Bush
Awards Congressional Medal
To IBC Czar- A satire
By E.B. Patton
08 October, 2007
Dissident Voice
WASHINGTON (AEP)
– President Bush announced today he was awarding Iraq Body Count
(IBC) co-founder John Sloboda the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Bush said, “It’s
very important to every person in America that we continue to minimize
the true costs of the Iraq War. Mr. Sloboda has done important work
in this regard, by giving us tolerable Iraqi casualty figures to promote,
instead of the Godless crap you see in the Lancet or Opinion Business
Research. Every single one of the American people owes Mr. Sloboda a
debt of gratitude, which is why I’m awarding him this medal.”
In October 2004, the British
medical journal Lancet published a study in which lead author Les Roberts
estimated 100,000 excess civilian deaths in Iraq as a result of the
Western military presence there. In October 2006, Roberts and the Lancet
updated the estimate to 655,000.
In September 2007, Opinion
Research Business (ORB), an independent polling agency based in London,
estimated 1.2 million excess Iraqi deaths. This estimate was based on
a random survey of around 1500 Iraqi adults, who were asked how many
in their household had died as a result of violence instead of natural
causes.
By comparison, in September
2004, IBC estimated around 13,000 Iraqi deaths. In October 2006, IBC
estimated around 48,000 deaths. As of August 2007, IBC’s estimate
was around 74,000 deaths. IBC collects their data by counting the number
of Iraqi civilian deaths reported by media outlets.
Said Bush, “The biggest
fear big people like myself have is that the U.S. public will successfully
organize a movement capable of overthrowing capitalism – the system
that sustains and enriches suits like myself. Now, us important people
never know what’s going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s
back. Will it be health care? New Orleans? Global warming? Or maybe
Iraq?
“But thanks to God-fearing,
freedom-loving Americans like John Sloboda, we can make Iraq seem like
nothing more than a family spat.”
John Sloboda is British.
Leading Democrats were completely
livid upon hearing today’s announcement by Bush. Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, “This is totally outrageous. Who
does Bush think he is? He can’t award a Congressional Medal of
Honor to someone who’s never served in the U.S. military. God
I hope the House impeaches Bush!”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-CA) said, “Up to now, I’ve told [House Judiciary Committee
Chairman] John Conyers to back off Bush – it would be bad politics
to impeach Bush now when we’re so close to getting Hillary in
the White House. But this latest move by Bush has me very concerned.
Therefore, beginning immediately, I am going to instruct Chairman Conyers
to form a committee to take Bush’s impeachment under advisement.
“If that doesn’t
scare Bush,” Pelosi added, “nothing will.”
Democratic presidential candidate
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) said, “This almost makes me mad enough
to leave the Democratic party. But hell, if I haven’t left by
now, then by God, I’m never going to.”
Sloboda was grateful upon
hearing news of the award: “Frankly, anything that keeps the spotlight
on me and off of those gutter trolls over at Media Lens is a good thing.
I’m happy to do my part to help the Western war effort –
the Nuremberg Principles and the Geneva Conventions be damned! Hell,
who’s going to hang any of us?”
Media Lens is a small British
media-watch project run by David Cromwell and David Edwards. They have
done extensive work detailing British media’s preference for IBC’s
lower Iraqi-death estimates over the higher estimates of the Lancet
or ORB.
When asked about Media Lens’s
work, Bush said, “I was going to hit them the same time as Al
Jazeera, but Tony Blair talked me out of it.”
Sloboda said, “Certainly,
the U.S. and Britain have made mistakes in Iraq. Western foreign policy
is always just a series of mistakes, random errors, or confusions. It’s
never systematic, rational policy made by powerful rich men who know
what they want and don’t care how many people they have to kill
in order to get it. And it is never a war crime. Anyone who tells you
differently is a whack-job.” Sloboda then left his office for
the remainder of the day; his nose kept knocking his flat-panel computer
monitor over, making it impossible for him to work.
Bush said, “My favorite
thing about Sloboda is that he’s a scientist. His work is scientifically
sound – not like that hack Les Roberts. What does Roberts know?
Does Roberts drive a cab or something by day, and pretend to do science
by night while taking correspondence courses? Who does Roberts think
he is anyway?”
Roberts is an epidemiologist
at Columbia University, with a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from
Johns Hopkins University. Sloboda is an academician whose field is music
psychology.
Speaking on condition of
anonymity, an Administration official said the White House hoped to
be able to convince Sloboda to start an “Iran Body Count”
website within the next few months: “Not that, um, we’re
going to need it or anything, you know. I mean, we just want to have
it just in case, that’s all.”
The next few months could
be critical for the Bush administration. With his poll numbers sagging,
Bush may hope that a little music psychology to soothe the “great
beast” (Alexander Hamilton’s description of the U.S. population)
might be just what the President ordered.
E. B. Patton
is a reporter for the Cincinnati-based AEP, and can be reached via e-mail
at: [email protected].
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights
Comment
Policy
Digg
it! And spread the word!
Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands
of people more. You just Digg it, and it will appear in the home page
of Digg.com and thousands more will read it. Digg is nothing but an
vote, the article with most votes will go to the top of the page. So,
as you read just give a digg and help thousands more to read this article.