Ghost Troop Home Page April Fools Part 1
“Cavalrymen and Cowards”
George W. Bush:
I rode from
While I was at
Here is what it said: You have covered up the details of the Battle of Baghdad, which began at the city airport before dawn, April 5. Colonel Dennington read it and confirmed its accuracy, then urged me to help your cover-up. I refused, and told him to get the piece to you ASAP, since it calls for your impeachment. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, George.
I met you and your “Bush Team” at the Hyatt back in
I’ll tell you what you should have said soon after the April 5/6 weekend battle (if you’d wanted to act presidential, that is):
“My fellow Americans,
recently troops of the 3/7 Cavalry seized control of
“I have waited until now
to tell you because I wanted an Army officer to go to each family of each
fallen American hero first. Each officer
has been accompanied by a service chaplain for comfort, and bearing this
message from all of us who grieve with them:
“We will not rest until
the mission for which they gave their lives is accomplished. We will not stop until we have vanquished
tyranny and terror abroad, and brought our heroes home. That will be our tribute to the fallen. God Bless
That would have been the honest thing to do, George,
wouldn’t it? The media would have spent
half the night figuring out that “Garry Owen” was the name of the
No guts, no glory, boy. You talk the talk of leadership, but you
can’t walk the walk. Well, it’s been
around a hundred days now. Are you ready
to tell us yet? July 4 the New York
Times ran the story about 800 crazed wives at
I know your kind. Born with every advantage you have pursued every abuse. You do not care for us common folk, and you do not trust us. You don’t believe we can handle the truth that it is our birthright to have. You told us that you had changed your half-witted, silver-spooned younger ways, but you were lying. You are a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
You didn’t lie to your own, though, did you? The year you assumed the high office your family stole for you, you bragged to the rich kids at a Yale graduation that you were just another Ivy League screw-up, but you had managed to hustle your way to the White House, right? And they laughed with you, right? And why shouldn’t they laugh? They’re the ones who always get the breaks if things get tough, right? You’ve already got folks looking into how to start drafting without risking their hides, right?
Right. They’ll get your helping hand while the rest of us sink deeper into this quicksand war. They’ll weasel their way to deferments like Bill Clinton did, or weasel their way into undeployable units like you did. The Crackers and Coloreds will do the dying. It’s always a case of “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight.”
George, I’ll tell you your problem: You are a short man who knows he’s short on talent, and you have a short man’s complex because of it. I would laugh at you were you not in office, but because you are in office I must blush instead.
You are stupid, ill-spoken, and without
scruples. When I was vacationing in
Your
May 1, you gave me historical flashbacks. You took a plane ride from heaven to earth, just like Hitler in Triumph of the Will (a must-watch movie for the Bush Team). Then you stood and faced the military of which you were commander in chief. The sun was setting into the Pacific behind you, giving a great photo-op of you looking cool and presidential. Then you lied to us and told us that the war was over. It was OK stuff – for a totalitarian government on Mayday. Stalin would have liked it.
But I saw something through it, George, and everyone else soon will, since it’s all on film. I saw the uncomfortable, squinting eyes of the sailors you were supposed to be honoring. You stood with the sun behind you because you didn’t give a damn for them. I saw two talking heads from CNN – Aaron and Frederika – in the VIP seats. They were the ones on duty during the attack on the airport and for a month they and their megamedia bosses had bravely resisting any impulse to tell us the truth. Their presence was a neon sign that said “Comrades: the most embedded, the best paid!” They looked smug as buzzards before dinner.
Did you promise CNN an exclusive as men died in battle, George, or did you let Ari Fleischer cut your deals for you? I’ll bet that’s why he’s resigning from being the White House spokesperson, and why Victoria Clark resigned from being the Pentagon spokesperson. You know what, George, you’re going to end up having to tell your own lies – to Congress.
Throughout your Mayday speech all I heard was big
talk: twenty-three minutes about how
this had been a good, clean war done for good, clean reasons and how we were
going to kick everyone’s ass across CentCom if they gave us any shit. You had decent line about WMD’s being a serious concern, and that punned with
You gave my dead comrades a thirty-second mention in the end, but first you got the sailors thinking about shore leave and sex, then gave them the news while they were still cheering you.… You said that some folks wouldn’t be coming home…, and that in fact one boy had died over there…, but that it was OK, because the day before he died he told his family how proud he was to serve his country. Well, George, I was proud of him, too, and of the hundreds you failed to mention, but I was ashamed of you, and I wept for my country.
