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Copyright 2003 by All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or any part in any form.

"War," Shakespeare once wrote, "exceeds peace as far as day does night; it's sprightly, waking, audible,and full of vent." And with war comes many glorious side effects -- most notably, collateral damage.This term, a fairly modern one, was developed by our overly-conscientious American military complexto soften public resistance to the justified homicide of non-combatants -- those who are in the way ofachieving a desired and just military objective.

The term "collateral damage" came into vogue during the first Gulf War in the early 1990s. This wasthe first major conflict for the United States military since the Vietnam War, a war many generalsbelieve was lost not on the battlefield, but on television. They believed that if they had only understoodmarketing and public relations better, the outcome would have been quite different. For example, ifonly the "Massacre at Mai Lai" could have been called the "Inopportune Kinetic Targeting of the LocalPopulace at Mai Lai," the American public would have quickly forgiven and forgotten the honest

mistake of slaughtering over three hundred innocent men, women, and children.

The first Gulf War proved just how media savvy the military complex had become. Not only did theycome up with cute catch phrases such as "collateral damage" and "smart bombs," they also controlledthe flow of information to the media establishment by having former military officers appear ontelevision to properly dehumanize mass casualties. And they used the "new media" to anesthetize war --making it appear as a video game, something the average American could understand, appreciate, andeven empathize with.

And what was the outcome of these efforts? Not only did America win the war quickly -- restoring theduly unelected leader of Kuwait, and reestablishing the free and inexpensive flow of oil from the area --but the military was able to murder an estimated 35,000 civilians without protest from either theAmerican Left or the world community. It didn't even matter that half the dead were children -- they

were simply a Stalinian statistic.

Collateral damage in Iraq, of course, didn't end with the conclusion of hostilities. The United States hadto punish Saddam Hussein by killing -- according to United Nations estimates -- a half-million of hisIraqi children through the use of sanctions. When told of this number, former US secretary of stateMadeline Albright said that it was perfectly acceptable. And she was right. After all, many of thesechildren would eventually grow into soldiers, who would then hamper future military operations, plansof which were being developed as soon as the War ended. By destroying an entire generation of Iraqis,we were simply "decapitating" one of Hussein's greatest "assets."

The 1990s was truly a great time to be an American. The economy was thriving; and with the fall of theSoviet Union, we were able to freely police the world in fun places such as Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, andKosovo -- inflicting collateral damage whenever we felt the urge -- the right and the privilege of beingthe lone superpower. But then, something bad happened. Our enemies wrongfully came to theconclusion that they too could inflict collateral damage . . . on us. This conclusion, of course, waswholly illogical, as they had no sharp-talking generals, no fancy vocabulary, and no video games. Whatwas worse was that instead of inflicting collateral damage through the use of smart bombs, theirweapon of choice was suicide attackers -- a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, which clearlystates that the mass slaughter of human beings must be carried out exclusively through gentlemanlymeans.

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The attacks started out small -- mostly against our proxy in the Middle East, Israel. We condemned theattacks, but mostly ignored them. After all, they weren't killing Christians. But then came September 11,2001. The day we as Americans finally awoke to our innate superiority. Now we could finally inflictcollateral damage without any hesitation due to some misconceived notion of morality.

Afghanistan was our first target. They were superficially indirectly responsible for the attacks on

September 11; but more importantly, they were easy to attack. And besides, no one liked them anyway,not even the Iranians -- so there wouldn't be much of a fuss. Also, Americans were so mad, we didn'tcare whom we killed -- just as long as they were Muslim and sufficiently different from us. Again, wehad lots of generals on television showing us all sorts of fun new video games, and we easily crushedthe infidels.

However, according to the Boston Globe, we only killed approximately one thousand civilians, and farless than fifty percent of them were children. This was truly a troubling development. How could wepossibly teach these people a lesson -- thou shall not challenge the United States -- if we allowed somany of their civilians to remain alive? It's a mistake that has haunted us ever since, as the ungratefulAfghanis have consistently scorned the freedom we imposed on them; and instead of properly bowingto us in the streets, they constantly make petty demands on us for insignificant things such as food,water, and shelter. And that's only when they're not taking potshots at our brave soldiers, those who

have graciously sacrificed the comforts of home to teach these people blind subservience to theAmerican flag and to our great Christian god.

Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, we quickly got bored with Afghanistan; and as the president'spoll numbers started to slide when Americans selfishly became focused on mundane issues such asfeeding their families, a new enemy had to be found. But who? Why not our old friend SaddamHussein? He was still in power; and thanks to those crippling sanctions imposed on Iraq since the firstGulf War, they were the perfect enemy. Even though we had already killed much of their population,there were still many left, especially as Muslim populations have a tendency to rabbit-like increases.

Thus began the second Gulf War. However, as opposed to the first one, when the world was united toturn back a ruthless dictator who had unjustly overthrown another ruthless dictator, we didn't have aconvincing enough argument. Actually, we didn't have any argument -- despite the best efforts of all

the screenwriters working in the White House. So, it was up to us alone to inflict collateral damage. Butas the clich goes, "the more, the merrier."

Preliminary results of the War, though, are quite discouraging. There have been only a few thousandcivilian casualties; and again, a far lower percent of dead children. As the occupation progresses, wehave seen slight increases of both these numbers, but only slight. We can only come to the conclusionthat this great crusade, while done with the best of intentions, has, like in Afghanistan, come upsomewhat short.

The heart of the problem, I believe, is that we have a muddled policy regarding collateral damage, apolicy which we need to make far more succinct. I propose that instead of making collateral damage ahidden side benefit of our policy, it must become the cornerstone of it; and it must be taken to the nextlogical level. I call for the mass extermination of enemy populaces, a policy that will enrich us botheconomically and politically. It is a policy that we should not be ashamed to state openly.

