They had the guns and we didn’t know what the hell was going on

In comments on my last post, Mrs. Malaprop suggests an answer to my question, what the Holy Jihad Brigades thought forcing the Fox reporter hostages to “convert” would accomplish: it’s an allegory, like introducing democracy at gunpoint. I’ll buy that. Thus this statement by one of the reporters, Steve Centanni: “It was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns and we didn’t know what the hell was going on.” Pretty much sums up the human condition in the 21st century.

Update: oh for crummsake, they videotaped the “conversion.” Of course they did. Here it is, if you’re curious. The Foxies are forced on pain of death to say that Islam is a religion of peace, and that “Islam is not fascism. Words like that only serve to deepen the great chasm between peoples, to fan the flames of anger and distrust that already burn in the Muslim world.” I know you can’t turn people into democrats by application of military force, but boy if you could bring an understanding of irony to the Middle East... The War to Make the World Safe for Irony, has a ring to it, huh?

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This sounds strangely familiar:



Yesterday there was a completely incoherent interview of Iraqi PM Maliki by Wolf Blitzer on CNN. I assume it was Maliki’s translator who was incoherent rather than Maliki, but who knows? A sample: “Therefore, the agreement of the Iraqis is like a ship that all Iraqis should all be in to face terrorism and explosions that you mentioned with these numbers.” So we got some incoherent answers about when US troops might leave Iraq, an incoherent answer about whether Israel has a right to exist, and an incoherent response to Blitzer’s demand that Maliki apologize for having criticized American troops who massacred civilians “at a time,” said Wolfy, “when the United States military has done so much to try to bring democracy and freedom to Iraq.” Through the translator, this is the “clarification” Wolf asked for: “There’s a difference between the forces that are there to protect Iraqi experience and help Iraqis, and difference between have violations -- which is natural.” About the only comprehensible statement was this: “The violence is in decrease. And our security ability is increasing. And I want to assure he who loves Iraq that Iraq will never be in a civil war.” I’m curious whether the translator worked for Maliki or for CNN, and why CNN bothered putting this gibberish on the air, and I know you’re all waiting for me to say something about Bush’s speech patterns, but I’m not gonna do it, it’s just too easy.