The Coalition

On September 11, Muhammed came to the mountain. 
Now the whole world (almost) is at war against
one single man. Here's what happened in between).
(If you believe everything else that's been 
happening, you'll believe this).

By Sam Orbaum

"Mr. Arafat? This is the White House.
President Bush would like to speak to you."

"I accept the charges," the Palestinian leader said.

"Uh, no need, sir, we have funds for this."

The American leader got on. "Yasser?
George. Listen, I've been putting together
this coalition of enlightened, peace-loving
nations to, y'know, put the kibosh on this
terrorism thing, and I thought if'd be great
if you'd join us, waddaya say?

Very funny, Arafat thought, rolling his
eyes. Probably one of teh guys over at Hamas
horsing around. After all, he reminded himself,
they don't call me the George Washington of 
Terrorism for nothing. He'd started it all, pedected it,
glorified it. Terrorism was Arafat's greatest contribution 
to mankind, and the ultimate consequence was September 11. 
(Why, he wondered, hadn't the Americans come up with
a name for it?)

Arafat couldn't believe that some prankster thought he'd
fall for this. "Yes, Bushy, yes! You will give us your atom
bombs and we will drop them on the evil terrorists! Ha ha!"

There was a momentary pause at the other end. "Uh, yes, 
we were anticipating such a request. I, we would, uh, probably
have to cooidinate this y'know. Let there be no mistake, 
I'm not necessarily saying no at this point in time. So, can I 
put you down as a 'yes' "?

Arafat suddenly remembered, no one over at Hamas had a sense 
of humor. In fact, nobody be knew did. This couldn't be a 
joke - but even more certainly, it couldn't be for reaL

Then it hit him: It must be a trick! A conspiracy! A plot! 
(Because really, everything is, right?) The thing to do, he
realized, was to play along, and trip up this American dog, 
and prove that this Arab is no fool.

(One must understand the difference between the Middle East 
and the West. Over here, black is white and white is black, 
but for every intrigue there is suspicion of deception cloaked 
in subterfuge, so that white returns to black and black returns 
to white and vice versa again, by the end of which, black is
probably both black and white, and white is likely both black 
and white, and neither. In the West, there is only white. 
Black is called something else.)

"Mr. President, I'm afraid I couldn't possibly say yes unless 
you also invite the Syrians." The Syrians! Ho ho! That's a
good one!

"We already have. They said yes."

Arafat was startled. "Really?"

"No doubt about it. Make no mistake, Syria is very committed to
world peace and the war against terrorism at this point in time."

"Did you specify Arab terrorism?"

"Why no, of course not, far be it from me to stereotype the 
Muslim people in this odious manner, I — "

"George,they think you want to bomb the settlers."

"Oh."

Now he was really suspicious. If Syria and the Palestinians 
were going to lead the war against world terrorism, then who
were they going to fight against? On the other hand, Syria was 
about to join the UN Security Council, and Arafat did have
have his Nobel Peace Prize. Perhaps, this was a brilliant plan 
to avoid a world war, by having all your enemies on your side.
Which brings up ...

It was a stupid question, but Arafat couldn't stop himself. 
"And what about Iran?" Like, what, his terrorists were going 
to fight their terrorists?

"In like Flynn. Said they couldn't just standby while 
countries were sponsoring terrorism and all that. 
Make no mistake about it, they told me, they abhor the
death to Americans at this point in time."

"Uh, This is the country that chants 'Death to America' three 
times a day."

"They were misquoted. Anyway, strictly speaking, 'Death to 
America' doesn't mean they support death to Americans.
Just like your people dancing in the streets didn't mean you 
were actually happy about our misfortune. Look, I know we've
had our differences with the Iranians, but I really got the 
feeling they don't want to be on the other side."

"Well, who is on the other side? Only Afghanistan?"

"No, no, we have no irrefutable proof yet. We're merely 
99.99 percent sure, and besides, you can't say that all the
Afghanistan folks are bad, which is why we want to ascertain 
who, if anyone, is individually to blame, and then, by God,
we'll smoke them out of their holes, if we can find the 
aforemendoned holes and be absolutely sure there aren't any 
innocent bystanders nearby who might be unfairly harmed. 
In addition, we're in the process of delivering American aid 
to the suffering folks of Afghanistan, so how would it look
if first we fed them, then we killed them?"

Arafat fell off his chair. "You're what?."'

"We brook no prejudice and harbor no grudge. They're human 
beings, no different from you or me. The American Civil Rights 
covers all the folks of the world. That's why we're giving 
them food and money."

Maybe this really was a practical joke.

"Food - and money?! I don't get it, Mr. President! 
"They're preparing for war with you and you're giving them 
money?!"

"This was exactly what Arafat was demanding of his own enemy.

"Oh, sure, tens of nuUions. But make no mistake, we gave them 
specific instructions to use the money to buy more food. 
You don't suppose they would - y'know, it never occurred to me."

"So, uh, is Afghanistan going to be in your coalition?"

"We asked them. Y'know, this is a world war against world 
terrorism, and we want to make sure everyone is on our side. 
So we gave those folks a chance to join us against that one 
man who is personally responsible for all evil. We asked the 
folks of Afghanistan to cooperate and end world terrorism by 
handing over this man. They said sure, no problem, but then 
they lost him. Well, unplaced him. Even as we speak, they're 
smoking out all the holes in Afghanistan looking for him. 
In the meantime, we've taken grievous steps against him."

Arafat was wide-eyed with excitement "What? You kidnapped his 
family? 
Car-bombed his headquarters? 
Poisoned his water supplies? 
Tell me, tell me!"

"No, but just let him try using his credit cards."

Arafat was beginning to get the picture.

It was too good to be true; if only... nah, no way.

"So if I say yes, in the name of the peace-loving, 
anti-terrorism people of Palestine, what will you want from us?
Terrorists?"    

"You mean 'fighters,' " Bush politely corrected him. 
"No, no, we've got enough fighters."

"Money, then."

"You must be kidding"

"Weapons? We have more than we can use"

"No, keep your weapons, you may need them. Look, you don't 
have to do anything. Just say yes, and I'll put you on our 
list, so we can. say 'See, even the Palestinians are against 
terrorism.' This is how we'll know who doesn't get bombed
the crap out of."

Well. The obvious thing for the Palestinian leader to do was 
say yes, and join the worid coalition against... against ...
Against whom?

Except for one, single man - who could surely be bumped off 
without the consent of five or six billion people - there was 
no enemy.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Preadent, but it seems to me that the 
whole world, with the exception of one missing person, is on
the same side."

"Not exactly"

"Aha. Iraq then."

"No, we're still deliberating about them. At this point in time, 
the only country not on our side is Israel. I asked all the
countries and they agreed. Unanimously."

For a fleeting moment, Arafat thought he heard him say "Israel." 
Which couldn't be, of course. Arafat biinked. Then again,
considering all the logic in this thing, which even by the 
weirdest Middle Eastern standards was too bizarre to be true, 
it had to be!

It's what he'd been saying all along - that the Israelis are 
the true terrorists!

"Yes!" the Palestinian leader shouted joyously. "Yes, I'll join! 
When can we start the war?!"

Bush was pleased. He didn't expect this to be easy, but no other 
leader had been this enthusiastic. One thing he now knew for 
sure: the Israelis did not understand this man.

"Not at this point in time. First we have to identify the enemy"

"We already know! By Allah, everyone knows!"

This was precisely what Bush needed from Arafat. Intelligence!

"Well then, tell me, and we'll start this war before you can 
put on a uniform.
Make no mistake about it."