Just a few questions I have, this fine evening.
Like, can we go back to just being America, now? It's getting hard for me to remember what that was like.
Isn't the "WAR ON TERROR(tm)" over, now? Of course, we'll never defeat terror, because terror is a tactic; it's not like a blackberry bush with roots you can kill. But hey, we all knew, all along, that the "WAR ON TERROR" was a war against Osama bin Laden and his posse. Not a war against the encyclopedia entry on Terror. So why not just call it over now? We smoked him out! We got him dead or alive! Yay!
And can we stop taking over other countries, now? We don't need them. We don't need to "pacify" the entire Middle East. We don't need to occupy it. We're not fighting the Muslim world. We got the bastard we wanted. He's dead! Yay! And if they've got lots of oil we want, well, fuck 'em, we can just use something else, and make them poor, in the process.
Can we stop torturing people, too, now? Oh, I know, we had to get tough, go all Jack Bauer on the bad guys, the worst of the worst, as Dick Cheney used to call them. But we got Bin Laden! He's dead! What are we going to torture them for now, except just for the sheer thrill of torturing people? I hope we can give that up. I think it would be good for our self esteem. Let's stop torturing people.
And is it too much to hope for that we can go back to having just a little bit of our privacy back? Aw hell, let's get all of it back, all that we had, at least, before 9/11/01. Let's just wind back the clock. What do you need to listen to my phone calls and read my emails for, now? I can't be emailing Bin Laden, because that fucker is dead!
And can we stop calling other parties weak on terrorism? Since terror is a metaphor for Bin Laden, and since Bin Laden is dead (Yay!), can we just cut out all that shit?
And since he was killed by a man that was supposed to be a terrorist himself, can we at least agree now that presidents who kill Bin Laden are not terrorists themselves? Can we get past all that, now?
Here's an idea:
Let's bring all the troops home. Let's throw a big, big, fucking ticker tape parade, biggest ever. Kudos are due all around. Let's all get shit-faced and kiss girls on the street in Times Square that we don't know. We can call it Victory over Terror Day, and put it on the calendar. One more Monday we get off every year. Sweet.
So let's do all that. And then let's go back to being America again. Let's try.