or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
March 01, 2006
My Slaves LOVE Me
Zach Iscol, Phillips Exeter and Cornell graduate and now in the Marines Special Forces, has this to say about his two tours in Iraq:
As a Marine Infantry Officer, on long patrols through the dusty cityscapes and rural farm areas of Iraq's Al Anbar province, I would often halt my patrol to speak with locals. I'd ask them, "Wayne Mujahadeen?" Or where are the holy-warriors, the term used to describe terrorists and the like. Whether talking to a merchantman or farmer on these patrols or even in meetings with city council member of local Sheiks, the answer I would most often get is, "La Mujahadeem, Whoa Munafakeen!" Which translates to, "They are not holy warriors, they are hypocrites."
Thank god we have people in Iraq with Mr. Iscol's insight into human nature! As he implies, when you're heavily armed and hold the power of life and death over people, they're always completely honest with you. If they have some quarrel with anything you've done, they'll tell you, straight up.
It's like when I owned 400 slaves in antebellum Virginia. Whenever I rode out on the grounds of my plantation, surrounded by my overseers bristling with whips and rifles, my slaves were always so happy! It did my heart good to hear them say how much they loved me. Back in the Big House I'd sometimes get worried they sympathized with Nat Turner, but when I asked they always told me they hated him. That was a real relief.
Like Mr. Iscol, I strove to keep an "optimistic outlook." I think history has shown how right I was. And history will soon do the same for him.
Posted at March 1, 2006 02:36 PM | TrackBackActually, they are telling him the truth. It's just that he did not hear the complete sentence:
"They are not Holy Warriors, they are Hypocrites, and so is your government."
Posted by: En Ming Hee at March 1, 2006 07:49 PMGoddamn, you're old.
Also, what does he mean, "that he would most often get"? That sounds like sort of a pat answer, if that's the case - something people have learned to say by rote for one reason or another.
Posted by: saurabh at March 2, 2006 12:19 AMThere was a hilarious snippet in the WAPO -- oh, I should have saved it for my files. Anyway, it was all about the new improved army strategy, and at one point, the journalist and his army informant were marvelling about Iraqi soldiers. If you put them on a street corner in Baghdad, they'd come up with tons of information the Americans couldn't come up with!
Uh, maybe has to do with like language?
I was reminded of the scene in Herzog's Kaspar Hauser when the scientist came to inspect Kaspar, to see if he had an innate ideas.
The problem is that the Pentagon obviously lost its copy of Lets Go Iraq. But it is on backorder.
I gotta find that snippet.
Posted by: rogergathman at March 2, 2006 04:28 PMWell, the locals might actually be telling the truth, you know. Depending on the sect of Islam the individual adheres to, the actions of the Mujahadeen may in fact go against their religious teachings. Just as all Christians who pray before battle, knowing that their god had commanded them not to kill.
Posted by: Pyrrho at March 2, 2006 06:35 PM...if he went to Ithaca College he wouldn't have been so smug.
Posted by: Jonathan Versen at March 3, 2006 07:06 AM
