No sense in getting bummed about people dying in a stupid war. Humans have been doing that for centuries. I advocate a cheerier viewpoint: Entertainment.
All that’s left to do is pop some popcorn, sit back, and enjoy Gulf War II. As I, and most of the world, correctly apprehended, President Bush and his cronies never had the least intention of giving peace a chance. The tragedy here isn’t that Saddam’s a stand-up guy deserving of an even break—if there’s a short list for people deserving a kick in the teeth, he’s on it—it’s that America is launching an illegal, immoral war and has wiped out with head-spinning speed all the goodwill and best wishes of the international community post-September 11.
Now that we’re stuck with this war, all I can think to do is to observe it like one giant, hyper-realistic video game. Protests have proved fruitless, petitions to the UN meaningless, and intelligent media commentary irrelevant. We’re going to kill a lot of folks, take casualties ourselves, and, gosh darn it, bring the price of petroleum back under $1.75 a gallon. I don’t know what lens I can use to view this tragicomedy of world affairs other than entertainment. All other alternatives seem bleak and depressing.
So in the office pool I’ve got Baghdad falling to US forces in two weeks at a cost of only 10,000 men. When you figure that Iraq’s capable of churning out 2 million barrels of crude per day, that’s a real bargain. Any Texas oil man could tell you that. The only one that counts just did.