Author: Ed Weathers

O WHAT A GOOD WAR IT WAS!

What a good war this is turning out to be for George W. Bush.

First, he gets to exorcise all kinds of Oedipal ghosts: He gets to avenge his father against the man who tried to kill old Poppy. (Hamlet would be proud.) He gets to one-up his father by finishing the war his father started. And he gets to prove to war-hero dad that little Georgie, too, is a real man, with even bigger, um, guns.

Second, the war has already provided Bush with a perfect hero: a 19-year-old soldier from a small town in West Virginia who was ambushed by the enemy, who went down with guns blazing before being taken captive, who incurred relatively photogenic wounds (mostly broken limbs), who could be rescued by equally heroic special ops teams representing all the services, and who tells Mom and Dad back home that all this soldier wants now is some home-grown strawberries and the chance to be a school teacher. Oh, yeah, and best of all: She’s a girl! What photo opportunities are in store for the Rose Garden! What movies to be made!

(An aside: Wonder what women will make of Pfc. Jessica Lynch. Is she a role model for her military derring-do? Or is she that all-time feminist embarrassment: the damsel in distress who needed rescuing by the boys?)

Third, this is the first war that could actually make a profit. After it’s over, and the U.S. has control of the oil fields, it will be time to “rebuild” the country we’ve just torn up. And who will do the rebuilding? Why, American companies, of course. Which companies? Gosh, how about Bechtel? How about Halliburton? How about Lucent and Fluor? Let’s see, anybody else who made a big contribution to the Republican war chest back in 2000? And they’ll all be paid out of Iraqi oil sales. We will have liberated the Iraqis and at the same time liberated their money right into American hands.

Fourth, not too many U.S. soldiers have gotten killed in this war–not enough, anyway, to generate a big public backlash against the war, but just enough to prove that it wasn’t a cakewalk. The President can now puff and preen about the courage and training of our “men in uniform,” as if he were one of them. He can salute his way through all kinds of speeches in front of friendly audiences on army/navy/airforce bases. He can commander-in-chief his way to ever higher numbers in the popularity polls. And he can have tasteful little weeping sessions away from the cameras’ eyes with the families of dead soldiers, thereby proving his compassion, too. He will have proved, as Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton proved before him in places like Grenada, Kuwait and Kosovo, that, yes, a Kevlar-coated Stealth pilot with night-vision technology and laser-guided bombs can indeed defeat a blind man with a blunderbuss on the field of battle.

Fifth, the war will have clarified just who our friends and enemies are–a handy thing for a president with as Manichean a mind as George Bush. (Here’s a curiosity for you: Mani, the philosopher who developed the philosophy of Manicheanism, which divides the world neatly into good and evil, darkness and light, the godly and the ungodly, was born just outside of Baghdad. So George Bush’s world view is basically Iraqi in origin. I like that.) Anyway, thanks to this war, we now know that Britain, Spain and the former Soviet states in Eastern Europe like Latvia and Bulgaria are our friends. We also know that the perfidious French and Germans are our enemies, along with the Russians (but we always knew about the Russians). North Korea and Iran–bad. Lithuania and Estonia–good. Turkey–bad yesterday, good today.

(Another aside: It’s been curious to watch Donald Rumsfeld vis a vis the “coalition of the willing” at his press briefings during this war. He keeps saying that “there are over 45 countries in the coalition, representing over 1 1/2 billion people in the world.” Of course, this means that there are more than 145 countries not in the coalition, representing over 4 1/2 billion people. One has to ask: In Rummy’s mind, does the math add up to world-wide support?)

Sixth, the “war” part of the war is getting over fast. It has hardly even tested the attention span of the American public. Oh, there may be a few street fights still to come, but the big story is just about finished. What remains is nothing but a little dusting. So a car bomb goes off here or there, and for the next couple of years an occasional American soldier is picked off by a sniper in the alleys of Baghdad. Heck, the important thing is, we won every big battle there was, and we have the tv footage to prove it.