You didn’t weep, though. You looked smug as a buzzard, just like your
megamedia friends. Do you know who’s the
only member of the CNN crew who ever had a hard-time stomaching you after your
bullshit Mayday speech, George?
Christiane Amanpour, God bless her.
She had a hard time keeping cool while you covered-up the
In June you wanted the media to photograph you riding
scooters with your dad at the family estate.
Only you couldn’t stand to be shown shorter than your dad – who is a
head taller– so your boosted your scooter’s height – thus destabilizing
it. That made you fall on your ass. I am laughing as I write it, because it is
such a perfect parable for your foreign policy.
Your dad got his war against the real Axis in World War II, so you
conjured up an “Axis of Evil,” to justify a Quicksand War that may turn into
World War III. Since you invaded
Throughout all your lies and poses, you have revealed, one time, the real reason you had it in for Saddam Hussein: He tried to kill your dad. After you said it, someone smarter than you pointed out to you that the public might (correctly) suppose your family grudge had become foreign policy, so you never repeated it.
If you had been reared by an unconnected family you would have been done pretty well for yourself selling appliances or used cars, but, alas, you had an important father who bequeathed his connections to you. You are an aberration against the Founder’s intent, a dynastic dwarf like George III himself, who was unstable, too.
You have desecrated my dead comrades, and the comrades of
all veterans. While Marines were digging
the slain out of foreign sand with their bare hands you were denying the
sacrifice of those who spilled their blood for you in
Since your team cooked up this Skull-and-Bones prank called a war plan, you have ignored, then silenced, our nation’s best generals, starting with General Colin Powell. That man won the last war for your dad, and told you to stay out of this one. You told him he’d better shuffle along while you, Cheney and Rumsfeld talked about war plans. Fool! You, your vice president, and your secretary of war envision yourselves as strategists! The truth is that the three of you couldn’t lead a platoon to a pisser, and you have led our nation to quicksand.
We haven’t won.
We’re not winning. We’re not
going to win. We’re just going to sink
deeper and deeper down. This is your
I’ll tell you what, George, I’m going to add a whole
new layer of allegations to complicate your life: I’m sort of an expert in WMD’s, you might
say, because as a young sergeant I taught the nuclear, biological and chemical
warfare course at III Corps. I
remembered how hot those damn protective suits were in the sun of
On Memorial Day I cursed you again for cowardice because you spoke of the Unknown Soldier when you were keeping us from knowing about piles of them.
On Independence Day you helped our boys celebrate by
egging on their enemies – from
On July 8 the Chronicle carried my “Worried about the quicksand of war in Iraq” at the top of its op-ed page. In it I used Wesley Clark’s words to question your integrity. He knows you’re a liar, George, because he was in on the CNN side of the lie about the Battle of Baghdad.
On July 9 I began to re-circulate “3/7
Cavalry, Tragedy and Travesty” across
My
My name is Captain May, Military Intelligence, of the
U.S. Army. I live in
I volunteered for your dad’s war because I saw that he was a decent man and my country needed other decent men to stand with him. I volunteered for service again after 911, but was told I was no longer eligible. I’m glad I’m not in the quicksand with the boys, though, because I can do them the most good right here at home. On April 3, the Houston Chronicle published my “Visions of Stalingrad: Claim victory in Iraq now.” In it I looked at what you were leading us into and predicted “I’m afraid we’ll learn too late that we have stepped into quicksand.” I’ll bet your officer corps told you that beforehand, too. I’ll make another prediction – on behalf of the officers you have offended when they have tried to talk sense to your dumb ass: You will be investigated, impeached, convicted and imprisoned. Then I will volunteer to wear a uniform again – that of your jailer. That’s my compassionate conservativism for you!
To make my fight with you fair, I’ll only use my pen and my wits – that’s all I need. Since you are a coward, though, you’ll use any tyrannical means available to you. We’ll see who’s standing tall after it’s over, shorty. I agree with what Patrick Henry said to his George. Look it up. I end with a quote for the 3/7 Cavalry. You didn’t get it at Yale, and you don’t get it now:
“Cowards die many times before their
deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.”
Julius
Caesar, Act II, Scene II