Authors: Art Buchwald

Beating Around the Bush (6 page)

BOOK: Beating Around the Bush

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“Why would someone want to be a tipster?” I asked.

“For power,” he replied. “If the word gets out, everyone will be scared of him. I’m not saying a tipster will catch anybody. But having these vigilantes will change everyone’s way of life.”

“Will tipsters be armed?”

“They are asking to be, and I’m sure they will get permission. The argument is you never know where a terrorist is going to strike next.”

“So the tipsters will be part of the homeland security system?”

“They could be the heart of it. A UPS truck driver could do more for his country than a hundred lie detectors at the FBI.”

“The tipster system worked well under the Nazis and the Fascists,” I pointed out. “If they hadn’t had tipsters, Mussolini could never have gotten the trains to run on time.”

“There may be some resistance from those who can’t make the cut. After all, the tipsters are the elite home-front soldiers. Americans hate to be spied on, especially by people who owe their loyalty to a higher being—in this case Attorney General Ashcroft.”

Between Iraq and a Hard Place

TO INVADE OR NOT TO INVADE. That is the question. The debate is going on all over the country in earnest. Here is how it’s shaping up.

Hawks: We must invade Iraq and kick Saddam’s butt in.

Doves: We can’t kick Saddam’s butt without the approval of Congress.

Hawks: Who needs Congress? The president may kick anyone’s butt he wants to.

Doves: What about Saudi Arabia? If we attack Saddam, they will
cut off their oil and we’ll run out in two months and have to siphon gas out of other people’s cars in the mall parking lot.

Hawks: Once our ground troops knock off the Evil Power, the Saudis will have to sell us oil. The royal family has no choice.

Doves: Bush is just using the war to win the election in November.

Hawks: He is commander-in-chief. He doesn’t have to stoop to political tricks to start a war.

Doves: What about television? CNN will cover it and America will witness their sons live and in color fighting in Iraqi foxholes.

Hawks: They assured us they would never show any casualties during a battle.

Doves: What about our Air Force?

Hawks: They will carpet-bomb Iraq from one end to the other, as they did in Afghanistan. And they will continue until Saddam cries “Uncle.”

Doves: I thought you were going to kill him?

Hawks: He could be in a cave where no one can find him.

Doves: If we invade, it is going to cost billions and billions of dollars—and at least 250,000 troops, and the National Guard and occupying force that will have to remain there for 20 years.

Hawks: That is why we are hated all over the world.

Doves: Suppose Saddam agrees to UN inspections. Do we still invade?

Hawks: That’s up to the president. He still thinks his father should have done the dirty work during Desert Storm.

Doves: Why doesn’t he say so?

Hawks: He can’t because he plays golf with his father.

Doves: Do you think the president will pay any attention to this debate?

Hawks: He has to if he has any chance of winning back the Senate.

Doves: I pray Saddam sees reason.

Hawks: I hope so. Because otherwise we are going to have to gas him before he gasses us.

Doves: Does the White House feel Hawkish?

Hawks: They do except for a mole who is leaking all our Iraqi plans to the
New York Times
.

Will the Real Saddam Stand Up?

IT IS NOT AS EASY to knock off Saddam Hussein as the people in Washington may want you to think.

I met Oliver Baxter III, who works for the CIA, at the bus stop outside Langley. “What’s going on inside?” I inquired.

He replied, “Are you cleared for top security?”

“I wouldn’t be standing waiting for a bus if I wasn’t,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“Well, we have just discovered that there is more than one Saddam Hussein. He has lots of doubles. We are still not sure which is the real one, because everyone in Hussein’s government looks alike. At least we’ve narrowed it down.”

“What do you know so far?” I asked.

“Well, one of the Saddams has a mistress named Samira Shahbandar, and Saddam sleeps in a different place every night.”

“Because of security?”

“No, because he doesn’t want Mrs. Hussein to find out about her.”

“What is Mrs. Hussein like?” I asked.