Finally, the war will have proved to the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Wolfowitz/Perle/Rice cabal that the strategy of preemptive war works, and that the doctrine of doing whatever is necessary to maintain lopsided U.S. military supremacy in the world is correct. From now on, whenever the U.S. wants to invade or bomb somebody–oh, let’s say Libya or Syria or Iran–all it has to do is cite this week’s war as precedent. So what if China or Russia now start to ratchet up their war spending out of fear or envy. Presumably we’ll bomb them, too, if we have to.

For now, then, the war in Iraq looks to be an immense success for George W. Bush. Once we find those elusive weapons of mass destruction that the White House will make sure we find, everything will be taken care of.

For Bush’s people, there’s no need to look any farther down the road than today. No need to wonder if some of the 5,000 or so would-be martyrs who ran to Iraq to fight the Americans might decide that it makes more sense to make their way to a New York subway tunnel or a St. Louis bridge or a California nuclear facility. No need to worry if that next terrorist attack on U.S. soil might spur John Ashcroft once and for all to declare that the Bill of Rights is a luxury we can no longer afford. No need to be concerned that the streets of Chicago and San Francisco may for our grandchildren be as tense as the streets of Tel Aviv, with every movie theater and pizza parlor a target for suicide bombers.

No, no need to worry about next week. This week’s war was just swell.

READERS RESPOND:

Thanks for havin’ the courage to write the truth about this “war”.. Us “37%” outcasts sure appreciate it !! I’m shocked at the blind support given to this war, by people who have no idea what they are really supporting. Most of these people can’t spell “Passport”, and have never been anywhere..! I saw a POLL that made me naucious just yesterday, in which 2/3rds of Americans voted that now is not the time to protest the war — begging the question then, of, when IS it alright to protest ?? Perhaps when there is nothing to protest at all, leading up to my theory that the blind majority is totally and utterly unconnected with the art of sincere protest. I wish you would study the effects and statistics of civilian casualties, also. There is always propoganda surrounding “civilian casualties”.. I was sippin’ a beer in a bar in Laos a year or two ago when some Pom tried to tell me that we had killed 10 million Iraqi’s in the past 10 years.. Propoganda, regardless of which side it comes from, makes me sick — are turning the lights out don’t even know what they’re doing.. Furthermore, and falling under the category of “perception” that I believe is critical when you are in the shoes we as a country wear today, history will never forget that WE struck first.!! Just like Hitler with Poland, we spread propoganda that caused our people to fear an enemy that wasn’t about to do a damned thing to us, and then we struck hard and merciless… To us it’s a sporting event, but to a lot of people in a lot of places, this shit’s for real !!!

Thanks for , surprisingly, being one of the only people in Memphis that I’ve heard have the courage to voice what time will show is right — whether “they” ever figure it out or not that they are committing a terrible sin… (and I hate that whole “us” and “them” concept as well,,,)

J.G. Brewer

I was pleasantly surprised to see your article specially in this 50 years behind the rest of the country town. (Oops,I think they call it a modern

city, actually the best city in the world if you speak to anyone from here, although they have never been anywhere else) I have been saying everything that you said since before the war started and of course have been accused of being anti-American even by my own husband. So prepare yourself for the nasty emails. Good luck

Aurelia Garvey

It just must be awful to be you.

David Hinske

Typical liberal sarcastic column! As if the Bush administration has just fallen into “dumb luck” with this war. You also assume that their purpose for this war is primarily for political and egotistical reasons. That was the purpose of the Clinton regime.

This war is against terrorism. It is ludicrous to think that terrorism/ 911/ and Sadam Hussein’s Iraqi regime are mutually exclusive. They are not! I guess we should have just let the impotent, incompetent, and irrelevant UN continue to tell us that we have not given Weapons Inspections a chance. While Sadam Hussein and other terrorists plot against the infidels of the United States. This strategy of “burying our head in the sand” is what allowed 911 to happen.

