Tuesday 11 March 2008

Alternative Iraq

Psychological Construct

Awl-Terr-Nah-Tiv Ih-Rak

Diabolical, imaginary country not liberated by the Republicans, in which the daily horrors and atrocities are so vicious, extreme and barbaric that it makes the real misery of actually existing Iraqis look like a three-ring circus replete with clowns, jolly music and popcorn.

A hellish land existing entirely within a parallel universe, invoked to scold realists and pro-fascists for their maniacal desire to retrospectively subject Alternative Iraqis to hideous, agonising, and entirely fictional deaths for political purposes.

Details are sketchy, but one imagines that Alternative Iraq is a collossal inferno where the inhabitants are chained to ravenous bears and the tabouleh is booby-trapped with spring-loaded jars of pissed-off tarantulas and scorpions.

Further, it seems likely that the football pitches writhe with poisonous asps, the markets throng with troops of sexually enraged baboons and one cannot so much as bend over to pick up a coin in the street without being badly gored in the anus by a disgruntled rhinoceros.

"Given the horrific slaughter that has resulted from the invasion of Iraq, it would seem that it was unwise to trust the Republicans, and that the doctrine of liberal intervention must be subjected to a thoroughgoing and rigorous audit process to determine why it failed."

"You anti-imperialist lefties disgust me, with your blatant, cold-hearted disregard for the lives of Alternative Iraqis. However horribly the fascists, Ba-athists and jihadists have disfigured Iraq, there can be no doubt that it is better than what would have happened if we had not intervened."

Disambiguation - Alternative Iraq should not be confused with Iraq, a land existing in a parallel universe in which fictional Mesopotamian men of peace conduct an entirely non-sectarian conflict against a generalised concept of evil, as embodied by non-Iraqi terrorists, via the endeavours of selfless Republicans and a largely illusory Iraqi Army.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jolly good. Keep up the good work. How many parallel universes do we have now?

Could I suggest an encyclopedia entry on "Failed States"? Although the invasion has turned Iraq into a failed state (by all the definitions of the term) no "serious" commentator would say so. Meanwhile various Republicans have described Afghanistan under the Taliban and Pakistan pre-1999 as "failed states". Obviously this is a very useful rhetorcial prop that needs to be included in the dictionary.

Guano

ejh said...

Possibly too some coverage of the Decents' denunciation of the religious-inspired death cult and its anti-Chinese violence of the last week?

ejh said...

This might have served as a better illustration

StuartA said...

Details may be sketchy for lesser Decentists, but Christopher Hitchens has specific knowledge of what would have happened in Alternative Iraq.

Here he revealed that the Hussein family "were preparing the conditions for a Hobbesian state of affairs" by inciting sectarianism and — most shocking to liberal interventionist eyes — "looting and beggaring the country".

The state was, in fact, bound for "implosion", which "would have created a black hole, sucking in rival and neighboring powers, tempting them with opportunist interventions and encouraging them to find ethnic and confessional proxies". It's scarcely imaginable, but apparently, "[t]he place would certainly have become a playground for every kind of nihilist and fundamentalist."

Fortunately America non-opportunistically intervened and, without relying on ethnic and confessional proxies, ensured that "[a]ll of this was, only just, averted" — except in Fallujah, which, er, just goes to show what would have happened in Alternative Iraq.

Anyway, it's important to keep in mind that the invasion prevented looting, beggaring, regional power interventions and sectarian violence, among other horrors. Always remember that Iraq was only just prevented from becoming a playground for fundamentalists. And we also prevented terrorism, as evidenced by terrorism happening.