Doug Giebel: Letter From Montana USA

Dear Friend,

Having spun out many words over the disaster in Iraq, about President Bush and the disaster wrought by Bushvolk in Washington, D.C., I now conclude that there is little more to be said regarding either disaster that hasn't already been said. Even the estimable John Burns, top New York Times man in Iraq and on Charlie Rose, is moving out, reluctantly admitting that the disaster in Iraq has been a lost cause from the beginning. Maybe he should have said "before the beginning." Wonder what else is new at the Times.

In their soundbites and stump mouthsfull, the shout and spend candidates hoping to star as next President of these United States have mostly nothing new to say either, whether or not somebod'ys foot is in the mouth of the campaigners. Their trail mix of rhetoric sounds about as appetizing at it always does. Message: It's o.k. You go on dying, redeploying, starving, going deeper into debt, living in decaying and dangerous "infrastructures." It's no big deal. Just wait until "I" get in the what-me-worry White House and everything's gonna be coming up daffodils.

As for that confusing occupation of Iraq, the people of these United States seem pretty united and want to end the blood-and-guts bath soon as possible. Only politicians and our war-hungry milidustrial complex seem hellbent on baiting Armegeddon for the most craven of reasons.

Hot afternoons out here, Montana is burning, the rains aren't coming, the National Guard is occupied elsewhere, people coughing from the smoke-filled air can't afford health insurance for their own personal infrastructures, and it's harder than ever to make and hold onto a buck or two. Same as a lot of other places in America and in Iraq. The deep-pocket tenderfeet and their bought-and-paid-for politicians control the deck and deal from the bottom as usual.

No rube in Montana should have the right to tell you that the Bushvolk came into office to bankrupt the country so as to get rid of bleeding-ulcer programs they despise -- but that's what I wrote to you several years ago. And sure enough, that's what the Bushvolk and a rear-kissing Congress did and continue to do by dragging out the madhouse occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Over here, though, everything's hunky-dory because instead of asking us to park our shootin' irons at the saloon front counter they make us take off our boots in the airport. To the chagrin of those terrorists, they've made American socks and feet a whole lot more pleasant.

No rube in Montana should have the right to tell you that the Bushvolk and their many manly minions were planning to inhabit and occupy Iraq for ages to come, but that's what I wrote several years ago, and wouldn't you just know, they're still planning to make Iraq the 51st state. Where else would the world's most brilliant leaders build the world's largest embassy but in the middle of Baghdad? Instead of Gene Autry, suddenly from behind a big rock, Ozymandias rides out of the sand to whoop it up and rule again.

Used to be said you could tell a sidewinder when he was lying because his mouth was open. Now it makes no difference whether or not a politico's mouth is open or shut. Look at Alberto Gonzalez, the right hand rights-slinger and Texas death penalty decider for Bush The Compassionate.

Oh, well. Still, maybe there is one more thing to be written about Iraq. The Fear Lovers keep promoting hysteria with, "We have to fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here." The folks who buy this lingo are the ones who still believe no bridge over Minnesota's troubled water could fall down and cause a stampede of talk about the need to fix that ubiquitous "infrastructure." Fearful citizens are mobbed into agreement because they've been led to think of those dark-skinned savages in the Middle East as a bunch of ignorant, backward religious fanatics bent on "destroying America as we know it."

Why, sooner than you could say, Hi-Yo, Silver!" the Terrorist Air Force and the Taliban Navy will have us surrounded and on its knees trying to speak Arabic or some such unAmerican immigrant language and closing down the Wal-Mart parking lots for good.

While some of "America as we know it" could use a good disinfection dip, we may not have had another attack on the "homeland" since 9/11 because nobody has tried to make an attack. But the real reason we're safe is because the terrorists are smart enough to know that as long as over-stressed and over-deployed Americans are conveniently in their neighborhoods, the terrorists don't need to attack our homes on the range over here.

If it's kosher for a white man to say it, my Native American brothers and sisters have a bitter know-how for what an "occupation" means. Things keep going as they are and this enlightened government will bear any burden, pay any price to appropriate Iraq, confine its savage citizens on reservations (Joe Biden has the plan), and secure Fort Green Zone while bugles strike up the colors and black oil flows as water from heaven.

Or so, my friend, it seems from Montana.

Yours in peace and friendship,

Doug Giebel

Montana writer Doug Giebel welcomes comment at dougcatz@ttc-cmc.net

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