By eliminating populaces, we will not only eliminate current and future enemies, but we will also gaincontrol over their natural resources -- whatever those resources may be -- resources that we should'vecontrolled all along considering we use them the most. We will also get what the Nazis called"Lebensraum" -- living space for us to breathe. Of course, the world may very well protest. But even ifthey do so sufficiently and with a loud enough voice, we could simply hand control of these resourcesto our not-so-secret proxies, the multinational corporations.

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Unfortunately, when we say "the mass extermination of enemy populaces," this conjures an ugly wordin the English language: genocide. It conjures Hitler, Pol Pot, and Edi Amin. These men lamentably tooka perfectly acceptable term, something that was practiced by heroic men from Biblical times onward(even God, in His infinite wisdom, practiced it on many occasions to teach us a much needed lesson)and bastardized it through their ignorance of the art of public relations.

Just as we invented the term "collateral damage," we must invent a term for genocide that the averageAmerican can accept and embrace. One possibility is "extreme collateral damage." Not only does itsignify collateral damage at a much higher level, but the adjective "extreme" has come to be understoodby our culture as something "cool." The term conjures not the brutal and senseless butchery of innocentpeople, but instead properly conjures Arnold Schwarzenegger's next film.

However, this term just doesn't seem creative enough -- it doesn't sound like something that wouldcome from the pen of one of those scribes from Madison Avenue. A better term, I think, is "aggregatedisappearance." It sounds scientific enough without sounding too sterile; there's a bit of mystery to it --and best of all it's accurate without being too accurate. People won't be murdered, there will be neitherblood nor cries of agony. People will just conveniently disappear.

So, where do we begin creating aggregate disappearances? One of the nations President Bush singled

out when he made his eloquent, Churchillian speech about the "Axis of Evil" was Iran. They are a goodchoice, because as with Iraq, they have one of the world's largest oil reserves, they are populated byheretics, and their name begins with the letter "I." Iran is the perfect training grounds for our littleexperiment in disappearing -- the final solution of a problem that's been nagging us for more thantwenty years.

The people of Iran, after decades of our unrelenting support for their benevolent tyrant, ShahMohammed Reza Pahlavi, which included restoring him to power by unselfishly overthrowing thedemocratically-elected government of Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, showed their appreciation by takingour embassy hostage, a clear violation of international conduct. And ever since, the Iranians have failedto show us the respect we deserve -- even after we helped Iraq develop chemical weapons that wereused so effectively against the Iranian population during their little war in the 1980s.

The plan against Iran should be concluded as follows. As we already have a large military deploymentin the Gulf region, it will not be difficult to turn our weapons toward Tehran and begin creatingdisappearances. This should be done without warning, in classic Blitzkrieg fashion, so as to precludeWestern journalists from witnessing it and putting a negative spin on the carnage.

The Second Gulf War conclusively proved our forces can overrun any country with the type of speedthat would envy even Hitler. Add to this our new policy of encouraging collateral damage, and it wouldnot be unreasonable to expect that the battle would last days, if not hours. And if the internationalcommunity complains or protests, we'll just say that it was a necessary preemptive strike againstterrorism and weapons of mass destruction. We can manufacture all the evidence they need.

After we've liberated Iran and eliminated most of its enemy populace, we will have control of its vast oilreserves; and in combination with the oil we already control in Iraq, we could easily break the OPECcartel and soon anticipate the return of ten-cent-a-gallon gasoline prices, which would spurunparalleled growth in our economy.

A question that will arise soon afterward, though, is what will we then do with the few remainingIranians and the places in Iran that do not contain oil. Using our history with Native Americans as aprecedence, we could create reservations for the locals, within which we'll encourage alcoholism so asto keep the population docile. We'll then bus them to work in the oil fields, in the Persian rug factories,in the fast food chains, and in the golf clubs that we'll build across the country. If they behave

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themselves, we might even let them build and operate a few casinos. Finally, we'll send over our bestfundamentalist Christian missionaries to make certain that all these poor souls will be saved.

Once we've fully cleansed Iran, we'll then free other countries. The next logical target would be thethird member of the infamous Axis of Evil, North Korea. However, North Korea has almost no naturalresources; and unlike the Middle Eastern nations, it might actually put up a fight. As such, it would

clearly be better to sublimate North Korea through diplomatic means -- meaning that we'll let theUnited Nations annoy it with sanctions until it starves to death.

The fourth unofficial member of the Axis, Syria, would seem to be a better candidate for disappearing.While it has only modest oil reserves, it has enormous amounts of natural gas deposits, which is perfectfor heating American homes cleanly and cheaply.

Our military is so strong that we may even be able to finish Syria and its citizenry at the same timewe're finishing Iran. And after Syria, it will be an easy task to wipe out the other oil producing states inthe region, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar. Most of these Gulf nations have so few people thatthey will hardly be missed.

This purging will leave only a few oil producing nations outside our control, most notably Nigeria and

Venezuela. Joyfully, both these nations are extremely unstable, and should acquiesce to theirpredestined fate without much enmity.

After we've taken control of almost all the world's oil reserves and have eliminated a considerableamount of the world's excess population, you might think that we as Americans will finally be able torest. But one of the things that have always made us great is our ability to think outside the box. Wealthand world domination is not secured solely through the control of energy. There are nations abundantin gold, diamonds, and rich farmland -- all waiting to be liberated by us.

Yes, the task before us is immense and will require a unity of thought amongst all Americans -- a unitythat must be achieved involuntarily if necessary. But, if done correctly and efficiently, our policy ofaggregate disappearance will not only be highly profitable, but will also be a whole lot of fun as well.

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