The John Kerry 12-Step Program to Win the Peace

Since the dawn of history, the ultimate goal of war has always been to kill to enemy and crush his spirit until he submits to your will. As a consequence, billions of lives have been lost, and valuable resources have been wasted furthering the cause of Western imperialism. It wasn't until Vietnam that the world realized the best way to avoid pointless death and destruction is to discard the primitive concept of defeating the enemy, and instead focus on "winning the peace" through the determined pursuit of a complete stalemate.

If it is our imperialistic arrogance and jingoistic pride that causes wars, then it's also America's historical insistence on military superiority that prevents it from relying on diplomatic means to resolve conflicts. Where collaboration and appeasement would insure an everlasting peace, the U.S. military-industrial complex rushes to war, resorting to knee-jerk retaliatory and pre-emptive attacks on weaker nations that unfairly result in an unequal distribution of casualities. How can we Win the Peace when the enemy's dead and wounded exponentially outnumbers that of our own?

John Kerry has the answer. Despite the Bush junta's incessant lying to the contrary, Kerry's strategy for Winning the Peace is as clear as Roma Downey's urine. It can be found on his campaign website, if you look hard enough. It can be heard in his speeches, if one merely reads between the lines. In twelve simple steps, John Kerry will systematically weaken our arrogant resolve to "win the war", while simultaneously encouraging the enemy to fight on. Ultimately, this will balance the scales and create a level playing field so that both sides can mutually work towards a peaceful deadlock.

Step 1: Attack the Secretary of Defense
John Kerry knows that the First Step towards Winning the Peace is siding with the enemy against the man who is actively plotting their destruction. As the architect of the infamous "Shock and Awe" campaign, as well as the Abu Ghraib attrocities, Donald Rumsfeld's unmitigated determination to "win the war" only serves to increase senseless bloodshed and make Iraqi babies cry. Instead of feeling the enemy's pain, he is the cause of it with his gruff persona and must-win approach to warfare. If we're ever to bring this silly war to a peaceful stalemate, we'll need less Bill Holdens and more Bill Clintons running the show.

Step 2: Reach Out to Our Allies
Sun Tzu said that there are two paths one may take in war: One is to victory, the other one runs through France. When the Romans sacked Carthage in 149 B.C. and put every man, woman, and child to the sword, they must've been kicking themselves for not first appealing to France. Instead, they had to live with the shame of victory, and 500 years later the Roman Empire was no more. As our first French President, John Kerry will bring our trusted French allies to the table and pay them whatever it takes to obtain their help and guidance.

Step 3: Less Fighting, More Paperwork
John Kerry is right. Bush has mismanaged this war by allowing the warriors to do all the managing. Sure, he sets goals and objectives, but when it comes down to moving little toy tanks across the big map in the war room, he's mysteriously AWOL. Allowing career soldiers to call the shots might win the war, but only a lifelong bureaucrat can win the peace. As President, John Kerry will appoint a Blue Ribbon Commission to investigate the committee looking into forming a bipartisan board of commissioners charged with presenting a 1500 page plan of action for possibly forming another commission concerning whether troops should shout "Ollie Ollie Oxen Free" before engaging the enemy. With a less streamlined, more bureaucratic chain-of-command, Kerry will insure that no trigger-happy jarhead will ever return fire on the enemy without first completing a form B79873-A. In triplicate.

Step 4: Be Honest
As Nobel Laureate Jimmy Carter taught us, peace begins with the simple admission that you're powerless over the enemy. By constantly declaring the war a "failure", John Kerry's strategy to Win the Peace will be built upon a foundation of self-doubt and shame.

Step 5: Have Faith
A history of jingoist hegemony run riot can be brought to a screeching halt by making a simple decision to turn everything over to a higher power - The United Nations. To Win the Peace, John Kerry will pull our troops out from under the imperialistic Stars & Stripes and put them where they belong, behind the Ol' Baby Blue.

Step 6: Admit Your Mistakes
When a series of gross miscalculations cost thousands of American lives in the Battle of the Bulge, President Roosevelt immediately called a press conference to confess his mistakes and beg his political enemies for forgiveness. If only George Bush had the courage and insight to admit he's wrong. John Kerry does, and he'll never hesitate to apologize to the whole world for Bush's screw-ups.

