Great things. We're winning the Iraqis' hearts and minds, and, apart from the odd criminal thug insurgent RUINING IT FOR EVERYONE ELSE, the country's just coming together wonderfully under our wise and benevolent guidance.
To make you feel good about all the nation building we're doing in Iraq, here are two uplifting videos from last week for your edification. (You've probably seen at least one of them by now.)
The first shows Coalition soldiers winning friends and influencing children so thirsty and desperate that they'll run blocks after them if they just dangle a bottle of water over the side before throwing it so that the one remaining child misses out entirely:
And here are Coalition soldiers helpfully teaching a taxi driver the difference between right and wrong by crushing his livelihood under the treads of their tank:
(Apparently those killjoys at the Pentagon are investigating the water bottle soldiers.)
Meanwhile, there were so many deaths in Iraq last week that one of the major US TV networks has taken what's apparently a major step and started calling it a "civil war".
Much to the disgust of White House spokesman Tony Snow:
I think the general notion is that a civil war is when people break up into clearly identifiable feuding sides clashing for supremacy within the land...
[Q: Is the situation in Iraq a civil war?]
In this particular case, no. What you do have is a number of different groups — you know, they’ve been described in some cases as rejectionists, in others as terrorists. In many cases, they are not groups that would naturally get along, either, but they severally and together pose a threat to the government.
I can see why they poached Tony from Fox News. He's just so convincing!
The Daily Show retort (click on the link for the video):
Jon Stewart: But getting back to the civil war in …
John Oliver: Uh buh buh buh buh buh – "The ongoing scuffle between sectarian insurgent groups".
Stewart: OK, but the...
Oliver: Hold on hold on -- "The internal sovereignty challenge", or, uh, "The faith-based melee".
Stewart: Alright.
Oliver: That’s a nice one.
Stewart: But why can’t we just say and call it a "civil war"?
Oliver: Because to American ears the phrase "civil war" conjures horrible jaw-dropping images of bloodshed panned across slowly by Ken Burns.
…
Stewart: 3000 Iraqis died just, just this month, arguing over what to call it seems like semantic quibbling.
Oliver: "Semantic quibbling"? Well, I wouldn’t call it that.
Stewart: What, what would you call it?
Oliver: "A minor linguistic flareup between two parties of differing terminological points of view".
"Semantic quibbling? Well, I wouldn't call it that." Gold.
Anyway, that's enough about Iraq. Let's tune out again for another twelve months. I'm sure nothing bad will happen just because we're not paying attention.
