Self Proclaiming, and Laughing Our Way Out

THE SELF PROCLAIMED United States of America is engaged is a raging debate concerning who its enemies are, and what to call them. Among the suggestions are: Islamo-Nazis, Islamic terrorists, terrorists, the Islamic state, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the latter being preferred by President Obama. American conservatives like to include the word "Islamic", American liberals do not. The best solution might be to have a national referendum on the internet, and decide the matter once and for all. The problem is, there are so many enemies, and many of them are also enemies of each other. Never, in the long history of American involvement in warfare, has the republic been involved in so confusing an array of wars. Apparently the Taliban and Al Qaeda are not fond of each other, and the Islamic State seems to appreciate no one. One might be tempted to hope that our many enemies would simply destroy one another, and be done with it. Its enough to make one long for the good old days of Saddam Hussein. Even more interesting was the invasion of Afghanistan on Christmas Day 1979, by the self proclaimed Soviet Union, which, you might recall, no longer exists, but might soon again. The swinging congressperson Charlie Wilson of the self proclaimed state of Texas spoiled all the fun by convincing his congressional colleagues to arm the Taliban with hand held rocket launching helicopter downers, by which the self proclaimed Taliban summarily evicted the Russian army, remindful of previous evictions of French, English, and Macedonian armies. The american military is clinging to Kabul by a hair, but its still early, and five'll get you ten that another eviction is in the works. According to President Kennedy, who started all the coldness with Cuba which Obama is trying to curtail, "there are three things that are real: God, human folly, and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension; we must do what we can with the third." We may not be able to kill our way out of our many confusing wars, could we possibly laugh our way out?