Here’s what happened today: the Iraqi Parliament unanimously voted to lift parliamentary immunity from Mithal Alusi (liberal and secular Sunni MP for Baghdad, head of the Iraqi Nation Party) over his attendance at last week’s Counter-Terrorism Conference in Hezliyah, Israel. (...) I can’t help but chuckle as I write this: Alusi is a bad-ass, and these folks, especially the Islamists, don’t realize that they are falling into his trap. The Minister of State for National Security, Abdel-Karim al-‘Anizi, made the mistake of calling Alusi an Israeli agent today, only to get Alusi to retort that al-‘Anizi is an Iranian spy; Alusi then proceeded to beat-up al-‘Anizi. |
The blogghista is a proudly wingnutty fan of Team Aggression, naturally. But there are hundreds or thousands of thousands of those, no big deal. What stands out with Neocomrade I. Chuckle here is that he should think it progress when the ‘parliament’ of the International Zone neorégime starts behaving like the Habsburg Reichsrat in the 1890’s:
| To say that the Badeni Ordinances were fought tooth and nail in the Reichsrat is almost literally true: sometimes punches were thrown, sometimes inkpots. |
’Tis a pity that inkpots have gone the way of all flesh: M. al-Alúsí, that stout Little Friend of Hyperzion, could, no doubt, clobber insensitive locals and natives with a keyboard or notebook computer, or hurl an iPod at them, but it is not the same thing.
What one’s inner barbarian really longs for is vast expanses of spotless cotton broadcloth drippin’ with Rorschachian black. A scheme of local colour that might well be dubbed Manichæan! (Did you know, Mr. Bones, that the Rev. Mani started out a barefoot boy from -- more or less -- Baghdád? Kinda emblematic, that is!)
After that swell beginnin’ the crude fun begins to fall off, admittedly. I. Chuckle pretends to be personally acquanted with M. Alúsí, for whom he supplies a considerable oration after the manner of Thucydides. This ventriloquised passage is funny-peculiar throughout, but funny-haha only rather subtly, apart from one passage where Charlie McCarthy sounds like B. Hussein Obáma on the occasion of taking a wrong turn into an opium den:
| I am not honored to be in such company in the parliament. Half of them are working for the Iranians or the terrorists, and the other half is distracted by money. (...) There are tens of ex-ministers and officials who stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the Iraqi state, and parliament passes a law to give them amnesty because they are all from the same political parties. I have to serve the voters who elected me, but really I am uncomfortable being in the company of many of these parliamentarians. |
Unhonoured and discomfortable he may feel, yet Charlie is runnin’ for reëlection. What do personal revulsions matter, when one has a former ‘Iráq to save? Charlie proposes to hold his nose and lecture his constituents along the following lines:
| America doesn’t have the confidence to deter Iran from building a nuclear weapon. The Americans are even preventing Israel from saving itself. Iraqis and Israelis are the two nations that will suffer the most from a radical Iranian leadership that can threaten us with nuclear weapons. Thus, Iraq and Israel must find a strategy to counter this threat. Time is running out. |
Exactly which of the spear-won neosubjects of AEI and GOP and DoD and EiB and . . . are going to rally to that banner I cannot tell thee, Mr. Bones. Perhaps I. Chuckle wants us to suppose that the neosubjects will disagree with every word Charlie McCarthy utters, but admire his positively McCainiac mugwumpery in venturin’ to say such things to a hostile mob. Or maybe the hostile mob is supposed to send "M. Alúsí" back to ‘Parliament’ to keep him away from the neighborhood -- in defense of property values, as it were. The prudent village keeps its idiot well out of sight.
The Anti-Safavid Pact of Steel™ is not Master Charlie’s sole campaign plank, though. It appears that he is also against corruption and incompetence:
| I want to tell the Iraqi voter: don’t vote for me if you don’t find me convincing. But use your vote as a protest against all these parties in parliament and government. Tell them that they are fired. Fired for failing at every level in managing this country. They are trying to distract the voter with issues such as Israel and Kirkuk. They are terrified by elections because they know that the Iraqi people will punish them for failure. |
That tripe and baloney is so similar to everyday fare here in the holy Homeland that one feels a little embarrassed. Like Obama-Biden, like Commanderissimo J. Sidney McCain and Governess Harry S. Palindrome, Charlie McCarthy and "M. al-Alúsí" and Neocomrade I. Chuckle are all for CHANGE: "Just vote NO!" (Much good that is likely to do!)
The idea of AEI-GOP-DoD neosubjects punishing their politicians for failure is funny-haha in the extreme, actually, but one requires a little familiarity with the attested course of human events to enjoy the fun.
But let us join in the fun too, Mr. Bones! Suppose that theeself had the misfortune to live under the Yoke of Crawford, with the Yoke of Sedona loomin’ large on the horizon. Charlie McCarthy is caused to say that he does not want thee to vote for him unless thee find him convincing, which obviously no decent political grown-up could do. Falling back on Plan B, then, thee are to "use [thee’s] vote as a protest against all these parties in parliament and government."
Easier said than done, is it not? Or no, that’s wrong. It is easy enough: we could place ourselves in technical compliance by pulling the lever for any native pol whatsoever who is affiliated with None Of The Above. Since Charlie does not say that it matters which native pol we pick (if we don’t pick himself), we should try to act fully in the ventriloquist’s dummy’s spirit by choosing our preferred native pol in consultation with a table of random numbers. Perhaps sortes Vergilianae or fál-e Háfez would do as well, although on the other hand, perhaps they would not, since das Unbewusste might know something about ex-Iraqi politics that we don’t and sneak it past us when the oracle gets interpreted. Some strictly random procedure would be best, no doubt.
OK, so it is possible to give "M. al-Alúsí" and Neocomrade I. Chuckle what they asks for. Whether it is advisable to do so is a different question. If we madly suppose that everybody else complies fully with the Alusian Spirit of Tripe and Baloney, what do we get? Presumably something like the late Neocomrade Buckley Minor’s government of "the first two hundred names in the Manhattan telephone diectory."
Why on Gore’s green earth Chuckle and "al-Alúsí" should suppose that we would want that, who can say? But then, why should Cap’n M’Cain and Governess Nilap suppose that the holy Homeland wants the Buckley Plan? Something funny-peculiar is goin’ on over at Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh, no doubt about it! Neocomrade I. Chuckle is determined to export ‘tychocracy’ to the GOP’s semiconquered provinces of the former ‘Iráq, and that strikes me as a splendid idea -- provided that its being over there means an absence of it closer to home.
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The sternly unfunny side of Neocomrade I. Chuckle emerges only in his UPDATE:
| It is interesting to look through the comments section on Al-Arabiya TV's web coverage on the Alusi story. One would think that it would be cram full of Arab nationalists denouncing Mithal as a Zionist spy; on the contrary, the response is predominately supportive. The catch line [sic] is that Alusi was punished for speaking out against Iran, not for visiting Israel. |
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