I can appreciate that you may not share the social/economic policies of this administration and under our constitution everyone has the right to vote and voice their own opinion. But let me remind you that the freedom you have to voice your opinion is threatened each day we allow evil regimes who aggressively encourage their people and others to commit acts of terrorism against the United States and our Allies…..especially a regime like Sadam Hussein’s who has been actively trying to build weapons of mass destruction for that purpose.

Ask the liberated Iraqis about their ability to voice their opinions against the Hussein administration. The ones who did that are dead.

Scott Suddoth

Great article. I didn’t expect to find it here. I was looking for info on UM

basketball but started reading and couldn’t stop. We all need to wake up. We

are being Bush-whacked.

Jim Hadaway

(St. Petersburg, FL)

THE PYRAMID AS CASINO

The idea of turning The Pyramid into a casino a few years from now may be a lot of things, but nuts is not one of them.

As an eyewitness to one of Charlie McVean’s hackney pony races with robot jockeys at the Mid-South Fairgrounds in 1987, the only recorded vote of the Tennessee Racing Commission in 1988, the opening of Splash Casino in Tunica in 1992, the opening of Harrah’s Casino in Robinsonville in 1994, and the tenth anniversary of Tunica as gambling center in 2002, I would put the Pyramid-as-casino proposal, at worst, halfway across on the nuttiness meter.

Major downtowns can exist with one or more casinos. Downtown Detroit has three. Downtown St. Louis has one. Downtown New Orleans has one. And Maryland, at the urging of a Republican governor, is considering putting slot machines at racetracks.

Is a Pyramid casino controversial? Of course. Politically difficult? Certainly. Would it be a considerable stretch to establish the legitimacy of tribal Indian land claims on Front Street? No doubt about it. Would a Memphis casino proposal be certain to draw ridicule and major opposition? Absolutely.

Well, getting the NBA to Memphis was controversial. AutoZone Park was difficult. Building the FedEx Forum was a stretch. Holding the Lennox Lewis vs. Mike Tyson fight in Memphis was widely ridiculed and opposed. And all those things happened because the right people wanted them to happen. A casino in The Pyramid could happen too, if the right people set their minds to it.

For starters, the question is not moot. Gambling is not banned by the Tennessee Constitution, as many people apparently believe it is.

“Except for lotteries, there is nothing in the state constitution prohibiting gambling, and the regulation of all types of gambling, other than lotteries, is a matter for determination by the General Assembly,” said the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office in 2001.

What is moot is the moral argument against casino gambling. Tunica took care of that. Memphians lose at least a few hundred million dollars a year gambling. Mississippi and Tunica County get all the tax benefits and development and don’t contribute one penny to Memphis or Shelby County in return.

So what do you suppose will happen to The Pyramid after the Grizzlies move? Let’s suppose four scenarios.

The University of Memphis men’s basketball team stays put in The Pyramid, and the building gets sloppy seconds on concerts and other events after the Grizzlies exercise right of first refusal.

U of M follows the Grizzlies to FedEx Forum, and The Pyramid becomes a vast shopping mall centered around something like a Bass Pro Shop.

The Pyramid is torn down 15 years after it opened, falling somewhat short of the life expectancy of the ancient pyramids of Egypt.

The Pyramid becomes a casino with a hotel similar to its golden lookalike, Luxor in

Las Vegas, with an attraction at the top and an inclinator.

In the first two scenarios, the building’s debt service and operating subsidy remain the responsibility of the public sector. In scenario Two, the public bears the cost of what would surely be a healthy subsidy to attract a private developer. In scenario Three, the cost of demolition and public ridicule are borne by the public sector.

In scenario Four, all development costs of the casino and hotel plus debt service are borne by the private sector. Unless, that is, you don’t believe that a single casino company would have any interest in the rights to a downtown casino and hotel in Memphis.

