Heat by Rob O’Neill

In the great post-war washup, folks, the neo-cons and rednecks are claiming a whitewash while the libs are cringing. Now I’m hanging with my man Mike - the jury is still out. But, you have to say the battle of the butchers is one that deserves some serious (see 9 April post) analysis.

It’s George vs Saddam time, folks. Who really did kill the most muslims? Welcome to the Middle-Eastern Despot Challenge! As an analyst by day, it’s my responsibility to break out the Excel spreadsheets, throw up few pivot tables and bring you the scorecard!

First we need a methodology. Which dead muslims do you credit to which butchers? Okay, here are the assumptions. Whoever invades takes the points for anybody who dies – civilian, military, whatever. The invader gets the points. In this context Saddam invaded Kuwait, so he scores big-time for Gulf War I. George invaded in Gulf War II, so he gets all the points for that. Saddam was Johnny on the Spot for Iran/Iraq I. That’s a huge slam-dunk!

But George only took up the challenge 22 days ago, while Saddam has been a contender for over 30 years. So, we need to work out who’s got the best kill rate. Hang with me folks, this is where it gets exciting: we’re going to work out who’s killed the most muslims per day!

Now, by my reckoning, the current undisputed heavyweight champion killed around 1.3 million muslims over 34 years in the game (this includes civilian, military, Kuwaiti and Iranian, Swamp Arabs, Marsh Arabs and Peat-Bog Arabs, Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, Jews and miscellaneous peace-time executions, but not including deaths attributable to sanctions). Quite a tally by any measure, it equates to 104.9 deaths per day.

The challenger, ladies and gentlemen, has killed 25,000 in 22 days (this includes civilian and military deaths of any nationality or persuasion but still based on very loose estimates). That’s 1,136 per day! A whitewash it is! If George had been in the game as long as Saddam, he’d have stolen this trophy every single year having killed over 14 million people in 34 years.

What a player! What a sportsman!

George, playing to the home crowd, has promised to stop killing muslims at this unprecedented rate, but we’ll just have to wait and see. The meter is running. If he delivers, there is still room for a new challenger to emerge in 2003. So don’t tune out just yet.

Now, you may want to know how Team Bush trained for the Middle-Eastern Despot Challenge. How did they get their lilywhite asses into such great shape? Here’s the answer.

Meanwhile, George is totally magnanimous in victory and full of admiration for his talented (10 April post) opponents.

Oh what a day! What an event this has been! All the folks out there must be hoping they won’t have to wait a decade for another rematch.

Absolutely everything, here in the Lucky Country. The big news in Sydney, once you get past the war coverage, is the Federal Government’s report on Soccer Australia and the rolling of George Piggins from Souths. It will never cease to amaze me how the politics of sports here can be as big as the politics of, well, politics.

An Australian team loses to New Zealand and what happens? They launch a federal enquiry. Sure, soccer is a mess over here, but if it were New Zealand it would just be allowed to go on being a mess. The government would never get involved.

The single biggest story of last year? The Bulldogs scandal. It won a coveted Walkley journalism award ahead of children overboard. Not just that, only in Australia would a breach of some arcane sporting salary cap rule lead all the way up to the cabinet of government and blossom into a political and business scandal with allegations of corruption and nepotism.

During Souths' battle to get back into the League you had to see the street marches to believe them. Red and Green all down George St, the Rabbitohs came in their thousands to reinstate the perrennial losers to their rightful position at the bottom of the table.

Of course that’s the hard news. What do you get when in the mood for a bit of tabloid trash? You get more sport! This time in the form of one-time AFL king Wayne Carey shagging his team-mates missuses. When Girlie first arrived here she was engrossed in the Carey case. And it’s a case that goes on and on with endless variations and developments. You just don’t find that kind of relentless sensationalism back home.

