Report: Shock and Awe a Bargain

[This is part one in a special two-part series marking the 10th anniversary of Shock and Awe.]

Defending the US Department of Defense against mounting criticism over the enormous and growing price tag on the disappointing military adventure known historically as Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Self-Defense division of the DOD has issued a report presenting new evidence that at least with regard to the Shock and Awe feature of America's neutralizing of Saddam's neutralized WMDs, the American taxpayer is getting much more than his and her money's worth.

In a section of the report titled "Shocked and Odd", the analysts at Self-Defense painstakingly document the truly shocking assortment of horrible birth defects and neurological disorders and all the monstrosities that medical science has no names for yet that the white phosphorous and the depleted uranium and all the other toxic materials from America's Shock and Awe campaign have wrought in Iraq.

Said neocon and so-called chickenhawk William Kristol, "Fallujah's making post-war Hiroshima look like the white bread vanilla district of Normalsville, Utah. Seriously. We're talking about a multi-, multi-generational thalidomide situation on steroids. The really unsafe, cut-rate kind of steroids from Mexico.

"The beauty, though, is that in this instance American society doesn't incur the high cost of class action law suits."

Said neocon and so-called chickenhawk Richard Perle, "It's the gift to Iraqi freedom lovers that just keeps giving. Ten years on and the completely free-of-charge extra bonus echoes keep rippling out in all directions from the ground zero of our original Shock and Awe. In drone-speak it's sort of a double tap times who even knows what number of generations."

Said neocon and so-called chickenhawk Charles Krauthammer, "When the oil runs out over there in about 50 years they can transition into a circus freak show economy without missing a beat."

Said neocon and so-called chickenhawk Paul Wolfowitz, "Listen. If you want to shock and awe a country you have to break some eggs with respect to up-front costs. But now look at what you get for the price--in delivery rooms and nurseries and hospital dumpsters across Iraq you're looking at these shocking bundles of arms and legs and palates and spines and eyeballs that are everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.

"Into the very DNA of Shiites and Sunnis alike we've blasted the Shock and Awe of these blown-up looking little reminders of what you get when you make America think your leader's not really coming clean about your weapons of mass destruction.

"And you tell me, how much taxpayer money do you think we're saving by nipping more terrorism in the bud with each and every one of the miscarriages our Shock and Awe campaign is causing by probably the millions. And that's to say nothing of all the deadly and even just the debilitating cancers."

Added Wolfowitz, "And there's little or no truth whatsoever to the rumor that private military contractors are charging American taxpayers an annual fee for all the next generations of Shock and Awe given birth to by the reigning Mother of All Shock and Awe that is the centerpiece of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

"And in fact the toxic social climate that is a large part of Shock and Awe's fallout has now got Iraqis Shocking and Awing each other all on their own at absolutely no extra charge to America."