the Shackle Report

The weeks reading, straight off the razor wire:

WEDNESDAY

On the great strides the Saudis are making on their journey out of Medieval times:

JEDDAH, 18 December 2005 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah met yesterday with the participants of the 5th National Dialogue Forum “Us and Others”…

— “You vacuum, I’ll dust,” he said.

The United States had long been the nation of choice for wealthy Saudis to educate their children. Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to Washington and a graduate of Georgetown University, noted that two-thirds of his nation’s cabinet ministers had been educated in the United States. “We have a kind of umbilical relationship with American universities…

— …and with your airlines.”

He urged the students, most of them recent high school graduates, not to socialize only among themselves but to get to know Americans. “Learn the ways of American life,” he told them. “The American people are friendly and hospitable.”

— Travel to Baghdad, and you will see.

TUESDAY

And from the ongoing saga of Hurricane Katrina:

Ms. Pereira said she lost more than her mother and her home – she lost her “false sense of protection,” the notion that the government would be there to help in a crisis.

— Hang onto the “false” part…

MONDAY

From a US general re: the security situation in Iraq:

“A gun on every street corner, although visually appealing, provides only a short-term solution,” the general wrote in the journal, Military Review…

— And at this time of year, without a gun on every corner, it’s just not Christmas.

Maj. Gen. Thomas R. Turner II, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, said that within six months he expected Iraqis to lead [military] operations in about half of his division’s area of responsibility in north-central Iraq, an area the size of Louisiana.

— And, oh, the fun they’ll have in New Orleans.

— Scot Crawford

AS TRUE
AS IT GETS
AND AS LONG
AS YOU GET IT

NEW IRAQI MILITARY SCORES FIRST MAJOR VICTORY OVER US

Baghdad, Iraq — US officials have confirmed to the Weekly Whatever that the newly-trained Iraqi military has dealt the US its first major defeat in the War on Terror.

“It was a classic one-armed pincer move,” said US Army General Sebastian Yourefired. “It was like War 101, really, but they caught us napping, and their execution was flawless. You know how they say a battle plan never survives first contact with the enemy? Theirs did. They spanked us good.”

The battle, taking place at the first Dunkin’ Doughnuts franchise to venture outside the Green Zone and set up shop on a devastated corner in Fallujah, was a brief yet brutal demonstration of the Iraqi military’s newly acquired battlefield prowess.

“We kicked their bare, white asses, man!” shouted one elated Iraqi Colonel, a Sunni Arab recently allowed back into the Iraqi military when the US realized the Iraqis had none.

Preliminary reports indicate that not only were the US Marines crushed, but the vaunted US Air Force suffered defeat as the Iraqi Air Force batted American planes from the skies with diplomatic immunity.

Said one shaken, unidentified American pilot: “We gotta rethink this whole exporting democracy business, now.”