Al-Ahram Weekly | Features | Operation fat chance

		26 Sept. - 2 October 2002 Issue No. 605 Features	Current issue Previous issue Site map
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Operation fat chance
Haim Bresheeth* continues his covert reporting from the Oval Room secret planning sessions, undeterred by vociferous reaction of the White House to his recent scoop report. How does he do it?

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(From top) President Bush with Dick Cheney discussing the situation in Iraq with Congressional leaders on 18 September (photos: Eric Draper); exposing double-speak: cartoon by Walt Handelsman
12.05 PM: Oval Room, Mass Media Administration Image -- Rectification sub-committee meeting
Present:
Dubya -- a President
Donnie -- a Secretary (of Defence)
Connie -- an Adviser
3 Aides
Connie: Mr President, Sir, I wish to remind you again why we are here today. We are not here to discuss the War Against Fat -- this topic was discussed on Tuesday, and you already clarified your position on this issue. We are here to discuss the implications of our forces shooting dead over 40 guests at a wedding in southern Afghanistan, and what can be done about the reporting of this kaffaffle!
Dubya: Well Donnie, this sure will take some working out. What the hell were we doing there?
Donnie: I beg to remind you, Dubya, I mean, Sir, that the United States is involved in a War Against Terror, even before it started the War Against Fat, and this war took us to Afghanistan, as you may remember.
Dubya: Yes...yes... I know that! Everyone knows that! But why Afghanistan? Aren't those terrorists Airab?
Donnie: Sir, Al-Qa'eda and its leader Bin Laden were based in Afghanistan, before we reduced it to rubble and camel turds, ha ha...!
Dubya: Speaking of which, whatever happened to that guy, Bin Laden? Haven't heard a pip-squeak about him in months? Is he still running the country or what?
Aide 1: Mr President, Sir! Beg to report that we have successfully removed the Taliban from office, and installed our own warlords instead. Mr Bin Laden is no longer in power!
Connie: Thank you very much, Charmaine, for this report! I have already told the President all this myself many times! The point is, Mr President, that we are not exactly sure where Mr Bin Laden is right now. There are some intelligence reports from various locations...
Aide 2: Mr President, may I report that the Agency has quite convincing information about Mr Bin Laden operating in Southern Pakistan as a travelling carpet salesman, and we are quite confident we are closing in on him. He has cheated three women in Islamabad, selling them some cheap klim as Afghans, and they were really furious...
Aide 3: May I contradict this report, Mr President, Sir! The Bureau is sure that Mr Bin Laden has been spotted in London, where he tried to gain entrance to a postgraduate programme in the School of Oriental and African Studies, but was rejected on account of low results on his first degree. One of our Agents has since spotted him in a bar in Marakesh, where he was drinking a Non- Alcoholic Harvey-Wallbanger...
Dubya: Non-Alcoholic Harvey-Wallbanger! And they doubt we have the best intelligence service in the world... So where is he now?
Donnie: Well, there was an unconfirmed report that a man fitting his description was trying to gain employment with the new XXXXX, set up by your command a month ago. But apparently he was rejected because he was too tall, and would stick out in a crowd.
Dubya: Excellent! Imagine him as a G-Man! So are we on to him?
Donnie: You bet your... yeah, sure we're on to him! We'll get him soon enough, Don't you worry your pretty little head... I mean, he is in the bag, Mr President, Sir!
Dubya: Now Donnie, you should watch your mouth more, you know, when talking to your President, that's all I am going to say!
Connie: He may be well advised, Mr President, to watch his mouth on other occasions too! Why was it necessary to say those silly things at the Press Conference about the killings at the wedding? Answer me that, Donnie dear!
Donnie: Hey, Dubya, did you hear how she talks to me? Since you made her an Advisor, she thinks she can talk down to god-fearing, conscientious secretaries of state!
Dubya: Now, children, that was not nice! Donnie -- she got a point, you know... Why where you doddering in that PC? You should have been more...
Donnie: Presidential?
Dubya: No, you silly! You should have been more...
Aide 1: Our European Allies did not like this shooting at all, Mr President! If we are in Afghanistan in order to restore order and democracy, then what are we doing going and shooting guests at...
