Hans Across Iraq

Dear Mr. Blix,
Welcome to Iraq! It is so good of you and your Weapons Inspectors to visit my
humble nation once again. My people are overjoyed to assist the totally neutral
and gloriously impotent UN in serving their American Masters. I realize that
many of you would much rather be touring the Third World for some magnificently
ineffective do-nothing NGO, but alas you are here compromising your values on
behalf of Western oil companies.


Before you wipe the blood from your hands and get down to the business of
concocting reasons for the US to bomb us back to the stone ages of 1991, I
thought I�d help reorient you to the ways of magical Baghdad with a few �Dos�
and �Don�ts�.


DO:
Slavishly patronize Baghdad locals with chocolate bars and worthless Western
baubles. Nothing ingratiates us more to intrusive throngs of chubby, sweaty,
lobster-red warmongers then when they pass out meaningless tchotkes to us Third
World �savages�. We will remember these tokens as we dance on your bleached
bones. I joke!


DO:
Ignore my playful peoples penchant for recreational HAZMAT suit use. Moreover,
ignore the glowing, three-tailed rats that are indigenous to Baghdad. While
you�re at it, ignore the totally desolate warehouse full of rotting canisters at
the corner of Saddam Is Great Avenue and Drown In Blood Yankee Dogs Boulevard.


DO:
Feel free to enter any building, factory, or hospital you desire. And while
you�re busy violating my paranoid and fragile egos sovereignty, feel free to
double-check the bedpans of the dying, gut the teddy bears of orphans, and pour
into the dirt any and all bottles of weapons grade baby formula you might
uncover.


DON�T:
Forget your high-tech Weapons of Mass Destruction Poking Sticks or Nintendo
Gameboys at the hotel. We know that without these useless, aesthetic �tools� you
cannot unearth the make-believe stores of plutonium I don�t have hidden
underneath my opulent Presidential Palaces that my people willed me to build for
my own noble pleasures.


DON�T:
Ignore the cultural relativism we know you studied in your Liberal Arts
Colleges. We humble Iraqis have a far different culture than the advanced West.
Whereas you respect the differences between languages, cultures and value
systems, I want to kill. Kill you, your family, friends, grammar school
teachers, the Israelis, whole bunches of Saudis and just for good measure, my
new yet treacherous-looking barber Adnan.


DON�T:
Mock our cherished Iraqi way of life. While you might think it barbaric and
backward, our seemingly brutal governmental system is based on sound fascistic
principles that have helped keep the majority of Arabs in splendid desolate
squalor for decades.


I truly hope your stay here is a positive experience. I pray that those of you
I do not like do not accidentally get caught in the crossfire of the invasion
you are busy inventing!


In Me I Trust,
Saddam