SOMEBODY PLEASE tell me I'm not the only one who saw the coverage of the Boy Scout Jamboree arena show Sunday night and thought: Yikes, that's a bit too much like some of the scary weirdness that torments me in my sleep.
I mean, isn't there something nightmarish about our misleader swooping down on a steaming pit of sweat and testosterone and whipping a throng of brown-shirted youths into a nationalistic frenzy?
And what's not surreal about the author of an unnecessary, costly, and wholly counterproductive war claiming that his policies are "laying the foundations of peace for decades to come"?
The extravaganza featuring our commander in chief felt especially creepy coming on the heels of a weeklong effort by the military to turn the jamboree into one big recruitment fair.
But I guess it's fitting that this president would be flown in to wrap up the recruiting blitz. It's thanks to him that the military is in such desperate need of warm bodies.
And there's always more democracy-spreading to be done. It's no secret that some of the ideologues who whisper in the president's ear subscribe to the notion that "everyone wants to go to Baghdad - real men want to go to Tehran."
Likewise, when Bush said Americans could count on the Eagle Scout who runs the Pentagon to "be prepared," everyone was obliged to overlook the fact that U.S. forces were anything but prepared as they headed into combat in Iraq. Thanks to the Eagle Scout, there weren't enough troops, or enough armored vehicles, or enough dependable flak jackets. Thousands of dead and maimed Americans are the result of his preparations.
Some of these Boy Scouts are eleven years old. They've raised the enlistment age almost to the point where I've got a choice of being a Soldier or a Wal-Mart greeter. I wonder when they'll feel the need to lower it, perhaps offering High School scholarships as a recruiting aid?
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