Violence in Iraq is a Sign of Progress

Today’s guest columnist is Earnest Apologist. Earnest is a spokesperson for the Bush Administration. In his own words: “If president Bush is the decider, then I’m the explainer.”

Violence in Iraq is a Sign of Progress
by Ernest Apologist

The nit-picking, nay-saying negativists in this country have got it wrong once again. They hear stories about violence in Iraq and start wringing their hands. Instead, they should be cheering. Why can’t they see that what they call “uncontrolled violence” in Iraq is really a clear sign—visible to anyone without preconceived notions—that Iraq is becoming a better, freer place. How can they deny it?

Think about it! Just a few years ago, Iraq was ruled by a dangerous, paranoid, megalomaniacal autocrat. Only he and his Sunni cronies had the right to torture, maim, and kill civilians. The ordinary Iraqi had no such freedom. Violence was centralized and controlled by an elite. What some people thought was “civil order” was simply apathy. The government had a monopoly on civic violence and no one cared enough to break it.

Today Iraq is free. Anyone who wants to torture, maim or kill someone else can do it. Anyone who wants to blow up a building or destroy a marketplace can do it. Free market forces are bringing the best and most sophisticated explosives within reach of nearly all Iraqis. Iraqis—with no jobs to distract them and with no gasoline for their cars—have the leisure time to create bombs—and to use them.

And most important, for the first time people care enough to get involved. They are speaking out in public; they are voting in elections; and they are blowing up their neighbors. That’s freedom. That’s something to cheer about. That’s progress!

And what creativity! Iraqis can now build, deploy, and trigger Improvised Explosive Devices so creatively and effectively that even best trained and best protected people in the world—the proud men and women of Halliburton— are being killed daily in new and innovative ways. That’s progress! And it’s our doing.

Violence by individuals is the sign of a free and healthy society. Can’t you carping critics see that? Our society is free and healthy; it’s the freest and healthiest in the world. And precisely because of that it’s one of the world’s most violent societies. Whether it’s O.J. expressing himself by killing his wife, or kids in Colorado or in Virginia giving voice to their feelings by slaughtering their classmates, Americans are free—as no other people in the world are free. We can kill whoever we want to; we can kill because we want to make a point; we can kill because we’re angry; and we can kill—just because. That’s the test of freedom. And we pass that test. We’re the freest in the world.

The Iraqis are making progress, but they’ve got a long way to go to be as free as we are. Have any Iraqis carried off an attack to match our Oklahoma City bombing? Not yet. That was done by free Americans. Iraqis are not free enough to do something like that—yet. But wait. With our help, they’ll get there.

And lest we forget: while the planes of 9/11 were flown by foreigners, the plot was hatched, the pilots were trained, and the mission was ultimately accomplished on free American soil. They used American planes as flying bombs and coffins and brought down two American buildings. Our free soil. Our free planes. Our buildings. Just try doing that in China, or Russia, or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and see how far you get. Violence takes freedom and we’ve got plenty of both.

Freedom is on the march in Iraq. We should all be proud of what we’ve done. And we should look forward to an increasingly free and violent future.

Bush Names General David Petraeus First "Surgin' General"

In order to recognize General David Patraeus's outstanding work in managing the "surge" in Iraq, The Wolf Report has learned that President Bush plans to name Petraeus as America's first "Surgin General."

Mineapolis Bridge Colllapse Linked to al Qaeda

According to campaign advisers to Republican contender Rudy Giuliani there are “growing indications” that the collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis that killed eight people and injured more than a hundred might be traced directly to illegal immigrants, al-Qaeda operatives, outsourcing, gay marriage, and the tax-and-spend Democrats. “It’s just a matter of making the right connection in people’s minds,” said the advisor.

While the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is using scientific analysis to determine the roles of that bad engineering, poor maintenance, and the laws of physics my have played in this disaster, the Giuliani campaign, in cooperation with the campaigns of other Republican candidates, the White House, and Dick Cheney’s independent branch of government, called the Not Executive but Protected by Executive Privilege branch (also known as the NEBPBEP), are using sophisticated polling techniques to determine what part this tragedy might play in getting a Republican elected by linking the disaster to politically charged issues.

