in time of the breaking of nations
Driving my American Aunt from the airport to the chateau.
A pleasant journey flush with roseate good humour, made all the more warm hearted indeed by the undoubted fondness of our reunion and the sure knowledge that she would try to slip me a hundred before we reached home.
The aunt is a strong and generous woman.
Other family members have awful tensions with her when out of the blue she takes it into her head to proffer them random monetary contributions.
She's never had the slightest problem with me.
And so we drive.
Chatting merrily about nothing in particular as is our wont.
Suddenly.
"George Bush is a liar and a murderer. He won't stop until somebody stops him."
The words are my aunt's.
The noble Heelers falls very silent.
As many of you know I do not rush to discuss these matters.
Particularly with a relative as generous as this one.
The last time I entered such a debate...
Why if I wasn't a guest in sweet French Sarah's luxurious Dublin apartment. She'd asked me up for a coffee after a night out. My little heart had leapt because I was thinking oh Lordy, who knows what might happen next.
What happened was we talked about the battles in Iraq and Afghanistan until the wee small hours.
Until in fact she threw me out for defending the Prez too vociferously.
(No not Chirac.)
You should have seen the hang dog expression on my face that night.
I'm telling you folks, whatever the CIA is paying me, it's not enough.
But I digress.
The aunt and me in the car.
That's where we are now.
Should I say anything?
In my mind's eye I see PG Wodehouse, the last genius to write in the English language before I came along.
Wodehouse many years ago in a series of radio broadcasts is supposed to have expressed himself a little ambiguously on matters relating to a certain Adolf Hitler and his attempts to take over the world.
Since hearing of this, I have always vowed that no matter how popular my own sublime poetic stylings became, I would not make the same mistake as my predecessor in greatness.
It doesn't matter if you agree with me or not gentle travellers of the internet.
Honour is served as long as you know where I stand.
Against the killing of the unborn.
In favour of reducing the Jihadis.
Everything else is conversation.
"President Bush is not a liar," I said firmly. "He's not a murderer. Under his presidency the Americans helped by the British have liberated two countries that have never known freedom before. He's ended the Saddam Hussein family murder business in Iraq and he's ended the Taliban's murderocracy in Afghanistan. And the rest of us all around the world with a few notable exceptions, have failed to play our part. The rest of the world wants to play it like 1939. They think if we only get rid of Mr Bush those nice master race Jihadi's will go away. Meanwhile Iran and Syria are trying to sabotage the liberation of their neighbours because if their own people see free countries nearby, they'll rise up and demand American style freedoms for themselves. I'm telling you Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction. I watched that country for twenty years. He had them. President Bush's opponents all said he had them. Edward Kennedy said he had. Hilary Clinton said he had. Bill Clinton said he had. Of course they were talking in 1998 when the Clinton administration was itself bombing Saddam to distract the world's attention from Bill's impeachment hearings. The world can ill afford to ignore the fact that Al Quada is being strengthened by the media bias in the west against Mr Bush. The Jihadis are even starting to claim that the Americans bombed New York on Nine Eleven. But make no mistake. Those planes were hijacked by muslim terrorists. No, the hijackings were not a response to anything. They were nothing to do with American foreign policy or Israel. Islamic terrorists murdered those people simply because, well, because the terrorists felt if they themselves are unhappy, then everyone else has to be unhappy too. Misery loves company. They're not at ease in the 21st century. They want everyone to live in the 12th. They will lose of course. Eventually. It's just if the world got together to stop them now it wouldn't have to cost a few hundred million lives to stop them in five years time."
I left the aunt at her hotel.
There was no hundred spot for Bonzo.
Truly none of us have come through this war on terror unscathed.
The ghost of PG Wodehouse appeared in the passenger seat of my car.
"What ho Heelers!" he said not unkindly. "You've done the hard part. Alienated at least half your readers too I reckon. Now don't you think it's time you wrote a few books?"
A pleasant journey flush with roseate good humour, made all the more warm hearted indeed by the undoubted fondness of our reunion and the sure knowledge that she would try to slip me a hundred before we reached home.
The aunt is a strong and generous woman.
Other family members have awful tensions with her when out of the blue she takes it into her head to proffer them random monetary contributions.