“She is high-maintenance. She has dyed-blond hair, wears Western clothes, and she is terribly jealous. Saddam is her first cousin. She is known in Iraq as Sajida Khayrallah. We now know they have had a stormy marriage for 32 years.”

He continued, “One of the Saddams is a big spender. Sajida doesn’t know it, but every time he buys a piece of jewelry for his wife, he also buys one for his mistress.”

“Why don’t you think he’s the real one?”

“Because if he was, Sajida would kill him.”

“What about the Saddam who is always on TV shooting off his rifle into the air?”

“Have you noticed he never shoots down a pigeon?”

“That could be a smoking gun,” I said. “What about the Saddam we see pictured at a cabinet meeting?”

“Have you noticed the cabinet treats him with no respect?”

“The real Saddam could be the one that shows up at anti-American demonstrations and burns the American flag,” I suggested.

“It would be very dangerous for the real one to show up because we might take a potshot at him.”

“The plot thickens,” I said.

“The one we are taking a careful look at is the ‘Saddam in the Bunker’ theory. We know Hussein was a big fan of Hitler’s, and Saddam knows he could end up the way Adolf did.”

“Including hanging out with his mistress?” I asked.

“Possibly. We know Mrs. Hussein. She would never live in a bunker.”

“Hussein has a son named Uday who is a terrible man. Does he have a double, too?”

“Yes, but we don’t know if the real Uday is a drunk driver or chases Iraqi girls.”

“He does both. Question: If there are so many Saddam impersonators and we don’t know who the real one is, does that mean we have to carpet-bomb Baghdad?”

“That’s probably one of Bush’s major options.”

Just then the bus pulled up. As we got on, the bus driver, who knew Langley very well, said, “Watch your step.”

I Hate Saddam

I HAVE A CONFESSION to make. I hate Saddam Hussein. I hate him more than anyone in the world.

I hate him even more than Washington does.

It was a shock to read in
Newsweek
that Washington didn’t always hate Saddam Hussein.

According to State Department reports just released, a secretary of defense, who shall remain nameless, went over to Baghdad as a special envoy in 1983 for President Reagan. His mission was to sell Hussein biological weapons so Iraq could poison the hell out of Iran, which at that time was the United States’ worst enemy.

The secretary persuaded Hussein to buy 2,200 gallons of anthrax spores, which were shipped from Manassas, Va.; 5,300 gallons of deadly botulinum, which could be loaded into war-heads; and hundreds of gallons of germs that could be used to make gas gangrene.

When Saddam Hussein was losing the war against Iran, the United States also supplied him with tanks, helicopters and other military equipment.

I played no part in any of this. Unlike Washington, I hated Hussein long before he got into a war with Iran. I didn’t come late into the Hating Game because every time I saw him on TV, I suspected him of one day turning against us.

The other day a diplomat friend defended the secretary for not hating Saddam at that time, and even for shaking his hand in the Iraqi capital. He said, “It’s one thing to hate a dictator all the time, but it’s another if you’re trying to help one dictator to beat another dictator.”

He said, “The fact that you support one side one day and the other side the next day is what real diplomacy is all about. That was Henry Kissinger’s specialty. Suppose Iran had defeated Iraq? Don’t you think the Iranians would try to build weapons of mass destruction?”

I said, “But what about all the tanks, helicopters and missiles we gave Iraq? Won’t they be used against us if we go to war now?”

“If they dare use that equipment, they will get a bloody nose from the secretary of defense. It’s hard for him to explain to the Pentagon why he had his picture taken in 1983 with Saddam Hussein.”

My diplomat friend said, “This isn’t the first time the Americans have changed enemies. Stalin was our friend during World War II, and after the war he became our mortal enemy.

“After we beat Germany and Japan, we gave them all the equipment needed to make automobiles. And even now we’re urging American tourists to go to Vietnam.”

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

He said, “Our plan is to bomb Baghdad in a preemptive strike and force Iraq to surrender. But after the war we’re not going to help them make automobiles. The United States is no longer going to be known as Mr. Nice Guy.”

