Good news, I suppose. Iraqi forces, with help from US soldiers, raided an insurgent hideout and killed about 80 of the bad guys.
They almost did it on their own, the Iraqis.
This means that it's working, whatever is it we're doing over there, principally to build an Iraqi army, from scratch.
At this rate, Iraq is getting close to realizing George Bush's dream of standing upright on its own two feet.
When will we know that Iraq is all fixed and ready to go it alone? When it joins up with the rest of the Arab world and finds the leisure to blame Israel for everything.
(Trust me. All this is coming.)
Then, it will be official that Iraq is ready to mix and match with the Family of Nations.
When the Iraqi people turn violently against Israel, and go marching for a "contiguous" Palestinian Arab terror state, we will know we've succeeded, and that our investment in lives and money, some $300 billion, wasn't a waste. That is our exit strategy. President George W. Bush can then say, "Our troops are ready to come home."
Or perhaps such words will come from Condoleezza Rice, who has already expressed her grief over Israel's plan to extend itself over its own land, like Ma'aleh Adumim. Iraq may; Israel may not. Israel's government is likely to cave in, as it usually does. Ms. Rice, of course, wears two hats, as Secretary of State of the United States and of Israel.
(Ms. Rice is said to be very angry at Israel. But the Saudis, who brought us 9/11 and 3,000 dead Americans, have escaped such scorn.)
When Iraq zooms up the price of its oil, and also threatens to invade Israel (as it has many times before), and denounces the US at the UN, wow, that will be a sure sign that Iraq has matured and come of age - and may even win a spot on some UN panel devoted to human rights, along with Libya.
But enough of this cynicism. Let's move on to other cynicism.
So, anyway, it says here that a man convicted of murder, Scott Peterson, is already receiving hundreds of love letters from jailhouse groupies. This includes marriage proposals. Peterson just moved into San Quentin's death row, and here they come. He is not alone. Virtually all murderers, especially those doing time, attract admiring women; and the bigger the crime, the bigger the attraction. Many have fan clubs.
What does this say? It says that there is something about evil that attracts people, not just women.
Some people, mostly men, watch the History Channel just to watch (admire?) the Nazis. They'd never admit it, but come on.
Just the other day, in New York, an editor expressed interest in a very controversial novel I've written, tentatively titled The Uriah Deadline, but I expect that to change, at least I hope so. She asked, this editor did, if I'd mind a swastika on the cover. Of course I'd mind, hysterically so.
That's too bad, she said, because, almost more than anything else, that's what sells - a swastika on the cover.
(There won't be a sale here, anyway, but for other reasons, like my refusal to go soft on a jihadist character.)
More than 10 years ago, I was having lunch with the editor who was bringing out my novel Indecent Proposal. For the first time, I was going to see the cover, over which I had no say, as per company policy and publisher's prerogative. The editor saved the surprise when coffee came around. Then she whipped the cover from a manila envelope and placed it on the table with fanfare.
She kept smiling and waiting for me to kvell. I was prepared to do that before, not now, for what is this? This was the devil, a rendering of the devil, on the cover.
I said, "Oh no!"
The editor was disappointed, "What's the problem?"
I said, "My novel has nothing to do with the devil. Nothing. Unless," I added, "you mean the billionaire sheikh who makes the million dollar offer."
She protested, "But it is about temptation."
Well, too late for the hard cover, but later corrected for the paperbacks that accompanied the movie, both featuring Robert Redford.
Before we parted from this lunch, however, more than a decade ago, the editor said, "Books with the devil on the cover do well. People love this stuff."
Yes, we do. So, I am tempted to call all this the Rachel Corrie Syndrome. She was that International Solidarity Movement devotee who met her Israeli bulldozer en route to preserving the inalienable right of jihadists to murder Israelis. Members of the ISM - and they number in the thousands, worldwide - just love those terrorists, just as jailhouse groupies love murderers like Scott Peterson.
Maybe scientists can explain this touch of evil that manifests itself perhaps genetically, but I don't think so. Scientists, the New York Times tells us, are startled to find plants that fix their own defective genes. This news is big, as it even calls into question what amounts to scientific orthodoxy - evolution. Maybe our grandparents weren't apes, after all.
Errol Flynn, in his memoir My Wicked, Wicked Ways, writes that after he was charged with rape, women flung themselves at him as never before, and before wasn't so bad, either. Again, I suggest the Rachel Corrie Syndrome. Or perhaps, and better yet, the ISM Syndrome; i.e., universal rules of attraction that draw fans by the multitude to the thrill of evil.
Both Norman Mailer (The Executioner's Song) and Truman Capote (In Cold Blood) wrote about murderers - and not entirely without sympathy for the murderers. Almost every movie of the week is about a murder, and why? Okay, part of it is for the suspense, but as I said before, come on. We know there's a certain amount of glorification going on for the murderer.
Maybe that's why the world loved Yasser Arafat so much, and so often takes the side of this generation of suicide bombers.
Today, David Hatuel lives without his wife and four daughters. They were murdered by an Arab terrorist who shot them at point-blank range. Hatuel's wife, Tali, was eight months pregnant at the time of her murder. Hatuel's remaining asset is property, his home in Gush Katif, which is to be demolished or handed over to his murderers. The world insists on this.
