July 27, 2003
It's very difficult keeping up with Mideast news due to the Orwellian language coming from Washington. So here's a handy list of key terms in Iraqspeak, translated into simple English.
Liberation - Invasion.
Coalition - The US and British invaders, plus some troops from rent-a-nations like Romania and Poland. In the past, `the coalition' would have been called Imperial Forces and mercenary auxiliaries.
Dictator - A ruler you don't like, or who does not cooperate.
Statesman - A cooperative dictator.
Stability - when things go the way Uncle Sam likes, ie the status quo.
Instability - when things don't go the way Uncle Sam wants, when trouble-makers try to change the status quo.
Iraq Reconstruction - a process whereby big firms that contribute to the president's re-election campaign obtain contracts, without any bidding, to rebuild the damage caused by US bombing.
Freeing Iraq's oil assets - Washington's seizure and sale of Iraqi oil, which in no way can be compared to Cuba's seizure and sale of US-owned property, a dastardly crime.
Mideast Democracy - regimes that hold rigged elections and obey Washington's orders.
Free trade - pouring goods and services into the newly `liberated' country, and buying up its key industrial assets at fire-sale prices.
Terrorism - violent acts by dangerous fanatics and malcontents who refuse to accept the downtrodden status assigned to them by the Pax Americana. Also, haters of western culture, which has reached its zenith in Crawford, Texas.
Anti-terrorism - State terrorism.
Uranium - a yellowish mineral from Niger that causes red faces in the White House.
Iraq Administrator - A pro-consul or gauleiter, disguised as a minor suburban bureaucrat.
Drones of death - Iraqi remotely piloted aircraft that President George Bush claimed were poised to fly off Iraqi ships lurking in the North Atlantic - shades of Admiral Yamamoto - then shower fiendish germs on a sleeping America. Turned out to be two model airplanes, only one of which could fly. See `vans of death.'
Vans of death - Claimed by Washington to be Iraqi mobile germ warfare laboratories, but turned out, on inspection, to be British-supplied trucks for inflating weather balloons.
Weapons of Mass Destruction - Nasty weapons, existing or non-existing, that the other side has. When your side has them, they become invisible.
Torture - a foul act committed by your enemies. When your side does it, it's called intensive interrogation in Guantanamo.
Homeland security - bolting the bar door after the horse has escaped by rounding up Muslims, beating them in prison, and denying them due process of law.
French - Insubordinate ingrates and depraved chain-smokers who had the nerve to try to block the jolly little war in Iraq, and now sneer, `we told you so.'
Germans - Untrustworthy. Just when you order them to be warlike again, they go soft. Wait until they see the next dozen WWII epics from Hollywood.
Canadians - Pot-smoking, pinko, wimpish nancy boys who would rather marry their best buddy than go off on a jolly little war.
Fox News - The Ministry of Truth. .
Al-Jazeera News - All the bad news we don't want to hear. See Fox News.
Die-hards and Saddam loyalists - Any Iraqis opposing the invasion of their country. Iraq `Administrator' Bremer calls them `professional killers.' Not to be confused with US Army professional soldiers, who are… stability engineers.
Traitors and friends of Saddam - Journalists who questioned the Bush Administration's lurid claims over Iraq's purported threat.
Moderate - A Mideastern ruler who toes the line and makes nice to Israel.
Peacekeepers - Troops from browbeaten or bribed vassal states sent to perform garrison duty in US-occupied nations that the Pentagon wants to avoid, or lacks the troops to do.
New Iraqi government - An august body that leaps to its feet and salaams when a US soldier enters the room, and has total authority over garbage collection, sewers, and camel catching.
Saddam Hussein - A former close American ally who got too big for his britches. If not assassinated, may soon be needed again to run Iraq for Washington.
Uday and Qusay - Most dictators have problem sons, just look at poor Ceausescu and Milosevic. Yes, Saddam's boys were big-time delinquents, but Crazy Uday's real crime was making fun in his newspaper of George W Bush, and calling the touchy president a draft-dodging wimp. That's why he and Qusay got the blasted with a score of dozen anti-tank missiles rather than a nice show trial in Baghdad. Texas justice.
Panama's Gen Noriega, aka `pineapple face,' called the more forgiving Papa Bush a wimp and got invaded and thrown into prison forever.
Iraq (pronounced in the USA ) Eye-Raq - A democracy-seeking Arab state that volunteered for mentoring and tutelage from Washington in exchange for American automobile drivers keeping their tanks full of cheap gas.
Foreign Correspondent
