Mission Accomplished: Celebrating the Fifth Anniversary of the End of the War in Iraq

Just in case you'd forgotten, and because it's a sure thing that the American mainstream news outlets won't go out of their way to remind you, today is the fifth anniversary of the end of the Iraq war. Yeah, yeah, I know: 49 Americans killed in Iraq last month, over 3000 killed since May 1, 2003. Nevertheless, President Bush stood like a cocksure cock on the deck of an aircraft carrier, arriving on it for some still unexplained reason in a flak jacket (maybe he was afraid of those same snipers that Hillary Clinton was afraid of) and said these words five long years ago: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on."

Mission accomplished.

Mr. Bush told us that major combat operations had ended in Iraq and there are plenty of people left who have reminded me that Mr. Bush is the most honest, straightforward, committed humanitarian to ever occupy the White House. Mr. Bush does not lie, therefore the 3000 or so men and women who have died since May 1, 2003 didn't actually die in a major combat operation. No, those 3,000-plus men and women who have died since Mr. Bush smirked his monkey grimace beneath that Mission Accomplished banner died in much the same way that police officers die in the line of duty. There has been no war in Iraq for the last five years. Mr. Bush told us so. Major combat operations ended, therefore no American who has died in Iraq since then died in a major combat operation. They died as police officers bringing law and order to a foreign country. Case closed.

Now about that banner. Turns out that the infamous Mission Accomplished banner was not intended to be suggestive of the war at all. When the White House, which spends more time preparing a photo shoot than Stanley Kubrick or David Lean prepared for shooting an entire movie, carefully positioned Mr. Bush so that his head directly centered beneath the Mission Accomplished banner (after all that cockstrutting in the flak jacket) on a ship named after America's most famous "war President" Abraham Lincoln, they had no idea that people would assume that the banner was intended to suggest that combat operations had ended, the battle of Iraq was victorious, and the mission there was ended. That's not what they intended that banner to mean at all. Here, in the words of my favorite comedienne of all time, the intensely moronic Dana Perino, is the official White House explanation: "President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said `mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission." You see, what that Mission Accomplished banner that Pres. Bush was directly centered under when he gave his speech about how the mission in Iraq had been successfully accomplished was really intended to mark was that the mission of the crew of that particular aircraft carrier had been accomplished. Oh, golly gee, that whole idea that the President was making an election year commercial about how the mission in Iraq was accomplished, well, I mean, gee whiz, that was just taken out of context, gosh darn it.

Do you suppose there is any way we can get Pres. Bush and Dana Perino out on a ship together...and sink it?