As the league season heads into full swing, the anthem of the year is a remake of the Hudu Gurus' classic “What’s my scene?” – this time round it’s “That’s my team!”. Unfortunately my team, if I have one, is Souths, so there’s not a lot to shout about. Despite living in the zone I can’t bring myself to support Wests Tigers.

Anyway, to my inbox. SallyS has revived God’s breakfast issue, suggesting firstly that “God eats whatever he wants for breakfast - he is eating what we all wish we could be if we didn't have to worry about cholesterol, fat bums, indigestion, liver failure etc. Bloody marys, honey bacon pancakes, all those sugary cereals, cold pizza.....” On second thoughts, she suggests, maybe he just has Mary for breakfast.

ChrisB suggests wearing trousers ‘neath my bottomless chaps was cheating. I replied I was building up to a great denouement, or maybe detrowment. He then coined the term “enchapment”, which presumably has a matching “dechapment”. I might have to take that one up to Taylor Square for a road test.

StephenS has also been out acoining. He asks if I think the term “blog-standard” will catch on.

It won’t, Stephen, but thanks for the effort.

And finally a quotable quote from a man called Hemingway. They’ve just discovered some new letters between The Man and Marlene Dietrich, in one of which he writes:

"I've been in love (truly) with five women, the Spanish Republic and the 4th Infantry Division.”

Oh yeah, that reminds me, the war’s over.

The war is boring. I was just talking to a journalist on the media beat, and it is so. After the first few obsessive days, viewers are tuning out and turning off.

It’s back to situation normal: reality TV, sitcoms, soaps. The ratings are soaring. In the words of a popular song, the war was “so five minutes ago.”

It’s hard to pick when this happened and it probably happened at different times and for different reasons with different people. Some aren’t interested. Some don’t want to know – it’s all too nasty. Most are just bored, they’ve moved on.

It’s so five minutes ago.

The troops are getting close to Baghdad and the inevitable result. Sure, there were hiccups along the way, but nothing too serious. That’s one powerful war machine out there.

In the timeless fertile valley between the Tigris and the Euphrates the troops are cleaning up. The shadow “civilian” administration is already ensconced in a hotel nearby, ready for a sudden collapse in resistance. It's a collapse that could come at any moment.

Most of the farmers in the valley have moved on, temporarily at least. It’s not the first war that’s been fought through there, far from it, and farmers have a long collective memory. They have a memory stretching back hundreds of years. Thousands of years.

Their stories are told, sometimes sung, around a fire or in a rough café after hard days in the fields. In this valley it is still, as it once was for farmers everywhere.

It’s been a good year in the fertile valley between the Tigris and the Euphrates. The tomatoes are ready. They’re fat and they’re juicy. The cucumbers are growing big. But you can’t pick them too soon. You have to be patient.

Farmer Bakhat Hassan started harvesting his crop two weeks ago. His was going to be a good crop too. It needed to be.

But the war kept getting closer and closer and eventually the family had to leave. Hassan’s father put on his best suit “to look American”. They had to leave some of their crop in the ground, but maybe they could get back soon and harvest that too.

Near Najaf bullets ripped their vehicle apart. Lamea, Hassan’s wife, saw the heads of her two girls ripped off by gunfire. Ten of the fifteen people in the old Toyota died instantly. Hassan’s father died later.

Hassan and Lamea survived. They went back later, to bury their family before the dogs arrived. The soldiers gave them 10 body bags and offered some cash as compensation.

Maybe that was one of the stories that made people tune out. We always knew it was going to happen. It happened again two days later to the family of Razek al-Kazem al-Khafaj, fifteen in all, after their utility was rocketed near Baghdad. It has happened in the working class markets of Baghdad too. It has happened in every war fought across and through the fertile valley between the Tigris and the Euphrates. It has happened in every war ever fought.

But the war is boring. It’s official. We’re tuning out.

And the family of Hassan and Lamea Bakhat and the family of Razek al-Kazem al-Khafaj? Well, they were so five minutes ago.

