ASK DR. SCHUND
                    (C)1998 Alan M. Schwartz

Dr. Schund, are we impotent bureaucratic fools or are we really 
sticking it to Saddam Hussein and Iraq?

Rumors of a total international trade embargo imposed on Iraq 
only negatively impact a million score Arabs and Kurds living in 
14th century filth, violently oppressed, diseased, uneducated, 
undernourished, sweating, and otherwise obliged to Allah for 
their good fortune re salvation from the Great Satan.  A few 
thousand of Saddam's chosen henchmen run the black market and all 
else of real or potential value in Iraq, rendering Swiss banking 
gnomes joyous in ways cuckoo clocks and milk chocolate cannot 
achieve.  Windows of US political serendipity like anthrax 
bombing of London are being palpated in biennial Presidential 
advisory committee meetings.  Some wag wondered, "what if they do 
it to us!" and Foggy Bottom dropped its breakfast croissant (then 
reassigned the wag to youth winter cultural exchanges between 
Uyo, Nigeria and Tuktoyaktuk, Canada).

The US promptly launched full military emergency focus group 
studies, ascertaining to a recursive statistical nicety that no 
segment of American society, Arab emigres to the American Civil 
Liberties Union, would hesitate to transform the entire Middle 
East into a vast array of green glass caldera.  Several think 
tank CEOs then retired to enjoy their vast wealth in the Virginia 
countryside hard by retired generals' homesteads.  A minority 
group janitor given a racially-unbiased promotion was assigned to 
do something or other, allotted a $23 million budget, and sternly 
admonished not to exceed it by half.

Six of MbweBwe Poswilly's (early 1800s honky in the woodpile) 
seven sons were in their third freshman years at Harvard, Yale, 
Chicago, Princeton, Stanford, and Oxford.  !Kung Poswilly, the 
white sheep of the brood (via his wife), studied chemistry under 
F. Albert Cotton at Texas A&M.  Hiring his entire extended family 
as Federal contractors, MbweBwe fatefully included !Kung, a 
perpetual embarrassment for studying instead of demanding his 
rights and standing stud for bored faculty wives ripped on Prozac 
and fine scotch.  Slow but not stupid, !Kung seized the moment to 
sell a sweetheart deal to Detroit for Top Secret/Lotus Eater 
weaponization of limousines.

No Arab nation (or American Civil Service doyen) is so stupid as 
to consider emissions controls for its elite vehicles.  When a 
man of power cleanses his soiled anus with his left forefinger, 
stands, adjusts his djellaba, and retires to a vehicle waiting at 
the roadside, he will confront 30 feet of sleek American 
automotive hegemony glistening in the unforgiving sunlight.  
VROOOOM! and a billowing cloud of blue exhaust are the stuff of 
wet dreams worldwide.  !Kung added two hundred pounds of nickel 
shavings to the exhaust train, exercised a hastily granted car 
dealership license for a day, and retired to Virginia.  The CIA 
took up the slack.

Saddam and his minions possess outrageous numbers of posh 
vehicles, all now quietly retrofitted with !Kung canisters.  
Copious carbon monoxide in hot exhaust progressively reacts with 
nickel to spew out the tailpipe into intractable Arabian traffic 
jams volatile nickel tetracarbonyl (43 C boiling point) which 
then progressively poisons the urban populace, thereafter 
oxidizing in air to harmlessness and indetectability.

Allergic sensitization, dermatitis, asthma, and pneumonitis are 
scything Iraqi raghead society.  As per international custom and 
wont, gentry in the cars are isolated from their toxic exhaust.  
Despotic rulers Idi Amin to Congresscritters are careful not to 
hurt each other as such, for it smacks of lower class 
pretensions, fistfights to going postal.

How the progressive poisoning of urban populations negatively 
impacts a despotic ruling clique burdened with too many destitute 
civilians is left as an exercise for the alert reader, or a 
sophomore political science class weekend homework assignment.  
Like the 37-year Cuban trade embargo, American stratagem and 
tactic against Iraq are hovering at the bleeding edge of total 
victory.  It says so in the instruction booklet, all the 
portentously complex computer models agree to three decimal 
places, and empirical reality had better get its act together to 
meet expectations.

While America wielded a leaden hand in a faux fur glove Saddam 
Hussein was tearing out the Great Satan's guts, and at bargain 
basement prices.  Each time he sent a telegram to the UN telling 
them to get stuffed the US responded with a $100 million military 
show of force.  A few $million dollars quietly redirected by Iraq 
into Environmentalist coffers had 270 million Americans hamstrung 
by caterwauling vegetarians' snit and EPA jackbooted State 
compassion to the tune of $1 trillion (with a "t") annually. 

As 1998 drew to a close America had Saddam Hussein right where he 
wanted us.