Friday, April 18, 2003

What’s The Secret Handshake?

Maybe I’ll turn into a Neocon. It sounds vaguely menacing, vaguely secret-society like. The Neocons. Schools, budget deficits, recessions, unemployment – forget it. If I’m a neocon, all I want to do is kick ass and take names. And come to think of it, forget the teachings of Christ and that Just War Theory rabble I’ve been boning up on lately. If you’re a conservative, all you have to do is lay down enough “Jesus is my personal savior” crap and the wacko fundamentalists will support ya – they’ll find passages in Revelations to prove you to be on Providence’s side. Man, you are good to go.

So yeah, sign me up! And more importantly, who do we go after next?

Iran? I’ve wanted a piece of them for years. Plus, it has a certain Risk-game logic to it – we now have the territories to west and to the east, so why not secure the middle piece and strengthen our position in case Russia to the north or India to the east starts acting up?

Syria? Thugs. Sure, they paid lip service to us post-9/11 and their president has a passing resemblance to Bert Blyleven, but c’mon: they’re thugs. Iran is huge and could be a little trickier to overrun, but Syria is much smaller and we could topple them in a few short weeks. Rattle some sabers for a few months, then make attempts at diplomacy (but constantly raise the bar), then kick things into gear in spring 2004. Come November 2004 we’ll have three regime changes in a non-white, non-Christian part of the world. If the economy is bouncing back, it’s a lock and we’ll get four more years of making the world a safer place. Hey – Buchanan is against us, so we must be on to something!