Iraqi Homestays (with Prozac!)

Freud

I am sorry I have been so MIA. Thanksgiving and then work sucking even more than usual. Which is shocking really. Just when you think it can’t get worse… it does.

But anyway, I read a silly little article in the New Yorker this week called “Flooding the Zone” by George Saunders, who is seriously brilliant (read his book, Pastoralia). He writes about how there are 12 Americans for every Iraqi and that we should go over there and take care of them, as a good will effort. Show them we aren’t all so bad. Of course everyone will have to go, and then each American will be responsible for one-twelfth of an Iraqi. So a family of five will be attended to by sixty Americans. He suggests we bring board games, food, luxuries like refrigerators and tvs. Then we will just all chill out. We will cook dinner for them and teach them how to play Monopoly. We'll all just hang out and bond. People will be so relaxed things will start to improve....

“Well, even the most energetic insurgent will have a hard time getting much done, saddled, as he will be with his twelve designated Americans. Imagine how hard it will be to sneak off with your insurgent friends, much less deploy a roadside bomb, when, every time you move, your twelve Americans leap up and ask if there’s anything you need. Say you are going out to assault a convoy. Good luck! You skulk into the night, and suddenly three Fitzsimmonses and the four Jacksons and the five elderly Peterkin brothers are walking along with you, asking where you are headed, wondering if that distinctive Iraqi hat has a name, asking if there’s anywhere to get a decent cup of decaf, telling an endless story about how hard it was to get a decent cup of decaf in Paris, for God’s sake.”

I applaud this idea, and also assert that we set up a serious National Crisis Center staffed with the best therapists we mentally incapacitated Americans have to offer. I know, such a New York/ neurotic Woody Allen solution. But can you imagine? They suffer Saddam, then they suffer us. And they suffer from some of their own. There are no jobs… unemployment is estimated as high as 50%. Sure, there are jobs with the coalition. And wouldn’t you just love to jump in line to sign up for the police force when the stations are car bombed daily? People want a job not a death sentence. Their lives SUCK. SUCK SUCK SUCK. Maybe things are better now than there were 2 years ago… I am certainly not able to evaluate that fairly. But it looks pretty damn bad. And even if its better, it still sucks. Sure, my job is better than a lot of other things I could be doing… like cleaning bathrooms at NJ Turnpike rest stops or being an anal wart researcher (YUP that’s a job)… but just because its in the realm of possibility for things to be worse, doesn’t mean it still doesn’t suck. There are lots of shades of gray. It doesn’t really matter if you are charcoal or oyster gray. Sucking is sucking. Anyway, I think a little therapy would help ease the tensions. Counseling is important to help the Iraqis deal with their anxiety and fear and can also be a tool to help us reach out to the insurgents. One might ask an insurgent, what were your parents like? Did you get along with your father? Who are you REALLY angry at here? And finally we can teach that when you hurt others, you really only hurt yourself (it, of course, begs the question… how DOES Bush sleep so well at night????) Well perhaps when the therapists are finished in Iraq and they have brought peace and harmony (along with the gift of psycho-babble, Dr. Phil shows, Ritalin, Prozac, Wellbutrin, etc etc) they will be able to move on to help those at the White House. That will be a long tour of duty though. Perhaps we'll have to call in Maureen Dowd to advise on W’s complexes with daddy dearest.

God (and therapy) help us all.