Deep Throat Returns: Insider Notes from the Pentagon

Life is Tough All Over

8 February 2003

Soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines deploying to the Persian Gulf and other places are kissing wives and husbands and girlfriends and boyfriends and kids, writing wills, straightening accounts and banking sperm.

The uncertainty is not of the war—not if the steely-eyed Dubya is running our world—but of the aftermath. For our soldiers, this could include death or injury, as it always does. All Americans should be in awe of their courage. In every war, necessary and unnecessary – for the American soldier, courage is a constant. God bless every one, and keep them.

The risk they face is also of debilitation, new and old Gulf War syndromes resulting from USG provided toxins – whether they are injected benevolently before deployment, or administered on the battlefield from the stocks of agents we sold or gave the Iraqi government in the late 1980s.

But life is tough all over, I say.

Think about how Rummy and Wolfowitz and Cheney must feel. All the new questions after Colin Powell’s masterfully presented but ultimately smokeless gun.

This was their big chance to convince everyone -- in the UN Security Council, most of middle America, the mothers, sisters, wives, husbands and brothers of those being deployed – that this next holy war is the right war, and needs to start ASAP.

It must have been embarrassing when it turned out that major parts of Powell’s speech were lifted from a British intelligence product – that in turn plagiarized from non-intelligence academia!! That must have really gotten Rummy’s goat, given as how he likes his facts undeniable and unarguable. He really does value honesty, you know!

It must be tough to swallow that even after threats, bribes of loan guarantees, financial aid and promises of post-Saddam investment opportunities that Putin is still not entirely on soul-mate Dubya’s side in the immediate march to Baghdad. Damn him!

It must be difficult for Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz and DoD Policy guru Feith when they look at their delicate and oh-so-expensive “negotiations” with Turkey. The results so far not only cost us billions in loan guarantees for a Turkish economy that couldn’t otherwise get those loans — the operative word stamped on the package is “U.S. money back!”— but also included Turkish troops positioned forward in the Kurdish north of Iraq – defeating a major source of U.S. support in Iraq after the invasion.

I guess Kurds in Northern Iraq never counted for much anyway – as one of the few examples of stable self-government in the Middle East with a small army that is actually of the people, for the people – why would we want something like that to be encouraged or sustained?

I mean really!! Especially when almost half of Iraq’s oil is technically in the Kurdish domain!

It must be tough now with all that’s coming out about the projected humanitarian aftermath and how the occupying military will be responsible for all those civil infrastructure and feeding costs – and no other big spenders seem willing to step up to the funding plate this time. Wow, that might be a flaw in the old George Dubya re-election playbook.

Of course, if we controlled Iraqi oil fields, we could bust OPEC, flood the world market about six months before the 2004 elections, allowing economies of importers (like ours) to surge on cheap oil. And we won’t need to prop up Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE and others export-dependent emirates because Saddam will be gone and our bases will be secure in a new, liberated, free-to-be-a-U.S.-proxy Iraq.

Now there’s a re-election strategy a Texan might like. And I thought the Monica missiles were ingenious!! That must be the difference between Arkansas and Texas.

Unfortunately, immediate invasion by the United States still isn’t selling well. A lot of people still think it’s shooting a little early, kind of like the mad rush to the sperm banks, only not nearly as intelligent or admirable.

All I can say -- to the chicken hawk cadre, the neo-conservative warmongers, the true visionaries of Middle East transformation, those benevolent colonizers – is this: Look to the young men and women in uniform you are deploying in order to implement your vision. Be humbled by their patriotism, their honor and their courage.

Try it on. It won’t feel right, not nearly as comfortable and convenient as the fine suits of superior global vision and biblical prophesy you wear now.

Many Crusaders who went before you to this part of the world to convert and gain treasure wore hair shirts under their armor as penance for their sins.

Yes, if you try on courage and honor, you’ll itch terribly. But be brave, oh E-ring knights and warriors of the apocalypse! Better to itch than be killed, or maimed, or psychically scarred for the rest of your life in rural America and on the streets of our great cities.

Because unlike our soldiers, their families and friends, you’ll actually know why you are suffering.