America. Mowing the lawns in Iraq

Back in January I was watching one of the American networks and the news host compared their invasion of Iraq to helping out a neighbor by mowing their lawns.
Now I like analogies, but helping a neighbor by mowing their lawns? What a load of bollocks. Here’s one I think is a little more accurate.

Some guy decides he doesn’t like the wasp nest on a property way over on the other side of town. He hates these wasps. Some say it is because one tried to sting his dad once. For years he’s been cutting off supplies to the property with the wasp nest. It hasn’t affected the head wasps at all but the people on the property have suffered. Now the man convinces his family and friends that the wasps from this nest could fly over and sting them in their own home. Some wasps have already done it. The fact they were a different kind of wasp from a completely different nest on a different property doesn’t matter. It is convenient for the man to lets his family think all wasps are related. To make his point about how dangerous this wasp nest is he produces ‘evidence,’ pictures and statements from men who say they know about wasps. It works, his family gets scared.

Now the man doesn’t sort out the wasp nest himself, he sends some people who work for him, in to do the job. Men with wasp nest fighting experience warn the man that he isn’t sending enough people to do the job but he ignores them. The wasp fighters fly in and smash the nest. They kill some of the boss wasps but lots of the other wasps fly away. Now there are wasps buzzing all over the property and the people who live there are getting stung a lot more than they were before. Wasps from other nests around town start coming to the property. Back when the wasp nest was there they couldn’t get in, but now any wasp can fly in and start stinging as much as they want. The men sent in to deal to the wasp nest find it a lot harder to fight the wasps when they are just flying around. They start to get stung more and more. Back at home the man’s family finds out they were lied to about the threat from the original wasp nest. They ask the man when he plans to bring the wasp fighters home. Some people argue that they got rid of the wasp’s nest, their job is done and the people on the property should clean up their own mess. The man says that what they need to do is actually send more wasp fighters over to deal with the new problem.

Simplistic bollocks that doesn’t come close to summing up the tragedy unfolding in Iraq? Probably. But a hell of a lot more accurate than making a comparison to helping a neighbor by mowing their lawns. Thanks for tuning in folks that’s all we have time for. Chad will be along with a weather update in just a moment.

Goodnight.