Material Britches
The US government has read the voluminous 13,000 page Iraqi weapons report
and considers it “incomplete, deceptive. provocative and insulting, not
only the intelligence of the United States but also the President’s golf
game and his beloved mother. Not only is Iraq in material breach of the UN
resolution 1441, it has also personalized the confrontation, reducing the
likelihood of a peaceful resolution of this crisis. We repeat that
President Bush has no personal interest in a regime change in Iraq. He
simply wants that country to follow the rule of international law.”
Privately the Bush administration is furious that Saddam not only failed to
deliver an accurate report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, but he
actually used the report to insult the US, the Bush administration, and
even the President’s family. The report also taunts the weapons
inspectors, using 15th century maps and suggests weapons might be under
beds in brothels or hidden in saunas and steam rooms. The report suggests
that the inspectors, especially those who have a personal interest in S &
M, prostitution, and transgender activities visit Baghdad’s red light
district. However, this is all carefully phrased in anti-American
statements suggesting the corrupt inspectors are anxious to project onto
God-fearing Iraq their lascivious sexual perversions, again corrupting the
country.
What the White House sees as a stall. an insult, a buying of time,
scholars, psychologists. media critics and the like consider the 13,000
page report very revealing, taking us into the psychology and pathology of
the Iraqi regime. According to Symington Bross, Professor of English and
Cultural Studies at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., the report “is
really a monumental work, perhaps on the order of James Joyce’s Ulysses in
that so much cultural, national, psychological, and religious matter is
overlaid and expressed in the most tantalizingly complex language
available. This tome was obviously not written by government hacks. On the
country, I see the contributions of writers who know something about the
Western literary traditions of irony, understatement, and
deconstructionism. The Iraqi narrative is like Bloom’s journey through
Dublin, a quest that takes on profound psychological meaning as the suspect
sites are described within a context of history and culture and
significance in the Islamic world. There is an ongoing tension in the
narrative, as the writers deny the existence of weapons of mass destruction
and at the same time quote liberally from the Koran to underscore their
good intentions. This is structural irony at its best. I strongly
recommend that the Bush administration refrains from war until the literary
scholars decipher this important document.”
Given the pace of scholarly work, Bross’s analysis could take years. Others
are quicker to the punch. Fox television has already announced a Spring
2003 series tentatively titled “Material Britches”, a sitcom, loosely based
on the 1970s hit “Hogan’s Heroes.” In the new version the hero, Hans Blink,
modeled on Colonel Klink, with a crew of lighthearted sex perverts,
wander through the alleyways of Baghdad, ostensibly looking for weapons but
really looking for sex. Like Sergeant Schultz Blink hears no evil and sees
no evil. In this show the Iraqi’s are actually the heroes, duping Americans
and the international inspectors. When questioned Fox responded that this
“is a comedy which has nothing to do with politics or national policy.”
Already veteran’s groups plan to protest. The family of Hogan (Bob Crane)
promises to file suit as the program seems more like the real life of the
hero, who was murdered mysteriously in a Las Vegas brothel, than a work of
fiction. The Iraqi government also plans to sue Fox it doesn’t get, at a
minimum, second-syndication rights to the show, as there is prima facie
evidence that the 13,000 report is the basis for the drama. When asked
about this issue, the White House responded that “the President was in a
fraternity in college and didn’t waste his time on such frivolous pursuits
as ‘Hogan’s Heroes,’ which is generally considered the worst program of the
last thirty years.” Iraqi has indicated through back-door channels they
have enough information to make “Material Britches” a long-running show.
The 13,000 page report has become something of an ink-blot test for amateur
and professional sleuths. Philadelphia psychologist Martin Stevens suggests
the report should be read “ as a giant canvas of the collective
unconscious, a document that, for all its silliness and deceptions, charts
the epic struggles between Mothers and Daughters, Fathers and Sons that
have existed in this region for centuries. Obviously, the dangerous
Zeus-like Father is in the driver’s seat at the moment killing all the
Feminine influences in the culture. Among other things, the weapons are
sexual projectiles, a way that an impotent Saddam, sexually and otherwise,
can project his power and masculinity into the region. The extent to which
the regime attempts to hide these weapons suggests that Saddam is really
unsure of his power and it is being forced underground. My guess is that he
is baiting the US with references to biological weapons in particular. No
man sure of his ego would have his picture pasted on every building in Iraq
and need to own dozens of palaces. The US needs to bring these pathologies
to the surface, into the daylight. From a psychological point of view the
US would be better off encouraging the development of these weapons and
letting American companies invest in these programs. Force, containment,
threats of war will simply repress and send Saddam’s urges underground.
This is a big mistake. Let him test his weapons in the clear light of days.
Obviously, he could gas the Kurds again but, after all, Americans have
stood by in the past when madmen destroyed their populations. Consider the
Jews and Armenians. Isn’t this worth the risk considering the alternative
could be a world war. I strong suggest the Bush administration give
psychology a chance.”
Dr. Stevens has proposed a Multicultural,. Multidisciplinary, Multilateral
conference for summer 2003. “After all,” he asks, “What’s the hurry? Only
14% of Americans can find Iraq on the map.”
But, as Doonesbury noted recently, “all 14% are Marines.”
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