Death be not proud
On July 5, while the rest of us were recovering from the long weekend, convicted mega-swindler Ken Lay died of (of all things!) a heart attack while awaiting his sentencing in Aspen, Colorado. At least he was in a gated community. Former Enron employees and shareholders pooled their resources to buy a stamp and sent Lay’s family a gracious bereavement card that read: “As ever, we share your loss.”
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AUTHENTICITY: Lay's death was suspect, but not Zarqawi's. |
Some people contend that Lay’s GOP cronies faked his death to help him avoid 30 years in prison while saving a cool $40 million in restitution payments. But there’s no doubt about the authenticity of another casualty of second-quarter 2006. The littlest president’s greatest deadly moment this spring came when a thousand pounds of US bombs turned the hideout of one Abu Musab al-Zarqawi into a gravel pit. Thus ended the life of the Jordanian-born, grandstanding terrorist who never grasped that his line of work required stealth rather than a publicist. Also killed were two women and a young girl, but such details have long since become insignificant to a US government that has more important things to do — such as blow up photos of blown-up people like Zarqawi for barbarous public display.
Zarqawi was hated by almost everyone, including Al Qaeda, a group with which he reached an agreement of convenience, in 2004, to handle its Iraq franchise. Hey, they needed a presence in the market. Zarqawi happily overplayed his small role in the violence that permeates Iraq: he’s now the super villain who organized the freedom-hating resistance to George W. Bush’s altruistic gift of liberty.
Right after Zarqawi was killed, an even more despised character slinked into the devastated country — George W. Bush. This surprised even Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who was notified of Bush’s presence only a few moments before W’s pre-emptive arrival. The poor guy barely had time to tidy up and, quite frankly, Baghdad could use a grunt-load of tidying at the moment.
To cover the enormous security tightening required for Bush’s photo-opportunism, the appearance of even more boundaries and checkpoints in Baghdad was explained away as the preliminary infrastructure of a campaign called “Operation Forward Together.” That means they actually announced an insurgent roundup several days in advance just to cover Bush’s scrawny ass. I think they used Zarqawi’s publicist.
At the same time we were inundated with stories of how a “treasure trove” of intelligence was unearthed from laptop hard drives found in the rubble from which a dying Zarqawi was dragged. The insurgency would soon be smashed! Those must have been some pretty tremendous computers because if I so much as spill coffee on the keyboard of my Powerbook, a thousand dollars later I’m lucky if they can tell me they’re pretty sure it was a Mac. The CIA is now likely in possession of the world’s largest repository of Arabic solitaire software.
The lost city of Baghdad
Zarqawi’s death, Bush’s visit, the treasure trove of intelligence, and “Operation Forward Together” were all part of a spring bullshit offensive by the White House meant to connive the American people into believing that stability for Iraq was just around the corner. Anyone who bought this tripe hasn’t rounded many corners in Baghdad lately.
