During the Vietnam War, the late Norman Mailer wrote an essay titled "Why we are in Vietnam." The gimmick was Mailer never mentioned Vietnam until the very end of the piece. The point was we were in Vietnam for all sorts of reasons having to do with our national character and the myths we have created about ourselves.
To understand why we are in Iraq, we first have to understand why we are not there. We are not in Iraq because they attacked us on 9/11, because they didn’t. We are not there to find weapons of mass destruction. There aren’t any. We are not there to get rid of Saddam Hussein because he isn’t around anymore and hasn’t been for some time. We are not in Iraq to save that country from al-Qaeda because there are many more terrorists in Pakistan, including Osama bin Laden. Pakistan, in case you forgot, is one of our allies. We are not in Iraq to keep the Iranians from gaining power because when we got rid of Saddam, we handed the country over to Iran. We will not stand down when the Iraqis stand up because we all know (including the Iranians) if they haven’t been able to stand up in five years, they are never going to stand up.
Here is why we are in Iraq:
Toby Keith got tired us of being bullied and Nashville needed something at least vaguely patriotic to rally around. The president is building himself a legacy for his new presidential library, I guess in Crawford, Texas, or thereabouts. The economy is lousy and people forget their problems during wartime as long as they or their kids aren’t being called to serve.
Republicans have not had the Commies to kick around since the Soviet Union broke apart like some cheap ceramic your wife made at club on Monday night. If you can’t hate the one who hurt you, then hate the one you’re with (my apologies to Stephen Stills). Don’t those guys with towels on their heads that drive our taxis just irk the hell out of you? Kindly speak English when you order that cheesesteak.
There is oil. We love oil. They have oil. They threaten us by raising the price of oil. Us, a rich and powerful nation being treated like a bunch of third-rate Sheiks. What’s an army for anyway?
Our highways and bridges are lousy. We pay too many taxes. How did our kids get so spoiled rotten? We’ve got more victims than residents in this here United States of America.
Our literature has vanished, but we still have David Baldacci and Danielle Steel. Does that count for anything? Our men are worried sick over erectile dysfunction. There must be something we can do to somebody that shows we’re not impotent without a little blue pill. Our women have been injected with so many plastics to keep their youth they look like the waxen corpse at your local funeral home, but boy those bazookas sure are big. And we all have a tan 365 days a year.
There is the little matter of winning and losing. In case you haven’t heard, we don’t like to lose. Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing — was it John McCain or Vince Lombardi who said that? We are a good people and anybody that doesn’t keep repeating that ought to be personally tarred and feathered by Sean Hannity. We are a tolerant people, but don’t push it. America: Love it or leave it, but don’t dare criticize it. We wash our liberty fries down with a good American beer, beechwood-aged, don’t you know.
We are a peaceful people who always seem to be at war. We don’t elect the candidate who is anti-war — don’t trust them because the only way to keep the peace is to be ready for war.
No better system in the world. You can have your universal healthcare, that’s plain socialistic. Your gun control laws aren’t for us because we’re a nation bred on individual rights unless you’re mixed-up about your gender like Adam and Steve over there.
We’re a proud nation of immigrants, but it’s time to put up a big fence because everybody that looks like us has already made it over here. Fences make good neighbors.
We got a God-given right to use up the earth’s resources before the Chinese do it anyway. We like our cars big. Texas is a metaphor for where we all want to be — bigger than life, rallying around the Alamo, playing football on weekends.
And that’s why we are in Iraq.