There are Memphians — former Holiday Inns and Promus CEO Mike Rose is one who comes to mind — who have forgotten more than most people will ever know about the casino and hotel business. Or a Memphis casino could steal a little talent from Tunica.

Inventing an Indian tribe to own the casino on “tribal lands” is seen as a way to get gambling through the back door but has its problems. No tax money goes to the state.

As for the Tennessee General Assembly, H. L. Mencken once said, “The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle — a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology, or cannibalism.”

A READER’S RESPONSE:

You are SOOOOOOOOOOOO right!! Why does Memphis always have to be last at everyfrigginthing? I have lived here on and off since the age of 10 (I am now 49), and I remember coming here as a child and thinking, “what a crappy assed place”! Nothing to do. I came from Jacksonville, Florida where we had wonderful theatre, ICE skating, dance, etc…. I hate Memphis and if I had not lived in Los Angeles I guess I wouldn’t know the difference between a metropolis and a dump.

I say we fire every single city council member over the age of 40 and go with an equal mix of ethnicities!! It’s TIME (way past time) for the citizens of this city to get off their collective asses!!

Enjoyed your insight. Keep up the great work.

Cathi Ashton-Thomas

CORNER TURNED

I had several reservations when the University of Memphis announced the hiring of John Calipari to take command of its basketball program on March 11, 2000. Here was an Armani clad carpetbagger sweeping into town in the aftermath of the most public wooing in these parts since Elvis was serenading Priscilla. Calipari had led the University of Massachusetts to the Final Four in 1996, only to jump ship for the NBA amid a scandal involving All-America Marcus Camby. He took a lowly New Jersey Nets franchise to the playoffs in 1998, only to lose control of the team before being fired 20 games into the abbreviated 1998-99 season. Calipari seemed like a “me-first” coach who would treat the Memphis job as little more than a launching pad toward greener pastures elsewhere.

Consider me at least a qualified convert. I wish I saw more cases like Shyrone Chatman and Earl Barron, contributing players under Calipari who have either graduated or expressed intent to do so. Love him all you like, but Chris Massie — regardless of the loaded coarse load he tackled to qualify for the spring semester — was no more a student at the U of M

than I am. He’s a 25-year-old basketball player with ambitions to play professionally. I find it easier, alas, to root for student-athletes.

With that said, Coach Cal is doing precisely the job he promised a little over three years ago . . . and is earning his seven-figure salary. Over his three seasons in the Bluff City, Calipari has won with a team recruited by Tic Price, made the most out of a disappointing club relegated to the NIT, and regained admission to the Big Dance for the U of M after losing arguably his three best players.

Calipari’s critics often tend to be that part of Tiger Nation most devoted to Larry Finch, the greatest Tiger of them all, and the program’s top career winner (220 games). While Finch inherited a solid team in 1986 from the disgraced Dana Kirk, Calipari took on a club that finished 1999-2000 at 15-16 under interim coach Johnny Jones. Finch won 67 games over his first three seasons and made appearances in the NCAA tournament his second and third year (winning one game in ’88). Calipari has won 71 games in his three seasons, reached the NIT semifinals his first two (winning the title last year), and led a team no one forecast for such heights back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1996.

The 2002-03 Tigers were the first Memphis team to truly reflect Coach Cal. Chatman, Kelly Wise, and Shannon Forman weren’t his recruits that first season, and last year’s stud, Dajuan Wagner, really wasn’t a Calipari kind of player (defender first, gritty, covered with floor burns). When not only Wise and Wagner, but Scooter McFadgon and his 10 points per game were taken from his roster, well, the local hoops “wise men” had rebuilding on the brain.

