Bob's Links and Rants -- Fair and Balanced

Welcome to my rants page! You can contact me by e-mail: bob@goodsells.net. Be sure to check out my Post 9/11 website for links to lots of stuff I care about. I have put all of my 2002 rants into a single file.

Saturday, September 14, 2002

The Night Before Baghdad, by Bob Goodsell


'Twas the night before Baghdad, and through the White House

Not a Bushie was thinking, not even his spouse

The war maps were hung by the table with care

In hopes that Dick Cheney soon would be there.


The prez he was nestled all snug in his bed

While visions of 2004 danced in his head

With Condi on keyboard and Colin on bass

Rummy on vocals sang "Bush won't lose face!"


When out in the Rose Garden came such a noise

It had to be Rummy's destructive war toys

But what to our wondering noses we smelled

But a six-foot-six driver on one giant camel.


"Tell me," said Condi, "is that a llama?"

"No, token black woman! That is Osama!"

He hopped off his camel and gathered his rifle

Clearly this was someone with whom we won't trifle.


He walked to the door and went in front of us

He asked to be taken to the Oval Office

The Senate had some of its members in there

And when he arrived he gave them a scare.


"Out Daschle! Out Boxer! Out Smiling Joe Lieberman!

Out Lott! Out Hatch! Out Levin! Out Clinton!

You're self-serving pawns of the corporate swine

Selling your souls to the Bush-Cheney line.


"I wanted a war 'twixt Islam and West

You've given me everything! Thanks, you're the best!

Thanks Condi, thanks Rummy, and thanks Colin, too!

And when he wakes up, please thank W!"


He went to the warroom and smiled at the plans

"The hated Saddam is soon a dead man!

The world in turmoil will be fertile ground

For radical Islam to be spread around!"


And flipping a finger toward one and all

He laughed so hard that it shook down the wall

It made so much noise that the prez left his sack

And came down to ask "Is it time to attack?"


And back to the garden Osama did go

No chicken hawk stopped him as he walked out the do'

Not Rummy, not Condi, not one of the staff

Stopped Osama bin Laden or his terrible laugh.


Then George Bush the Senior entered the room

By reading his lips we all sensed the gloom

"You've tried your best, George, I'll give you that, son

But make no mistake: the terrorists have won."


Chemical Weapon Threat? Absolutely! The Army is about to begin incinerating huge stockpiles of mustard and nerve gas in Anniston, Alabama. And get this:

The Army says it is not its duty to protect residents in an accidental release. "I firmly believe that the incinerator should not be burdened with the safety of the community, when we don't present a realistic threat to the community," Michael B. Abrams, a spokesman for the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, said.

So the Army is willing to spend thousands of lives and billions of dollars to go after Saddam Hussein because he might have some chemical weapons, even though they are not sure he has them and even though he has no good means of using them against us (unless we invade). Meanwhile, there is a huge stockpile of chemical weapons down in Dixie, and the Army says it is not responsible for protecting Alabama residents in case of an accident. Incredible. Of course, with Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense and Enron alum Thomas White as Secretary of the Army, we couldn't expect anything more.


Comments on my new Blogger rants page are welcome! I can go back to the old way if anyone cares much.

Welcome to my new rants page! I've been reading Tom Tomorrow's rants and others produced using Blogger, so I decided to give it a try. I have been using Front Page until now, but I get so tired of the way it keeps wanting to make my inserted pictures local, which means they won't work. We'll see if Blogger is less frustrating.

The trap is set: We ask, "Why Iraq?" Certainly if it is terrorism we are concerned about, then Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have clearly been far more involved in supporting terrorists, especially al Qaeda, than Iraq has. If it is weapons of mass destruction, Iraq might have a few, along with some primitive delivery systems, but Russia, China, Israel, Pakistan, India, France, England and maybe some others have fully developed nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Invaded other countries? Certainly Iraq is not alone in this--the US invaded Afghanistan just last year. Killed, abused, tortured, imprisoned its own citizens? Big club there. We mention all of this hoping to point out the simple-mindedness and incoherence of Bush's push for war. Why this particular dictator at this particular time? Our hope is that others will see that it doesn't make sense and that war can be averted. But now I'm afraid that the Bushies are just setting a trap. A year or so after a muddled, bloody and inconclusive attack on Iraq, W will be making the case for attacking Iran, or Syria, or Saudi Arabia, and he will have all of these quotes from us liberals to support his case. The Bushies are using 1984 as their guidebook for world domination, and an endless series of wars is very much part of the plan. While our arguments about the Saudis, Pakistanis and others are valid, we must be clear that we present them only to debunk the Iraq war plan, not as implied support for any future wars.