Girlie thinks I’m gay.

I went to a fancy dress party, western theme, on Saturday night after hirin’ me some kit. Breakin' out my old jeans and cowboy boots, which haven’t seen the light in over a year, I donned a battered Akubra, gun ‘n holster, and - the gay bit - some white “bottomless” chaps from the costume shop.

At the party there were a lot of cowboys and they all looked about as gay as me. Even the Indians looked gay. The confederate soldier didn’t look gay at all and neither did the saloon girls. Or the Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. Or the Mexican bandito. But the cowboys all looked gay.

Guns were hung straight down in front – not the way a true ‘slinger would but, well, suggestively.

You know.

We eyed each-other’s gunbarrels. Our shirts were a bit too silky. Some shirts didn’t have sleeves at all. Biceps flexed, those cowpokes looked even more gay than the rest. One guy was dressed as a bar flossy (I kept saying “Why hello liddle lady”, pushing the brim of my hat up with the barrel of my gun), but even he didn’t look as gay as the cowboys.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. I want to make that perfectly clear. I’m not homophobic. Some of my best friends are gay.

At least they seem that way to me.

Gay or not, Girlie doesn’t like being seen out with me. When we go to the movies we have to go where none of her friends hang out – which is great as that means Oxford St where I can hang out with my gay … Sorry … where we can watch arthouse movies.

We see a lot of arthouse movies.

When we go to the beach we can’t go somewhere even vaguely handy like Bondi or Coogee or even Manly. We have to go all the way to Palm Beach. So, Sunday lunchtime she descends from her room and asks if we can go to the beach. She wants to get a tan before winter sets in.

Still feeling a bit fragile, it seems like a good way to chill, so off we go.

“Which beach, Girlie?”

“Palm Beach.”

What a surprise.

“What about Avalon?”

“Avalon’s gay.”

Now when Girlie says gay she means naff. So she’s not homophobic either. I’d like to make that perfectly clear too.

The word has taken on yet another meaning among the teen set. Once it meant happy. Then, for twenty years, gay meant gay. And now it can mean gay or naff, depending on the circles you travel in.

When I was a kid, bachelors were gay. Caballeros like Manolita Montoya were gay, or at least they laughed a lot which was the same thing. Gay was a christian name too. Cowboys, though, were rarely gay.

Anyway, I hope I’ve made myself clear. (Cue theme music) Yeehah! It's time to saddle on up. I’ve got my pistol in my pocket and I’m off to the Rodeoooo!

Just a short update: The war has barely started and an Iraq version of Command and Conquer is already available! Apparently the SNAGs (sensitive, new-age Germans) have banned it from shop shelves

It's a War on Terror edition, unfortunately, but it could keep your kids happy while they wait for the full Gulf War II version, which should be out in a couple of weeks.

CNet reports: “The game, Command & Conquer Generals, depicts an animated siege of Baghdad, with the United States military battling a fictional terrorist group called the Global Liberation Army, which bombs the city with missiles carrying anthrax, killing civilians.”

Even in C&C Retaliation, the version I have, you get all these civilians running around in the middle of the battles, trying to do pointless stuff like farming. If you don’t pay attention your troops start wandering off to massacre them, so I guess it’s pretty realistic.

But in the real world close supervision won’t help. According to the SMH “They [US troops] have new orders to treat Iraqi civilians, including women and children, as hostile until proven otherwise.”

Art imitating life in the cause of democracy, truth, justice and the American way.

Also in a new development the US has stopped reporting it's own casualties, according to the NY Times.

"General Brooks declined to comment on the number of United States casualties in the war and explicitly said the military would not provide numbers. 'As a matter of practice, we just aren't going to announce numbers of casualties.' "

They were reporting these casualties relatively freely early on (when they thought it was all going to be over in a week,) so you can rest assured they have now taken some hits. The Iraqis are promising to show the destruction of 12 US tanks and armoured vehicles on TV.