Calipari took reclamation projects in Massie and John Grice and made them stars for this year’s club. He held his team together around injuries to Jeremy Hunt and Billy Richmond. He oversaw a 12-game winning streak (after a 10-game streak in 2002 and an 8-gamer his first year; Finch never won more than 8 in a row). And his team started beating the big boys. After going 3-11 against major non-conference opponents his first two years, Calipari was 5-2 against the heavy hitters in 2002-03 (the wins coming against Syracuse, Ole Miss, Illinois, Arkansas, and Villanova). This is the strongest measuring stick for how the U of M program is progressing nationally. And it’s a credit to Calipari.

Finally, let’s not forget a figure every bit as important to the University of Memphis administration as the wins and postseason success: 16,940. That’s the average attendance at The Pyramid since Calipari coached his first game there on November 17, 2000. The season before his arrival, the figure was 11,974. And for the first nine years in the building, the figure was 14,135. Calipari is winning games, sure, but he’s also selling tickets and filling seats. All this with NBA competition in the very same arena.

Calipari knows the breadth of his job and its responsibilities within this region. “The obligation in this town is to be involved in all segments of the community,” he said after beating UAB in The Pyramid last month. “If you come into this job to just coach basketball, you’re cheating the position and you’re cheating the city. This job is bigger than just coaching basketball. That’s what makes this a tough job. You’re in a position to cross all racial lines, from walking into Orange Mound to walking into the Memphis Country Club.”

I hope I was wrong in my misgivings of March 2000. Here’s hoping Calipari goes into the history books (many years from now) remembered primarily for his achievements in the Bluff City. For the first time since he swept into town, I’m starting to believe this just may happen.

THE WRONG WAY ON A ONE-WAY STREET

A few days ago, I got an email from a reader. He was responding to my column in this space last week, which questioned the constitutionality of a U.S.-led attack on Iraq. Along the way, the column also just might have implied that it would be for the best if George Bush were impeached. Anyway, this reader was unusually eloquent. He sent me a total of four words. “Shut up,” he wrote. “Go away.”

This week, I’m seriously considering his kind advice.

Never in my lifetime–I’m 57 years old–have I been this disaffected from my own country. Not even the Machiavellian Nixon or the hollow-headed Reagan made me feel this out of touch with the United States. The polls tell me that at least 65% of Americans approve of our going to war with Iraq. The polls also tell me that over 45% of Americans believe Saddam Hussein was personally responsible for the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The math suggests, then, that about two-thirds of Americans who support the war support it because they are simply ignorant.

No wonder the rest of the world thinks of Americans as parochial fools. We don’t know who’s done what. We let cynical speechwriters lead us by the nose into the darkness. (How many times did Bush use “Saddam” and “9/11” in the same prefabricated sentence at his press conference last week? By now he probably does believe Saddam hired the terrorists.) We make enemies of our most honest friends because they refuse to tell us what we want to hear and then take our resentments out on exactly the wrong people. (French restaurants in the U.S.–nearly all owned by American citizens–are experiencing a terrible drop in business.) We really like weapons of mass destruction–as long as they’re ours. We think bombing people will make us new friends to replace the ones we’ve alienated. We think labeling people as “evil” will encourage them to do our bidding, and we go cross-eyed with bewilderment when it doesn’t. We treat one day of terrorism as jusification for years of paranoia. We happily trade real civil rights for hypothetical security. We accuse anyone who says “peace” of being unpatriotic.

So what are the rest of us to do now ? What are we, who believe the assault on Iraq is stupid, who think George Bush is dim, who think our Rumsfeld-Rice-Wolfowitz “national strategy” of preemptive warfare is wrong-headed to the point of real evil, and who think John Ashcroft is the most dangerous man in America–what do we do now? We’re obviously out of touch with the rest of our fellow citizens. We seem to be driving the wrong way on a one-way street. And even if we’re still convinced it’s the right way, there’s a good chance we’ll get dented, smashed, flattened and left to lie ignored in the wreck on the macadam as we try to make our way to wherever we want to go.

