Ghost Troop Home Page    April Fools Part 3

 

September 22, email to Mike Lukovitch, David Beasley, Julia Wallace & Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal Constitution

I thoroughly enjoyed your clever cartoon about Veep Cheney sinking into the quicksand.  I see that you drew it on September 16, but the ‘Crassinating Chronicle of Houston just ran it today.  I’m the guy who first described the war as quicksand, in their own dirty rag, on April 3, “Visions of Stalingrad:  Claim victory in Iraq now.”  Yep, I finished my strategic assessment of the pending monumental victory with the following:

“It is important that we share the control of liberated Iraq with a coalition of other nations who are as sincere as we are about protecting its people and its resources.  That would assuage the errant world opinion that we are fighting a war for oil.

“Military intelligence officers are accustomed to being told that their field is a contradiction in terms, and that they are the bearers of bad news and worst-case scenarios.  But it seems to me that fortune is no longer smiling on our heroic liberation of Iraq, and I’m afraid we may learn too late that we have stepped into quicksand.”

May, who served on the general staff of the Army’s 75th Division, is a graduate of the University of Houston Honors College.

Anyhow, you and all the AJC folks can take the line and run with it.  Heck, I’ve almost used it up.  I pasted it up on their rag again July 8 (after they’d tried to sit on it for two weeks) with the essay “Worried about quicksand of war in Iraq”

“Clark seems more like a voice of sanity to worriers like me, and as a former Army intelligence officer and Desert Storm volunteer, I worry a lot:  I worry about wobbly war plans; I worry that Rumsfeld is canning generals who fail to tell him what he wants to hear; I worry that the US body count could climb from one per day to one per hour; and I worry that the president who as a young American prudently avoided the sweltering jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia will send a generation of young Americans to the sweltering deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan.  In short, I worry that we are sinking deeper into the quicksand – and we’re trying to thrash our way out.”

May, a Desert Storm Volunteer, served on the general staff of the Houston’s 75th Division.  In April he sat for two weeks in front of his alma mater, the University of Houston Honors College, to take up a collection for US war dead.  After 40 hours he had received $20.  He spent the next three weeks riding a bicycle to Ft. Stewart, Georgia to deliver the money to the headquarters of the 3rd Infantry Division.

And just to finish the point of possession up, I used it in an August 20 essay, “War in Iraq, past, present and future,” which the Cowardly Chronicle couldn’t be scared into printing:

“A French statesman once observed that war was too important to be left to the generals.  Now we’re finding out in Iraq that war is too important to leave the generals out.

"Iraq was, is and will remain quicksand for invaders.  Senators McCain and Hutchison, returning from bombed Baghdad, say that we should escalate our troop levels.  With respect, I emphatically disagree.  I urge them – and anyone who wants to see how desert irregular forces can pin down a whole army – to rent the classic movie Lawrence of Arabia, based on the great military book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by Colonel T.E. Lawrence.  The Arab revolt, of which he was the military leader, pinned down the Ottoman southern front in the First World War, and eventually rolled it up.

"In the arid lands of Islam, we are seen as the new Ottomans.  Worse, we are seen as Christian crusaders.  There will never be an end to the attacks against us, and if we can be honest, were they in our streets, there would be no end to our attacks against them.  They will continue to destroy their own infrastructure because they know that deprivation will turn their countrymen against the occupation.  We have become another Israel in another Palestine, and that is a drama of decades that we do not want to enact with uncounted American lives.  We have sewn the dragon’s teeth in Iraq, and we must prepare our exit strategy before fields of foes spring up against us.  When we go, it will be as pathetic as the fall of Vietnam, but go we must, and the sooner the better.  When all is said and done, it’s the national good that we must consider with humility and intelligence, and so far, those two qualities have been most subdued.

You heard it from Cassandra; ignore it at our peril.”

Captain May’s military specialties include nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, military intelligence and public affairs.  He is a graduate of the University of Houston Honors College.

