The nerve of some people!
The U.S. is trying to maintain a perfectly reasonable occupation by force of arms in some countries that really interest us a lot, and the people won't stop hating us -- why was it, again? Oh, right: They hate us for our freedoms, according to the junior Bush. Pays to keep track.
Has nothing to do with our routine treatment of the native population in all these places we go and so actively adore, spots we must absolutely have as our own -- nothing to do with the regular interactions we have with the people we find already there, at home, in all these places that catch our corporeal and corporate fancy.
Drones, snipers, laser-targeted bombs: Everything go boom, everything mists a bright, oxygenated red, everything fall down!
The latest incendiary round to go through the entire population -- a bullet felt by every soul now breathing and alive -- in Afghanistan? Our military burned some copies of the Islamic holy book, the Koran.
God help us all if the troops urinated on it first, just for old time's sake, to continue some supremely idiotic pledge stunt or to keep alive some timely and toxic tradition by our troops tossed all over the planet -- it's been a few weeks since our last high-moral outrage.
Still, we will be keeping the peace by infuriating our much-too-patient, hostage-held hosts -- thank goodness they're so poverty-stricken and too weak to fight back. Hard to call it a war when no one's fighting you back. Pays to keep track.
Of course, many Americans will wonder what's all the fuss? Jesus Christ -- it's not like it's the Bible or something for God's sake!
When that is actually said, and you know it will be said, and in exactly that way, it would be wonderful to think there will be hundreds of our countrymen glaring at them. Silently stunned, these ultimate ugly Americans, will likely shrug and say, "What? What did I say?"
Yes, well: The military says the incineration of the holy texts was only accidental -- the holy books got lumped in with some trash to be burned up. Well, that explains everything, and certainly makes things all better! Whew! Just mixed up some Korans with some trash -- Jeez-Loo-wheeze, could've happened to anyone!
Thousands of citizens dropped by to pay their respects to Bagram Air Base, site of the Oopsie-daisie burning. At first, local people who had worked inside emerged with the charred texts, held them high, for all to see. The crowd built up from a few, right away from there, into thousands. It was a big deal, as they say. The crowd was ready to settle a score. It pays to keep track.
The apologies from military officials at every level of this fiasco, say reports, are as earnest as any apologies issued during the entire time of the decade-long occupation. No word yet, not so far, if there will be any apologies for that occupation itself. Someone should keep track.
Always so far: so far from home, so far from the supposedly Christian people we always say that we are, always so far away from the people we should really try to be...
The charred pages of the Koran have been taken to Kabul, say reports, to President Karzai, who will consider a response. Perhaps he is keeping track, too.
You couldn't script ignorance and ineptitude like this for the movies -- it would violate your willing suspension of disbelief, the mind trick that allows us all to be still, go sit down and shut up, and just enjoy the whole show. Yet, somehow, none of us have gotten fed up enough to stand up and walk out on this stinking, miserable, filthy picture show.
Well, what the heck. This show cost us a lot of money! Plus, they don't look much like us -- so, what does it matter? We got us a proud tradition of dealing with native populations right here in the U.S. We stole it all from them folks we found here, all fair and square, too!
This time around, we're just being a bit more clinically efficient, more technically proficient, converting the natives to damp particulate matter, stealing the resources right out from under them, keeping important mineral and oil routes safe for Corporate Mom and The Company Apple Pie.
Remember: They hate us for our freedoms, for our houses, for our shopping malls back home. Yeah, there's some real tricky doings around here, all right -- could use a scorecard to help keep track of who the real terrorists are. Someone's got to keep track.
