qaeda, and probably on Mrs. Qaeda and all the little
Qaedas, so Al just took them all to Pakistan to live until we went away and
they could come back.


Then we were going to destroy the Axes of Evil. I puzzled on that. If I
thought Evil had an ax, I'd get my deer gun and shoot him from a hundred
yards, and keep the ax to cut firewood. But I'm simple.

We haven't done that either. All the axes look like they're still there.
None of'em got religion, or took the pledge, or started beating the drum
down at the Salvation Army. They look about as evil as they ever did.

It's a pretty funny war. It seems like nobody's fighting it, except a few
Marines and some of those army guys with those green hats that look like
melted watermelons. Nobody much knows about it. Mostly the war ain't even in
the newspaper unless it's a slow day for football.

The other afternoon I went down to Red's Bar to talk about the war to try to
understand it. Red used to be in the Marines so he knows lots.


It was dark inside. That big old purple-and-green jukebox was singing about
divorce and train wrecks and the TV babbled like somebody's crazy relative
that the state hospital wouldn't take. Red was polishing glasses. He's built
like a beer truck, and has a tattoo that ways "USMC' with a picture of an
eagle sitting on the world, like it was waiting to see if it would hatch.

"Red, how come we don't smack them Arabs?"

"Can't. Bud?"

"Yeah. How come?"

"Nothin' to smack'em with. Wanna glass?"

"I usually don't drink beer with a straw. Why can't we smack'em?"

"Can't. I saw it on the satellite last night. Eighty percent of the US of
Army is unwed mothers and the rest is queers."

"Naw. Can't be."

"Would TV lie?"

He had a point.

"It was on 20-20, this special about some Armored Stroller Battalion and
this daycare platoon didn't have enough pacifiers. Said it was national
emergency."

"Red, you're lying again."

He looked embarrassed. "Yeah. Not by nearly enough, though."

Then he said, "See, we got a two-army system now. There's a little bitty
good army, the Marines and the Airborne and Rangers and some others, and a
great big pretend army, and some airplanes. So Bush has to figure out how to
do everything with airplanes and a little bitty army. That's hard. You see
those new bass lures Jake Scoggins got?"

"Yeah. I heard he caught a five-pounder down at Deep Creek Lake. Don't
change the subject on me. Why don't we just put a bounty on ragheads? They
look like Q-Tips."

"Can't. Seven-Eleven wouldn't last a week. 'Sides, we gotta suck up to'em or
they won't let us bomb Afghanistan."

"That makes sense. Like mustard on valve springs. In WWII, I guess we sucked
up to the Japs so we could bomb Tokyo."

"We probably just didn't think of it."

We talked for an hour until work let out at the sawmill and people started
coming in.

Red's idea was that if you want to beat us in a war, all you gotta do is
hide till we can't remember the war anymore, which he said is usually about
three months. What he said was about half of Americans don't like America
and they're the ones that run it. I don't know if it's true. Maybe it just
looks like it.

I said well, at least we beat the Al Qaedas.

Red poured himself a beer. It's an advantage of owning a bar. Maybe I ought
to get one.

"Well, think about it," he said. "They blew up a couple of our best
buildings full of lawyers, killed several thousand people, made fools of the
US to the whole world, and about crippled the airlines and hotels. Then they
made us spend billions on Afghanistan and more billions on stupid security
stuff for airports and you still can't get on an airplane without hopping
around barefoot like a damn fool, and the FBI gets to spy on us three times
as much as it used to. Now we're waiting for the A-bomb to go off somewhere
and fry everybody's catfish. So we got mad and blew up some mud huts and
never did catch anybody important."

He looked thoughtful.

"It's a good thing we won. Suppose we'd lost?"


İFred Reed 2002