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DUFFER ........this war's a bore by Ian Robinson April/May 2003 Is it just me, or is war losing some of its enjoyment as a spectator sport? The Americans and the Brits ganged up on Iraq -- on TV and everything -- which, to me at least, seems like a recipe for good times. Maybe "ganging up" isn't the most accurate term. Let's face it, Saddam pretty much had it coming. Despite what all the peacenik freakazoids demonstrating in the middle of the afternoon in the world's capitals said, Saddam was not a good guy, and the fact that the children of Iraq were starving was his fault, not ours. And it wasn't a war for oil. It's cheaper to buy oil than send the Marines to steal it. One other thing: don't any of these protest weirdoes have jobs? Middle of the afternoon, I'm either at work or at home hung over pretending I have SARS so I don't have to go to work. Either way, I'm participating in the economy. I'm also wondering, how do these freaks get through airport metal detectors to fly around the world protesting, when they're wearing enough sharp metal in their facial piercing to hijack three airliners plus open a can of peaches? Anyway, the world's a better place without Mr. Hussein. If nothing else, it's a relief for that retro-Village People - Gay - Biker - Drag - Leather - Queen mustache of his to be gone. I'm thinking that the worst thing about the anti-Iraq sanctions was that nobody over there got any up-to-date fashion advice. Some things that annoyed me about this war: a) Canada chose to sit it out, thus annoying our largest and most important ally and trading partner. b) The Americans still don't realize that Jean Chretien makes Saddam Hussein look like a statesman. c) Nobody got the chance - as of this writing, anyway - to parade Saddam's head on a stick down the main street of Baghdad. d) Ditto for Jean. OK, OK, that's going to far. But is it too much to ask for a little regime change in Ottawa? But I digress. War is over. No point in arguing if it was the right thing to do. It's done. So the Yanks and the Limeys get together to kick Saddam Hussein's hairy old posterior. Along with the Australians and the Poles, who also joined in the Dubya's coalition of the willing, thus compounding Canada's embarrassment at sitting this one out. Since when is Poland on anybody's side? Haven't they been a basket-case since 1939 when Germany decided to pay attention to them? You think Poland, you think the damsel-in-distress of the international community. And aren't the Aussies too busy drinking Fosters to get in anything more complex than a fistfight? Anyway, you got your Americans and Brits and Poles and Aussies on one side and Saddam Hussein and his elite Republican Guard on the other. And it was like watching Mike Tyson slipping through the ropes to take on ... your grandmother. (Hint for the metaphorically challenged: grandma's playing Saddam.) Sure grandma's scrappy, but Tyson's got that whole super-muscular, super-psycho thing going for him and ...
Gonna hit it face first, false teeth gonna skitter across the canvas, out of the ring, catch old Don King right square in the temple, the pair of them in intensive care, beds next to each other, monitors going beep - beep - beeeeeeeeeee... nurses and docs running in, doing the thing with the paddles like on every episode of ER ... Clear! ... ZAP! ...uh-oh. Coming out with the long faces to tell you: Bad news, sir. Not only is grandma gone .... we accidentally went and and saved Don King. That's the biggest reason this latest war wasn't much fun. Too lopsided. It really was like Iron Mike vs. Grandma. Plus the reporters "embedded" in the U.S. military units showed us that war is boring and dirty. The drive on Baghdad by the mighty Third Infantry Division wasn't romantic or exciting. It was like one of those bad road trips you took when you were 16 and felt immortal, where eight guys would jump into somebody's 1965 Volvo sedan with the hole in the floorboard so it was kind of like a Flintstones car, and you'd drive from Ontario to Nova Scotia because you heard a rumor that the Rolling Stones were rehearsing in a shack just outside Peggy's Cove. And 55 hours later, you'd stagger out of the car with your spine tied in the shape of a pretzel, broke, hungry, smelling like Eau du Bad Road Trip, your eyes the size of silver dollars from Black Beauties and fatigue poisons, and you'd stagger across the stony beach and fall face first into the cold north Atlantic ... and not a Rolling Stone in sight. The war in Iraq was like that, only every now and then the Third Infantry would get to shoot somebody at the side of the road. Maybe I'm just getting old, but the whole thing made me nostalgic for the Vietnam War. Least the way that one turned out was a surprise.
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