You’ve been watching blanket coverage of the war on Iraq. Admit it. The exploding bombs of the war make Independence Day look like Piglet’s Big Adventure. Or, maybe watching a screen full of red dust just turns you on. Either way, you’ve set up a tasty and nutritious intravenous drip to ensure that you don’t have to spend any time away from blanket coverage of the war on your television set.
But, how informed do you think watching the fifth retired General in a row give yet another description of what he knows in his heart to be going on in the desert makes you? Do you really know what’s going on?
To answer that question, fill out the following questionnaire. And, as always, do not send completed questionnaires back to us! Like many loyal Americans, we’re proud of our ignorance.
1) Why did the United States declare war on Iraq?
a) To protect itself against imaginary weapons of mass destruction.
b) To bring peace to the Middle East at the point of a gun.
c) To depose a homicidal madman now that he’s no longer useful to the United States.
d) To bring democracy to the Middle East through foreign military occupation.
e) To take Americans’ attention away from unfair Oscar races.
f) To piss off the French.
g) To repel a future Martian invasion.
h) All of the above (at one time or another).
2) What is Hungary’s contribution to the war effort?
a) Cheap wine.
b) The 12th Grenadier Tenor Brigade.
c) Moral support (but still not enough moral authority, darn it).
d) Hungary is making a contribution to the war effort?
3) Is Baghdad really green?
a) Only at night.
b) Only on St. Patrick’s Day. (It’s a big holiday in Iraq. Really…)
c) Only on your television set. (I would get that looked at if I were you…)
d) Yes. It’s another trick by Saddam, that tricky bastard.
4) How could Donald Rumsfeld claim that the “shock and awe” carpet bombing of Baghdad was accomplished with a humane selection of targets with a straight face?
a) He is irony deficient.
b) At the rate the United States is creating martyrs, heaven is going to run out of virgins really soon.
c) American MOAB bombs have “precision” stenciled on their sides, so you know they’re only going to kill bad people.
d) He’s on psychotropic drugs.
5) Where are Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction?
a) They fell behind the radiator where nobody can reach them.
b) A basement in Topeka, Kansas.
c) President Bush’s fevered imagination.
6) What is the Mogadishu line?
a) The number of American soldiers who can get killed by enemy fire before a majority of American civilians will demand an end to the war. (Not to be confused with the Alfred E. Neuman line, which is the number of American soldiers who can get killed by friendly fire before a majority of American civilians will demand an end to the war, a number which is, for some inexplicable reason, substantially higher.)
b) The way they dance in Somalia.
c) “Hey, Joe. Wanna go back to my place and talk about ethnic cleansing, yes?”
d) What will be appearing on the runways of Milan and Paris next summer.
7) If a bombed building falls in Iraq, killing dozens of civilian occupants, and no journalist is there to record it, did dozens of innocent people really die?
a) Yes.
b) No.
c) Don’t you think it’s time to stop using this hoary old cliché to make your political points?
8) How credible is President Bush’s claim that post-war Iraq will not only become a democracy, but be the example all other Middle Eastern Arab states will follow?
a) Sell the farm, ma, I’m movin’ ta Riyadh!
b) I’d bet the house on it, but I’m already mortgaged up to the eyeballs – you see, I was advised to invest in the stock market, and, uhh, anyway, I’m a little short right now…
c) The President is eager to apply the lessons he learned in the failed democratic experiment in Afghanistan.
d) About as credible as Burt Reynolds’ hairpiece.
9) Don Cherry supports the war on Iraq. Who cares?
a) The Trailer Park Boys.
b) His dog Blue.
c) Hey! Don’t be making fun of Don Cherry – he’s a freakin’ Canadian icon, fer Chrissake!
10) How credible is Turkey’s claim that any additional troops it sends into northern Iraq will be there to “avert a humanitarian catastrophe?”
a) You’ve got to hand it to the Turks because…well, frankly, they’ll take it if you don’t.
b) Is that an Abrams tank in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?
c) Uhh, remember what I said earlier about Burt Reynolds’ hairpiece?
11) What’s the difference between “weapons of mass destruction” and “weapons of mass terrorism?”
a) It depends. By weapon of mass terrorism, do you mean the Bob Hope Hundredth Birthday Special?
b) I don’t know. What’s the difference between David Duchovny and 11 reams of off-white 24 bond paper?
c) Members of the Project for the New American Century can take credit for coining the phrase “weapons of mass terrorism.” Maybe some day they’ll give us a credible definition of what the term means.
d) Another six months of war and one to five million dead.
12) Why is it against the Geneva Convention for an Arab TV station to run footage of American prisoners of war, but okay for an American TV station to run footage of Arab prisoners of war?
a) Because the moon is in Capricorn.
b) Humiliation? Hell, I thought it was every American’s dream to get on TV!
c) Because Ari Fleischer says it is.
13) What is the proper response to anti-war protests?
a) They’re throwing rocks to protest against dropping bombs?
b) They’re throwing rocks to protest against dropping bombs!
c) They’re just a bunch of aging hippies trying to relive the happiest moments of their lives.
d) To join them.
14) How should Iran respond to the three American missiles that accidentally fell on its soil?
a) By singing “Accidents Will Happen” with the children from Thomas the Train Engine.
b) By seeing the glass as half full: at least the bombs didn’t hit a busfull of civilians, as one did, killing five Syrians fleeing Iraq and injuring 17 others.
c) By threatening to make rude gestures at American airplanes if they don’t stop flying over Iran without the government’s permission.
d) There goes the neighbourhood!
15) Support in Britain and the United States for the war increased dramatically after it started. How long can it last?
a) Until the beer runs out.
b) Until the next Royals scandal.
c) Until the “aah” factor (tripped by images of dead and wounded children) brings them to their senses.
16) Stockwell Day wants Canada to expel Iraq’s last diplomat in Ottawa in order to “further diminish Saddam…demoralize his lieutenants, and raise the possibility of defections and maybe an early surrender.” What is a proper response to such a statement?
a) Tears for a Parliamentary system gone terribly, terribly wrong.
b) Setting up a “Save the Deluded Fools Fund,” and naming Day Honourary Chairman.
c) Who is Stockwell Day and why does anybody listen to him?
17) What is the best reason for a country to join the “coalition of the willing?”
a) For the cool t-shirts.
b) So the American Ambassador to the country won’t say mean things about it behind its back.
c) So that CompAtlanta Inc. will take the country off its list of bidders it refuses to honour for its products on eBay.
d) To experience the sandstorms and hundred degree plus heat of Iraq, the hot spot of the Millennium!
e) Because Alberta says you should.
18) Why did the US spend $250,000 to build a set in which to hold press briefings on the war?
a) The army suffers from CNN envy.
b) It wanted to bring out the blue in Tommy Franks’ eyes.
c) Flip charts are so 90s.
d) To highlight its new line of designer military gear, which will be available at the Gap in time for the beach.
19) Now that Al-Jazeera has been banned from reporting from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, how will the Arab oil sheiks get their financial news?
a) Wasn’t Al-Jazeera a wrestler in the 80s?
b) What is the New York Stock Exchange?
c) Carrier pigeons.
d) Allah will provide.
20) Liberal Senator Laurier LaPierre was accused of saying, “Screw the Americans.” He claims he said “So did the Americans.” What should reactionaries trying to paint the Liberal Party as a hotbed of anti-American sentiment do?
a) Get the wax out of their ears.
b) Get the cotton out of their heads.
c) Get out of their offices and listen to their constituents: most Canadians do not want the country to be part of this war!