According to the pollsters, it’s not that hard. Early polling shows that voters can understand that the deaths may have been caused by homosexual al-Qaeda operatives who crossed into the US from Mexico and have been living on welfare money and money from family members working jobs taken from hard-working Americans far more easily than they can understand how the physics of bridge trusses and load weights might have caused the disaster. “Let’s face it,” said a member of the polling team, “physics is a boring topic and structural engineering is hard to imagine but the threat of gay Mexican al-Qaeda outsourced welfare workers brings to mind the chilling image of hordes of effeminate brown-skinned people with turbans under their sombreros collecting welfare checks with one hand while seducing our children and plotting against out-of-work Americans with the other. That’s an image that’s hard to get out of your mind once we’ve put it there,” he continued. “We should know. We’ve tried.”

According to the campaign, there are many indications of potential connections. “For example,” explained one, “we know there are bridges in the United States. We know there are illegal immigrants. We also know that every day, many illegal immigrants use bridges. We know there here are bridges in Iraq, too. We know that there are al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq. And we know that several bridges in Iraq have been destroyed by al-Qaeda terrorists. So there are just a few of the connections.

“We also know,” he continued, “that there are people in America who are on welfare and we know there are gays in America. We know that some of those welfare people and gays use bridges, too. We know that many illegal immigrants are Mexicans and we know that many Mexicans have voted for Democrats. We know there are outsourced jobs. We know that many of these jobs are done by people with brown skin. We know that many illegal immigrants have brown skin. And we know that most al-Qaeda operatives have brown skin. So we know that the connections between al-Qaeda, bridges, gays, Mexicans, and bridges are all there, if you just look for them.

“These connections are all facts,” pointed out the source. “And that means we can't rule out the fact that one or more of the al-Qaeda operatives that are operating secretly in the United States, waiting for their chance to strike, is one of the gay Mexicans who helped sabotage the bridge.

"You just never know," he concluded.

Department Announces New Threat Warning System

The Department of Homeland Insecurity has announced that the old five-color threat awareness system, sometimes called "The Traffic Lights of Death" will be retired. In its place the department has unveiled a new warning system that is "more appropriate to al-Qaeda's expanded tactics.

Using the new system, the nation's entire threat posture can be characterized using a single image created by choosing colors singly or in pairs from a palate of 75 federally approved colors, and combining them with one or more of the one hundred patterns and textures currently authorized by the Department. New colors and textures will be added as new threats are imagined.

The threat status within the image can be interpreted in two levels. First, the basic threat status can be interpreted using the 200 page Department of Homeland Insecurity manual, called the Feng Shui of Modern Threats. The details of the threat can be understood using the Department's five volume set called Modern Terror Explained.

These documents will not be released to the public but will instead continue to be classified SECRET, according to a Department of Insecurity spokesman. This must be done “to keep this wily enemy from using our own threat warning system against us.”

Today's threat status is mauve and puce on a classic Williamsburg brick texture.

New Wave of Al-Qaeda Attacks Already Underway

Following revelation by the Department of Homeland Security that al-Qaeda’s threat posture had notably improved, a representative of newly formed Department of Homeland Insecurity, announced that al-Queda was now known to be responsible a growing number of heart attacks, automobile accidents, breast cancers, dog, shark, and insect bites, as well as a wave of inner city crime possibly dating back over several decades. Staying off airplanes, out of buildings and away from cities will not help you anymore,” said the spokesman. “They can strike anywhere. They can strike in any way. No one is safe. And,” he concluded, citing, the new department’s motto, “be sure and have a nice day.”

Asked for comment, a white house spokesperson pointed out that the number of al-Qaeda-related traffic- disease- and insect-related deaths would even higher if we were not fighting them in Iraq. “By keeping them pinned down over there,” the spokesperson said, “we keep them from following us home and destroying our lawns, our gardens, our SUVs and our strip malls.”