I don’t have a lot of hope for the U.S. right now. My hope is that the Iraq War goes quickly, that Iraqi troops lay down their weapons tomorrow, and that not too many people get hurt. But that, of course, will just encourage the Bush administration, no doubt more popular in the polls than ever, to try it again, somewhere else–Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya. And that will be very bad.

So what do I do? “Shut up. Go away.” Well, no. I won’t shut up. I’m too arrogant for that–not that I think anything I write will change anybody’s mind. Besides, though I’m preaching to the converted, I think the converted need to encourage each other.

But as for going away, well, I do plan to eat at a French restaurant next weekend. I hear there’s a good one in New Zealand.

A READER RESPONSE:

Mr. Weathers,

As an American, I don’t think you should shut up. However, as a journalist I DO think you and your colleagues at the Flyer need to be fully aware of the threat that Saddam Hussein is – not only to the U.S., but to France, Germany, Russia and any other member of the free world. And over the last few weeks as I’ve read the Flyer’s war-related coverage, I don’t get the sense that any of you really do – and that’s inexcusable in my opinion. Bottom line: the man is addicted to weapons of mass destruction. Ask any UN Inspector who has been to Iraq in the last 12 years and they’ll tell you that not only is it almost a certainty that he has nuclear capabilities, he is fantasizing about the day when he’ll be able unleash that power. Clearly, this is a person who has to be dealt with – now.

I highly recommend you carefully considering http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/. It’s a fascinating series on recent history/dealings with Iraq and one that I’d hope would be an eye-opener for you. If you take the time to get the truest sense for the man that is Saddam Hussein, I think you’ll gain a new respect for the leaders of our country and the difficult decisions they’ve faced leading up to this week.

Respectfully,

Joel A. Frey

Dallas, TX

CLEARWATER, FLA. — Just now I’m watching the tanks march into Iraq, flipping between Aaron Brown and Peter Jennings, when I stumble upon, yes, TBS and its showpiece program, whatever rumble thing the WWF calls its prime time show. Obviously, this is prime time, cause I tune in just in time to see an in-ring scuffle between Vince MacMahon (the boss guy, isn’t he, of the wrestling world?) and The Hulkster himself, evidently in comeback mode. (Hogan, btw, lives in a grotesque 30,000+ sq ft Norman mansion on the bay here in Clearwater, about a quarter mile from where I sit; it’s part of the folksy little show-and-tell we do for newcomers to our spring-training group; just yesterday we drove by and saw two barrels of trash outside, and debated for a while whether we would be criminals if we rifle through it to find some eBay-worthy Hulkobilia.)

But I digress. On the tube the wrestling crowd is roaring for blood, Hogan is lying prone on the mat (two chairs and a table are in the ring; evidently I was tuning in late to a botched signing of some sort). McMahon is screaming and cussing, the crowd is roaring, and they get the blood they want when McMahon screams “You’ll sign this, you bastard; you’ll sign this!”, jumps atop the Hulkster, and fakes (I assume) putting his pen in Hogan’s right eye. Sure enough, after a dozen photogenic stabs and the requisite attendants “trying” to pull McMahon away, a flood of red liquid of course goes spurting everywhere. And the crowd roars more, and roars for more….

I’d had enough, and flipped quickly to ABC, and there was, almost startling in contrast, Ted Koppel: all in beige, just inside Iraq, looking positively jaunty alongside the gleaming-steel tanks and Bradley fighting machines that were passing along by the dozens behind him. The colors — blue in the sky, southern California beige on Ted’s nifty Banana-Republicy duds, and slightly more washed out on the ground all around — were magnificent, almost magical. Koeppel keeps flipping back and forth to Peter J. and to the “embedded” journalists all around, who yack and yack with all the enthusiasm of schoolboys on their first grade-school field trip to, say, Fenway Park for a Thursday afternoon game.

