It’s not often that I’m overtly political, since I figure I’m more likely to talk someone out of, say, their gender than I would be to talk them out of their political beliefs. I have yet to see a water cooler discussion about the war in Iraq change anyone’s mind about the entire affair, as if all Bob from Accounting really needed was for Dave from Sales to cast everything in a brand new light for him.

No, arguing about politics in mixed company is like telling off-color jokes — it’s not so much about winning converts as it is about identifying allies. Whether someone is nodding vigorously while you talk about the corruption of the Chretien government, or chuckling evilly after you tell that joke with the punchline that goes, “Yeah, right, ‘magic dildo’ my ass“, the overall effect is the same. Either process will quickly reveal who your friends are, who your enemies will be, and which people just happen to think the same way that you do.

So, I try not to sell people on such views here, since I have little interest in being absorbed into a broader political alignment, nor do I crave an audience of sneering detractors observing my every word as if tracking the movements of a retarded swan. And yet sometimes I am moved by events to at least try to explain what I feel needs decompression.

Something like this, for example:

Courtesy of LGF, the above image was taken by a group of 3rd US Infantry near the Baghdad Airport. A request was made for translation of the text in the sign, and since I had zero interest in paging through the hundreds of comments that appear whenever absolutely anything is posted on LGF, I can only assume a clear one wasn’t provided.

So, taking advantage of the fact that I just happen to be dating an Arabic-speaking person who is not coincidentally related to a whole family of Arabic-speaking people, I have taken it upon myself to provide at least a loose translation of the image.

  1. Surrounded by the state colors of Iraq, we find what was probably the state motto up until very recently: “God Keep Saddam and Iraq.” I can’t be sure, of course, but I assume these are listed in order of priority.
  2. Across the bottom, as more of a dedication, the extended message: “Mr. President, our glorious leader Saddam Hussein, may God keep him and bless him.”
  3. A pissed-off looking Infantryman, whose face is saying: “Yeah, this would be a whole lot fucking funnier if I found it at a garage sale or some shit in Macon, Georgia on a Sunday afternoon, and not on the side of a hangar out of from where guys were throwing grenades at us for the last three hours. ‘Great way to make money for college’, my ass.”
  4. A pleased, if disproportionate Saddam smokes a cigar while the World Trade Center towers are blown up. That’s just how happy he is about the whole business. Is he trying to imply, in his cigar-smoking happiness, that he had something to do with it? Is George Bush, when he makes a speech from the deck of an aircraft carrier, implying that he knows anything about the military? Heavens no — but if you make that connection on your own, well, they can’t stop you.
  5. The painting is signed and dated by the artist, because in a free and happy society like Iraq’s, why wouldn’t an artist be proud of free, unbiased and expressive artwork like this? Alas for conspiracy theorists, the year is actually 2002, and the Arabic beneath does not translate into “September 10th.”

So, say what you will about the fighting, believe what you will about the reports of quagmire, but take a long look at this picture, and another at the faces all around it. It’s impossible to imagine the state of mind that these people must be in, surging through the length of a country and seizing its capitol, only to find images like this one confronting them. And, for that matter, it’s very possible to understand why, after their most recent major skirmish, the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein had to be verified through dental records.

It is, finally, very easy to imagine faces like the ones above aiming their weapons and suggesting forcefully all kinds of other things the Husseins could smoke.