Anyhow, I’m flattered that the idea is spreading.  I’ve been sending y’all my op-eds and screaming my analysis for two months now, so it’s either sinking in (Ooops!  No pun intended!) or your great minds just work six months behind my foolish one, and you’ve ignored me up until now.  I can’t quite believe you’ve dissed me though, since I’ve talked with all four of y’all on the phone, and I've been sending you email for ten weeks!

I’ll tell you what I think:  I think you’re spreading the word, and you’re sending me a signal that my sane predictions are gaining sway over the insane policies of George XLIII.  That’s mighty fine news for America.  Shit, he must be close to a fall now, with the Cracker Chronicle hopping on the bandwagon.

Have you run that cartoon you were showing off on CNN on July 21, at around 2:30 p.m. (Texas Time)?  Man, y’all were really gloating about how brave Ms. Tucker was and y’all were showing off that Ramirez Saigon execution cartoon.  You had one of your own:  W LIED, all spelled out in coffins.  I really figured y’all were about to pull the plug on the cover-up of the Battle of Baghdad that day or the next.  Y’all even put in a great line about how Bush had gone insane and run off to Houston.  CNN began to break the story of the military hoax of Private Jessica.  Yep, I was totally in high cotton.

…For someone living in a bunker, that is.  You see, I had contacted y’all on the 17th.  I admit I was a little irate that day.  I figured I might end up dead because I’d raised the quaint issue of the 3/7 Cavalry and the 3rd ID, who bled a lot more than y’all admitted for Baghdad.  My contacts were very, very anxious for my health, so I disappeared.  Good thing I did, too, ‘cause the very next day David Kelly got killed in England.  I figured George XLIII had gotten hold of my allegations from Senator Chambliss or the New York Times or ABC or the Compromised Chronicle or maybe (though I blush to think it) from y’all.  Was that joke on CNN about no more sudden trips to Houston y’all gloating because the prez had fucked up his hit on me, which was as hasty, half-assed and half-witted as his war on Iraq?  I think so… [Editor’s emphasis, in all cases]

Well, next day after y'all crowed about the Bush demise, Colin Powell held a morning press conference and said that the US wanted “multilateral talks,” so I could tell that the Bush hard-liners were in retreat.  Then Boy George pulled out a pair of aces he’d hidden away:  the Hussein boys.  Man, death sure comes at convenient times for the leaders of the Coalition of the Killing.  The Bush Team held a ghoul show for three days, then tucked away into the weekend, then came out the next week with a getaway press conference on short notice July 30, before they retreated to my home turf of Texas.  I figure the word was out then, but you ethical, responsible corporate citizens of the media gave him a grace period until after Labor Day…, until after September 11…, until – hell, until when?

You can read it all in hardback soon, if you don’t publish it first.  I don’t mind being ahead of the pack, and it’s a good thing that’s the kinda nigga I am, don’t you think?  I’ll give the money from the book to needy kids; God knows, I can’t take it, with the blood of my comrades dripping from it.  I find that position, connection and prosperity stand in the way of character.  What do y’all think?

I’ll attach the emails to y’all, along with the op-eds I’ve sent you.  Sorry about the nasty tone of the one I wrote on July 17, but you see, I was feeling a bit paranoid, same as David Kelly, and was under the delusion that folks like y’all were empowering a madman through suppression of the tenets of the (Atlanta Journal) Constitution.  I’ll throw in the emails to and from Senator Chambliss, whose staff have refused to comment on my allegations and begged not to be told any more.

No hard feelings about reminding you of your duty, OK?  I’ve done mine, and I’m quite content with that.  Tell you what, I’ll close with a joke for you.  It’s mine, but hell, I’m writing for Freedom for free nowadays, so feel free to make use of it:

Urgent question:  How do you get out of quicksand?

Intelligent answer:  Quick.

Captain May

 

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