“These guys are America’s first team,” waxes eloquent one General just now, back home in Mission Control with Jennings. “The best of all All-Americans.” If that’s the case, I guess the scrubbeenies play for the Congressional 635, since that legislative bunch of pond scum, 100 senators and 435 congressmen strong, can count but a single, solitary enlisted military man among their progeny…

Hypocrisy and shallowness are everywhere it seems, these days, but one would have to go a long way to top the network tv media in either of these areas. CNN has just spent the past hour doing homilies to war, squibs on how this gizmo really works, and this one too, and isn’t this all just nifty? while ignoring completely the arrest of a thousand anti-war folks in SF today, similar large #s in NYC and Washington, and the shutting down of Lakeshore Boulevard during rush hour in Chicago — first time he can recall THAT ever happening, a native just told me by phone. And massive protests all over Europe?

Nope, guess it’s “not news” on a day like today, when the legions are marching in triumph. Hey, buddy, Aaron Brown, can you spare a dime? Give the troops the 50 minutes out of 60 they surely deserve, but hey, can’t you spare ten, maybe, for completing the tableau?

Nope. We are in war mode now, and this kind of sanitary war, against a pygmy enemy. No, this kind of war is a thing of beauty, something to be proud of. Especially since we have JUST the army that knows how to fight it. So many tanks, so many planes, so many weapons of not-significantly-mass destruction, at least not on their own; no, we wouldn’t have anything but good weapons on our side.

Just “awesome military might,” as Koeppel just noted. “A remarkable sight to behold,” Jennings cooed in response. It’s all a bit like watching that first-ever Michael Jordan-led Dream Team take the floor at the 1994 Olympics, an other-worldly juggernaut that would shortly proceed to scramble the marbles of every known basketball team on the planet…

Can you say “formidable”? That’s us, this time as well, as those weak-kneed Iraqi conscripts slink away before our military might. A bomb here, a bomb there, a lucky raffle ticket in the Saddam Hussein Sweepstakes, and, bingo! We’ll have this all wrapped up in no time. Okay, so the Iraqis aren’t in the same weight class as us, but, hey, we’re playing by World Wrestling Federation rules, damn it, not those drawn up by any Marquis of Queensberry. Damn Frenchman! Or probably was French at heart, the limey creep.

Get out of our way. Beating up stiffs makes us feel good, damn it, and feeling good is, clearly, what it’s all about these days in these United States, the imperial center of the universe in 2003.

I should, I know, relax, sit back and enjoy the spectacle. But try as I might, I get eerie bad vibes when I switch between the CNN/ABC noble-knights-of-war scenes lifted whole cloth, it seems, from El Cid or some such mythic movie, and the TBS tableau that has Hulk Hogan on the mat all “bloodied” and “battered,” with the crowd screaming for more.

Sorry; the Roman Empire analogy has been done to death these days, but sheesh, this is getting almost too poignant. Our mighty mercenary legions are marching in all their glory across the sands against the worthless barbarians, and are about to smite them justly, since smitten they deserve to be. Meanwhile, back home in Rome, the citizens are enjoying their bread and circuses; today we will throw Hogan to the lions, and cheer, and come back tomorrow for more! Will Friday be the turn of Michael Jackson? That Smart girl from Utah (aside; this damn war has eaten into her fifteen minutes of fame, big-time). Or maybe we can get Dennis Rodman out of mothballs? And where is TOnya Harding when we need her?

What a country. I’ll stop now with this final thought:

On this first bright shiny night of war, we would do well to all tuck away in our minds for future reflection the last stanza of a poem written by a British soldier, himself a card-carrying member of a “coalition of the willing” in a now long-forgotten war, a war that started when mobilized troops far away from home proved too difficult to demobilize. And it started with just as much enthusiasm as this one…

Here’s what Wilfred Owen told us he had learned, after a couple of years, about fighting in the first World War, shortly before he came home from it in a box. Poetry lovers can find the whole thing under the title in the subject line above:

“If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,

“If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs

Bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie:

“Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.”