She's never had the slightest problem with me.
And so we drive.
Chatting merrily about nothing in particular as is our wont.
Suddenly.
"George Bush is a liar and a murderer. He won't stop until somebody stops him."
The words are my aunt's.
The noble Heelers falls very silent.
As many of you know I do not rush to discuss these matters.
Particularly with a relative as generous as this one.
The last time I entered such a debate...
Why if I wasn't a guest in sweet French Sarah's luxurious Dublin apartment. She'd asked me up for a coffee after a night out. My little heart had leapt because I was thinking oh Lordy, who knows what might happen next.
What happened was we talked about the battles in Iraq and Afghanistan until the wee small hours.
Until in fact she threw me out for defending the Prez too vociferously.
(No not Chirac.)
You should have seen the hang dog expression on my face that night.
I'm telling you folks, whatever the CIA is paying me, it's not enough.
But I digress.
The aunt and me in the car.
That's where we are now.
Should I say anything?
In my mind's eye I see PG Wodehouse, the last genius to write in the English language before I came along.
Wodehouse many years ago in a series of radio broadcasts is supposed to have expressed himself a little ambiguously on matters relating to a certain Adolf Hitler and his attempts to take over the world.
Since hearing of this, I have always vowed that no matter how popular my own sublime poetic stylings became, I would not make the same mistake as my predecessor in greatness.
It doesn't matter if you agree with me or not gentle travellers of the internet.
Honour is served as long as you know where I stand.
Against the killing of the unborn.
In favour of reducing the Jihadis.
Everything else is conversation.
"President Bush is not a liar," I said firmly. "He's not a murderer. Under his presidency the Americans helped by the British have liberated two countries that have never known freedom before. He's ended the Saddam Hussein family murder business in Iraq and he's ended the Taliban's murderocracy in Afghanistan. And the rest of us all around the world with a few notable exceptions, have failed to play our part. The rest of the world wants to play it like 1939. They think if we only get rid of Mr Bush those nice master race Jihadi's will go away. Meanwhile Iran and Syria are trying to sabotage the liberation of their neighbours because if their own people see free countries nearby, they'll rise up and demand American style freedoms for themselves. I'm telling you Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction. I watched that country for twenty years. He had them. President Bush's opponents all said he had them. Edward Kennedy said he had. Hilary Clinton said he had. Bill Clinton said he had. Of course they were talking in 1998 when the Clinton administration was itself bombing Saddam to distract the world's attention from Bill's impeachment hearings. The world can ill afford to ignore the fact that Al Quada is being strengthened by the media bias in the west against Mr Bush. The Jihadis are even starting to claim that the Americans bombed New York on Nine Eleven. But make no mistake. Those planes were hijacked by muslim terrorists. No, the hijackings were not a response to anything. They were nothing to do with American foreign policy or Israel. Islamic terrorists murdered those people simply because, well, because the terrorists felt if they themselves are unhappy, then everyone else has to be unhappy too. Misery loves company. They're not at ease in the 21st century. They want everyone to live in the 12th. They will lose of course. Eventually. It's just if the world got together to stop them now it wouldn't have to cost a few hundred million lives to stop them in five years time."
I left the aunt at her hotel.
There was no hundred spot for Bonzo.
Truly none of us have come through this war on terror unscathed.
The ghost of PG Wodehouse appeared in the passenger seat of my car.
"What ho Heelers!" he said not unkindly. "You've done the hard part. Alienated at least half your readers too I reckon. Now don't you think it's time you wrote a few books?"
posted by heelers | 1:51 AM
2 Comments:
But it had to be said James. And you are right. It is a bizarre thing that ppl can't see that war was inevitable, that no matter who was in power it would have happened and that they dishonour themselves and their brave men and women by all this pissing and moaning.
The only thing I would add is that the huge and overwhelming number of deaths in Iraq in particular, are caused by Iraqis and have nothing to do with the Allied forces. People like to turn a blind one to that as well. Left to his own devices, there is no telling how many millions more people would have been arbitrarily wiped out by Hussein.
You kept your integrity James. Can't put a price on that.
Very well said, James -- and a hundred bucks doesn't last long anyhow.
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