The world loves wickedness. Wickedness (not love) makes the world go round. Is this what I'm suggesting? Yes, quite.
They almost did it on their own, the Iraqis.
This means that it's working, whatever is it we're doing over there, principally to build an Iraqi army, from scratch.
At this rate, Iraq is getting close to realizing George Bush's dream of standing upright on its own two feet.
When will we know that Iraq is all fixed and ready to go it alone? When it joins up with the rest of the Arab world and finds the leisure to blame Israel for everything.
(Trust me. All this is coming.)
Then, it will be official that Iraq is ready to mix and match with the Family of Nations.
When the Iraqi people turn violently against Israel, and go marching for a "contiguous" Palestinian Arab terror state, we will know we've succeeded, and that our investment in lives and money, some $300 billion, wasn't a waste. That is our exit strategy. President George W. Bush can then say, "Our troops are ready to come home."
Or perhaps such words will come from Condoleezza Rice, who has already expressed her grief over Israel's plan to extend itself over its own land, like Ma'aleh Adumim. Iraq may; Israel may not. Israel's government is likely to cave in, as it usually does. Ms. Rice, of course, wears two hats, as Secretary of State of the United States and of Israel.
(Ms. Rice is said to be very angry at Israel. But the Saudis, who brought us 9/11 and 3,000 dead Americans, have escaped such scorn.)
When Iraq zooms up the price of its oil, and also threatens to invade Israel (as it has many times before), and denounces the US at the UN, wow, that will be a sure sign that Iraq has matured and come of age - and may even win a spot on some UN panel devoted to human rights, along with Libya.
But enough of this cynicism. Let's move on to other cynicism.
So, anyway, it says here that a man convicted of murder, Scott Peterson, is already receiving hundreds of love letters from jailhouse groupies. This includes marriage proposals. Peterson just moved into San Quentin's death row, and here they come. He is not alone. Virtually all murderers, especially those doing time, attract admiring women; and the bigger the crime, the bigger the attraction. Many have fan clubs.
What does this say? It says that there is something about evil that attracts people, not just women.
Some people, mostly men, watch the History Channel just to watch (admire?) the Nazis. They'd never admit it, but come on.
Just the other day, in New York, an editor expressed interest in a very controversial novel I've written, tentatively titled The Uriah Deadline, but I expect that to change, at least I hope so. She asked, this editor did, if I'd mind a swastika on the cover. Of course I'd mind, hysterically so.
That's too bad, she said, because, almost more than anything else, that's what sells - a swastika on the cover.
(There won't be a sale here, anyway, but for other reasons, like my refusal to go soft on a jihadist character.)
More than 10 years ago, I was having lunch with the editor who was bringing out my novel Indecent Proposal. For the first time, I was going to see the cover, over which I had no say, as per company policy and publisher's prerogative. The editor saved the surprise when coffee came around. Then she whipped the cover from a manila envelope and placed it on the table with fanfare.
She kept smiling and waiting for me to kvell. I was prepared to do that before, not now, for what is this? This was the devil, a rendering of the devil, on the cover.
I said, "Oh no!"
The editor was disappointed, "What's the problem?"
I said, "My novel has nothing to do with the devil. Nothing. Unless," I added, "you mean the billionaire sheikh who makes the million dollar offer."
She protested, "But it is about temptation."
Well, too late for the hard cover, but later corrected for the paperbacks that accompanied the movie, both featuring Robert Redford.
Before we parted from this lunch, however, more than a decade ago, the editor said, "Books with the devil on the cover do well. People love this stuff."
Yes, we do. So, I am tempted to call all this the Rachel Corrie Syndrome. She was that International Solidarity Movement devotee who met her Israeli bulldozer en route to preserving the inalienable right of jihadists to murder Israelis. Members of the ISM - and they number in the thousands, worldwide - just love those terrorists, just as jailhouse groupies love murderers like Scott Peterson.
Maybe scientists can explain this touch of evil that manifests itself perhaps genetically, but I don't think so. Scientists, the New York Times tells us, are startled to find plants that fix their own defective genes. This news is big, as it even calls into question what amounts to scientific orthodoxy - evolution. Maybe our grandparents weren't apes, after all.
Errol Flynn, in his memoir My Wicked, Wicked Ways, writes that after he was charged with rape, women flung themselves at him as never before, and before wasn't so bad, either. Again, I suggest the Rachel Corrie Syndrome. Or perhaps, and better yet, the ISM Syndrome; i.e., universal rules of attraction that draw fans by the multitude to the thrill of evil.
Both Norman Mailer (The Executioner's Song) and Truman Capote (In Cold Blood) wrote about murderers - and not entirely without sympathy for the murderers. Almost every movie of the week is about a murder, and why? Okay, part of it is for the suspense, but as I said before, come on. We know there's a certain amount of glorification going on for the murderer.
Maybe that's why the world loved Yasser Arafat so much, and so often takes the side of this generation of suicide bombers.
Today, David Hatuel lives without his wife and four daughters. They were murdered by an Arab terrorist who shot them at point-blank range. Hatuel's wife, Tali, was eight months pregnant at the time of her murder. Hatuel's remaining asset is property, his home in Gush Katif, which is to be demolished or handed over to his murderers. The world insists on this.
The world loves wickedness. Wickedness (not love) makes the world go round. Is this what I'm suggesting? Yes, quite.