Iraqi Elections and the Asses of Dogs

“Let’s not forget that for all the president’s soaring

rhetoric about spreading freedom and democracy, free

elections were the administration’s fallback position.

More Plan D than guiding principle. We were initially

going to install Ahmed Chalabi as our man in Baghdad,

remember? Then that shifted to the abruptly

foreshortened reign of ‘Bremer of Arabia.’ The White

House only consented to holding open elections after

Grand Ayatollah Sistani sent his followers into the

streets to demand them — and even then Bush refused

to allow the elections until after our presidential

campaign was done, just in case more suicide bombers

than voters turned up at Iraqi polling places.”

Arianna Huffington

Iraqi elections. Big freakin’ deal. Sure, it’s great that Saddam is gone and it’s great that Iraqis finally have a say (or at least so it seems) in who governs them. But at what price? If one more flipflopping talking head mutters, “maybe Bush was right,” I’m going to slap someone hard. Let me break it down for you: if tomorrow US rangers start handing out bricks of gold and all the goats start shitting hummus and pissing vodka, none of it would be worth what this war has cost: 100,000 corpses. Nothing short of the dead rising from their graves can possibly make Bush “right.” (Ironically, as a believer in the rapture, that’s exactly what he expects to happen.)

This past week I was lucky to attend the 2nd regional meeting of the Canada-USA Clinical Epidemiology Network in Montebello, Quebec. I somehow managed to squeeze in regular gym workouts, swims, hikes, cross-country skiing, broomball and –best of all– dogsledding! This is a photo of the the pooches’ asses, taken on my trusty Treo 600:

Here’s some interesting news. I was recently contacted by Thomson-Gale Publishing regarding one of my very old wrestling columns. It seems they want to republish the article in a textbook on “alternative views.” The question that I, ever the mercenary, must ask myself: what do I charge them?

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