A big turkey and all his stuffing

Jack Piatt
Piattology

So good ole George W. took a surprise trip to Iraq during Thanksgiving. Well how sweet of little Georgie, or should we call him Curious George Σ curious about what all the fuss is about in the Middle East. Maybe we should all be curious as to his true intentions. Could it be the obvious dissent from the troops along with a nearing election had anything to do with his little Turkey Day appearance?

No way! George cares, he wouldn't leave American troops in Iraq to play hide and seek with angry people who are trying their best to kill them. Seriously, why would little Dubya leave all those soldiers and Marines over there to get picked off one by one if he didn't have a real good reason? Supposedly these troops were scheduled to come home some time ago, yet they remain. Despite the administration's agenda, little has been done in the way of progress, and the morale of the troops left the desert along with the point a long time ago.

These troops are ready to come home. They have family and friends and lives to think about. They aren't defending our freedom over there; they are defending their lives and the pride and personal plans of a government that uses the military like a chess board with expendable pawns, using people with personalities as cannon fodder. These men and women have been lied to. They've been treated like animals, carted around from place to place and left to graze on their thoughts and fears.

The military didn't need its president to pay a surprise visit to the troops on Thanksgiving Day; what those troops needed was a ride home. Iraq is not the only country in the world with severe problems and political unrest. The Iraqi people are not the only ones experiencing tyranny and terror. It is unfair and unjustified for a president and his government to pick and choose which countries they will help and which ones they will ignore. This becomes even more unsettling when our own country has so many problems of its own.

Even though it was a very strategic political move on the president's part to fly to Iraq and show his support and attention to the troops, it won't fool everyone. Those with enough common sense will see through the political haze and reject the pills we are coaxed to swallow. Intent in the end is the purveyor of truth, and when intentions are mixed with personal gain and lack the substance of true concern and heart, the truth begins to rise above the verbal pollution floating heavily in the air.

If our caring and concerned president really did give a damn about our men and women overseas, then they would have been home for Thanksgiving with their families and George W. probably would have choked on some turkey out at the ranch. Instead his main concerns are oil, winning the next election and what those pesky old Democrats are up to.

Don't be fooled by the propaganda of political-savvy masterminds who find harmony in the heat of chaos. It is a machine, a vicious cycle that swallows everything in its path like a hungry hurricane bent on devastation. Nothing good comes from the flag of power and war. Its weapon is not a tank or a bomb, but the control of the people who allow the cycle to continue. We have become a voiceless mass of people who are spectators instead of decision makers. We fill the stands of the coliseum as the lions tear the flesh of men who fight desperately for the right to continue breathing, as we look on with powerless confusion Σ helpless and enslaved to a life we signed away with the acceptance of modern reality.

Piattology appears every Wednesday. Jack is a senior in advertising. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Egyptian.

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