G.I. Suicides Soar As Bush Jokes About Absent WMDs
With Troop Morale At 'Rock Bottom' President
Exploits Tragedy For Political Gain
By Michael
K. Smith
WASHINGTON President
Bush joked about the absence of WMDs in Iraq Wednesday night during
the annual dinner of the Pentagon News Association. As a
series of slides showed the president looking behind furniture in
the Oval Office, Bush told the audience, "Those weapons of mass
destruction have got to be here somewhere... otherwise I've killed a
lot of American boys for nothing." Laughter erupted from
the crowd at this witticism, as journalists, politicians and their
guests enjoyed the uproarious spectacle of a country wrecked and
thousands of people killed on a completely fraudulent pretext.
White House spokeswoman Bea Slick said Thursday the president's
comments were meant to be light. "It's traditional
at events like this dinner for the president to poke fun at those
he's used and abused,'' she said. "The troops who feel
that their buddies got killed for nothing should just lighten
up," she added.
Meanwhile, in Baghdad, troop morale hit "rock bottom" as
U.S. soldiers continued to take their lives in record numbers.
U.S. mental health specialists are puzzled at this phenomenon
and have so far uncovered no clue as to why the G.I.s aren't
thrilled to be imposing a bloody occupation on a population that
loathes them with every fiber of its being. Pentagon
Psychiatrist Sigmund Fraud flatly denied any logical reason for the
poor morale. "What's not to like here? We've got a
great puppet government, plenty of looting opportunities, and we've
converted half the female population to prostitution. Our
troops never had it so good!"
A possibly relevant factor in the troops being less than cheerful
are the daily attacks blowing them to pieces while the president
continues to extract political advantage from declaring the war a
success. Bombings, ambushes, scorching heat, harsh
living conditions, and constant lies from Secretary Rumsfeld and
other Pentagon officials are associated with the troops' low morale,
although Pentagon spokesmen caution reporters that there is no
evidence of a causal connection as yet.
Meanwhile, the Army Times continues to be deluged in suicide notes.
"I can't take it anymore," reads one recent
note, "our paths have been strewn with bombs, not the flowers
President Bush promised us." Another note complains that
the 72-hour cakewalk has turned into a permanent nightmare. "We
have enslaved Iraq under new management and called it
liberation," said the note. Still another says
counterinsurgency work isn't all it's cracked up to be: "After
hooking a guy's nuts up to a car battery a few times, I discovered I
had a strong desire to blow my brains out. So that's what I'm
doing."
Dr. Fraud is currently conducting a major Army study to determine
what might be done to cheer the troops up. One recent idea is
to import massive amounts of opium from Afghanistan, where the U.S.
puppet regime has revived the industry after the Taliban banned it.
Another is to have Bush and Rumsfeld do night patrol in the
Sunni triangle.
In one Army unit, an officer described the current mentality of the
troops this way: "They vent to anyone who will listen.
They write letters, they cry, they yell. Many of them
walk around visibly tired and depressed . . . They feel like pawns
in a game that we have no voice in." Downplaying
the significance of the report, Secretary Rumsfeld pointed out that
they sound just like voters back home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael K. Smith is the author of "The Madness of King
George," available from Common Courage Press (illustrations by
Matt Wuerker)