Donnie: Who says anything about guests? Who knows they were indeed guests? I did not see their invitations to the wedding! Mr President -- none of the dead could present even the slimmest of documents inviting them to a wedding, let alone that wedding! The anti-American press has invented this ploy in order to needle us! Our people spent much time talking to the presumed guests in hospital, and let me assure you that they could not locate any signs of a wedding cake, there was no Champagne, and the happy couple did not have a limousine waiting. I ask you, Mr President, to be the judge here! What wedding are we talking about? Those guys shot at our planes, and they call it a wedding! I am not stupid, thank you very much!
Connie: Who am I to contradict the honoured secretary on this and other points, but we have it on good authority that those guys actually shoot at weddings regularly.
Dubya: Shooting at weddings? Who do they think they are, Texans? Who has given them the damn rifles, anyways?
Aide 3: It was our forces who had armed them to the teeth, Mr President! They are our allies in the War Against Terrorism! We must remember the overall picture, and the fact that we cannot choose our allies...
Dubya: Why can't we? I want to have the allies that I want to have, and nobody is going to tell me otherwise! I tell you, if we had proper allies there, we would have finished them all by now, and could concentrate on the War Against Fat!
Connie: Mr President, Sir! Sure you can choose your allies if you wish, but the real trick is to choose your enemies well, and worry about the allies later...
Dubya: Nobody here is going to tell me I haven't chosen my enemies well, not even you, Connie! I have chosen the best enemies that have been seen anywhere, and that's a fact!
Donnie: Sure, Dubya, you sure have the knack to choose them enemies well, like your dad!
Dubya: My dad? Who is talking about my dad here? Did he think up the War Against Fat? My dad has nothing to do with it!
Aide 3: Mr President, Sir! May I take this opportunity to convey a piece of disturbing news, which may jeopardise the said War Against Fat. We have received an angry communication from Mr Sharon in Jerusalem, clarifying that he will not, under any circumstances, assist us in the War Against Fat! He calls our efforts to date blatantly anti- Semitic! We are on our own here!
Dubya: What's wrong with that guy? He is the most difficult git to satisfy, ain't he? Why not partake in the War? What does he mean by anti- Semitic?
Connie: Mr President, I think he means that his own weight, being in the region of four hundred pounds, forbids him the pleasures of this specific War. I think you should make a corrective comment, making sure everyone knows you have nothing against Jewish Fat, and that the War Against Fat is only against non-Jews, and ideally against Moslem Fat. That way he may even join the Coalition Against Fat. I also think Donnie should come on television to say that we will conduct the most thorough investigation in Afghanistan, and make sure we learn all the facts before any judgements can be made. We have prepared a six-months long investigation, by which time we may start another war elsewhere, and the whole thing will be forgotten.
Dubya: Right, Connie, that sounds like good advice, as usual. You do that Donnie, make sure you look grave, and not your normal cheerful self, for a change! We all meet here next week for the long delayed report on Why the Rest of the World Does Not Like America. Everyone, be punctual. Down with Fat!
The investigation in Afghanistan has started, reports our Kabul correspondent, with in-depth interviews of the caterers who prepared the food for the said wedding. Even at this early stage, it is clear that various fattening foods were used, such as the hind-quarters of spring lamb, fatty chunks of beef cooked in olive oil, and much tahini besides. It clearly emerges as an enemy operation in the War Against Fat, and more such actions are now planned, to reduce fat amongst the Afghani population as soon as possible. In Jerusalem, over steak and eggs breakfast, Mr Sharon said he will consider joining the coalition, if the elections for the Palestinian leader will specify that candidates cannot weigh more that five pounds. This is now under active consideration in Washington.
* The writer, an Israeli academic and peace activist, lives in London. He is the co-editor of The Gulf War and The New World Order, Zed Books, and the co-author of Introduction to the Holocaust, Icon Books.

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