Ding Dong redux

“Ding, dong the witch is dead, the wicked witch, the witch is dead. Ding, dong the wicked witch is dead.”

Every American baby boomer who faithfully watched the annual rerun of The Wizard Of Oz every Easter weekend in the 1960s remembers this refrain sung by the Munchkins of Munchkinland upon the arrival of Dorothy, her dog Toto, and her Kansas farmhouse that landed on top of the Wicked Witch of the East. So began the Technicolor portion of the epic tale of Dorothy’s quest to return to her home, family, and friends by conquering the Wicked Witch’s more wicked sister.

Recently the wicked witch of Iraq (and some of his henchmen) was finally put to death for his crimes against his own citizens. America overthrew this evil despot in order to free ourselves from the fear that he would supply weapons of mass destruction to our enemies. Weapons never found. We then justified the continued risks to our men and women, their deaths and maiming and the burgeoning expense of billions of taxpayer dollars because he was an evil dictator who committed despicable acts of murder upon his repressed masses and was destabilizing the entire Middle East. Next, we justified our bungling efforts by declaring that America was delivering the freedom of democracy to the peoples of Iraq (our Democracy came from our own internal revolution, by the way).

Well, the witch is dead . . . let’s go home to Kansas, Toto!

Oh no. It’s not that easy. Now we must tolerate our President hocking his and his Veep’s “Gird Your Loins” plan to send more of our women and men, America’s mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers into the Land Of Oz. Messrs. Rove, Bush, and Cheney propose to us that although we have achieved our Primary Goal of having the evil dictator and his evil sons deposed and/or dead, achieved our Secondary Goal of freeing Iraq’s repressed, tortured populace by introducing a Westerner’s edition of a free democratic government duly elected by confidential ballot that now we have to pull from their homes, their children 20,000 plus of our neighbors (perhaps your family members) to quelch the sectarian civil war and destroy the jihadists funded by Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Syria. The reasoning we are expected to tolerate is that America has “broken it, so we own it.”

Mr. President, like a good used car salesman asks us to join him in supporting the “winning of the war on terrorism” by massing more American citizens in the very killing fields that we created in Iraq for those extremists who have twisted their faithfulness into a justification to live as serial murderers. The advisers of Mr. President and those in the Houses of the Senate and Congress who support this “surge” are the flying monkeys of Oz. You know, the monkeys that deliver us to the Wicked Witch of the West who seeks revenge for our arrival in her land when we dropped that house on her wicked sister. Only this time there are no magic slippers protecting us. Nor is there a simple bucket of water that can be tossed on the wicked creature to cause the evilness to shrink away.

I suggest that you call and email your Pennsylvania Senators and your local Congressperson, Mr. Platts here in York, to CLEARLY STATE THAT AS THEIR CONSTITUENTS YOU DO NOT SUPPORT AN INCREASE IN COMBAT FORCES SPECIFICALLY IN IRAQ ! ! ! !

Then relax and contemplate the words of the Scarecrow
in L. Frank Baum’s original fairytale novel:

“There is only one thing in the world I am afraid of.” “What is that?” asked Dorothy. “The Munchkin farmer who made you?”

“No,” answered the Scarecrow. “It’s a lighted match.”