To Lose One’s Center

ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, I lost my center. That is, the world as I knew it crashed in on me, as it did for everyone else in America.

Before that day, I had dreams for my children and grandchildren. I felt safe.

Anything bad that happened was in the movies. Hollywood provided me with all my thrills and fears.

After 9/11, it took me a week to deal with the shock. I knew that I wasn’t watching a movie. This was the real thing.

The TV screen became my information center.

Over and over they played the hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and somewhere in Pennsylvania. I saw frightened people running in the streets. I heard the wild guesses on how many people were killed and how many were injured.

At that time, no one knew who the terrorists were and no one had an answer for how four airplanes could be hijacked at the same time.

I didn’t know where Afghanistan was, and I had never heard of al Qaeda or the Taliban.

For the first time, Osama bin Laden came into my life as the super-villain of 9/11. He filled me with rage. The television screen showed old photos of him and kept switching back to the World Trade Center.

I was sure we would find him and kill him.

That was the Special Forces’ job.

If they want war, we’ll give them war. We’ll bomb them in the cities and in the caves. That is what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was saying when he came on the screen.

I thought about what Attorney General John Ashcroft would do to protect us from the enemy. How many constitutional rights would he have to take away from us to guarantee our safety?

The president said we were at war.

This wasn’t a movie.

First we grieved for the victims of 9/11. Then a wave of patriotism swept the country. We were told to go about our business but to remain vigilant and alert.

As the year went by, things happened. I had lost my center, but Wall Street had lost its moral compass.

We couldn’t trust anybody anymore.

The major institutions that I believed in were found to be driven by greed. We no longer believe accountants, brokers, banks and what the CEOs told us.

People’s pensions were wiped out. Executives were arrested. Coming on the heels of 9/11, I didn’t know whom to trust anymore.

We carpet-bombed Afghanistan, but we never found bin Laden.

We won the war, but the peace is still to come.

I tried to go about my business as I had before, but it wasn’t the same and never would be.

I tried to make plans for the future, but my heart wasn’t in it.

I was told by the president we have to invade Iraq, but he didn’t tell me how to do it.

For the first time, I knew there was somebody out there who wanted to kill me.

In the past, I thought terrorists were people far away. After 9/11, I felt they were right next door. My world was no longer what I wanted it to be. It was not a movie.

Games Children Play

THE ALLEGED SNIPERS were caught and it is now safe to go out in the streets. I paid a visit to the Folsoms to see if they were all right.

The reason I was so concerned is that Carla Folsom was hysterical during the past several weeks.

She said, “I can’t understand how anybody could do what they did.”

“It’s hard to figure out.”

Just then Jimmy, the Folsoms’ twelve-year-old, came into the room. He said, “Do you want to play a video game?”

Carla said to me, “Go ahead. He’s been cooped up for three weeks.”

We went to the rec room.

“What do you want to play?”

“I don’t care.”

“How about ‘Hitman 2: Silent Assassin’?”

“What else do you have?”

“Here’s one. ‘Splinter Cell.’ You have the right to spy, steal, destroy and assassinate to protect American freedoms. If captured, your government will disavow any knowledge of your existence.”

“Is that all you’ve got?”

Jimmy kept going through his collection. He read from a cover. “It’s time for a little urban renewal. Take command of 120 fully armed, fully loaded Meganites and stop the apocalyptic Volgara invasion through our cities. It means you have to knock down buildings and crush some pedestrians. We didn’t say it would be easy but, hey, nothing is.”

I picked up another game and read, “Give peace a chance. The
lines of good and evil have been drawn. Your weapon is a walking death machine and your mission is to destroy everything on the planet.”

Carla came down to the basement. “How are you guys doing?”

I said, “We’re having a problem picking the most frightening one.”

“Jimmy has one of the best collections in the neighborhood.”

BOOK: Beating Around the Bush

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