Step 7: Humility
Pride goeth before the fall. Next to denouncing your own brothers as war criminals and murderers, nothing crushes pride and smothers that pesky troop morale like constantly reminding them of what a lousy job they're doing. As President, John Kerry will continue to ignore our successes while highlighting our failures. With both the mainstream media and the democrat party focusing on images of crying mothers, flag-draped coffins, and butt-naked Iraqis, America will never forget what a bloodthirsty imperialist empire it is.

Step 8: More Troops
By criticizing the lack of troops with boots on the ground, President Kerry will reassure the enemy that we're greatly outnumbered, while emphasizing the necessity to surrender the whole freak show to the U.N.

Step 9: Less Troops
By publicly announcing that he'll be withdrawing troops in the midst of battle, Kerry gives the enemy hope to fight on, while crushing our own force's misguided sense of purpose. If this seems to contradict #8, do not worry. He's John Kerry, and he has three Purple Hearts.

Step 10: Accept Our Faults
One of the most important steps towards recovery is accepting your defects rather than hiding them. Having voted against funding our troops, John Kerry knows exactly what our weaknesses are - and he'll make sure the enemy does as well. Our humvees don't have armor. Our troops don't have ammo. Our forces are over-extended. By constantly announcing real and fictional military weaknesses, John Kerry will boldly send the message to our soldiers and those of the enemy that we just don't have what it takes to see this thing through to victory.

Step 11: Don't Present a Unified Front
As John Kerry wrote in his brilliant book, "We are asking America to turn from false glory, hollow victory, fabricated foreign threats, fear which threatens us as a nation, shallow pride which feeds off fear, and mostly from the promises which have proven so deceiving these past ten years."
If there's anything we learned from Vietnam, it is the important contribution a large anti-war movement has toward Winning the Peace. Working in concert with anti-war groups, morbidly obese documentary filmmakers, and the mainstream media, John Kerry will stoke the fires of dissent here at home and insure that we don't have a repeat of the widespread jingoism America experienced after 9/11. After 8 years of government-fed self-loathing, America won't have the will to fight a traffic ticket, let alone a War on Terror.

Step 12: Closure
The term "war" implies that one side must win for it to be over. However, referring to it as a "police action" or a "conflict" allows one to give up fighting without the stigma of shame that comes from conceding to defeat. John Kerry will never surrender the "war" in Iraq - but by working towards a peaceful deadlock, he will finally bring an end to the "conflict". And isn't that really what we all want, deep down inside?

Comments

[CavalierX]

Brilliant. Absolutely and utterly brilliant. No one understands John Kerry like you, Larry.

[JannyMae]

I agree with Cavalier! Just the type of touchy--feeley claptrap we would expect from John Kerry! Are you sure you aren't REALLY a lib, Larry?

[La Femme Der Freud]

Larry,
I was gasping for breath and needed my inhaler. Upon checking, it was dry and I hadn't renewed my prescription. Thank you very freakin' much. Where is that second had smoke, dude?

[CavalierX]

>I was gasping for breath

For just a second, I thought Larry had been honored by a visit from Her Senatorness, Hillary Clinton. :)

[cube]

Larry, Kerry, and fairy all rhyme....

you can't blame that on bush.

[JannyMae]

You mean that the fact that Larry, Kerry, and fairy all rhyme is NOT a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy? Hard to believe... "Her Senatorness?" I like that; that's good! Mind if I use that, from now on, Cavalier?

[La Femme Crickita]

You forgot the bug eyes that went with the 'gasping for breath' screamario Hitlery pens in her tome: "Lying: Herstory.

[spd rdr]

Larry, you are a friggin' genius.
Thanks for laying it out.
And Bonus Points to you for working "jingoist hegemony" and "Ollie Ollie Oxen Free" into the same post.
You are a nut.

[CavalierX]

>Mind if I use that, from now on, Cavalier?

Please feel free. :)

[Cassandra]

If I thought it was even remotely possible that John Kerry possessed a sense of humor, I'd suspect Larry was his secret alter ego. But...nah... it couldn't be.

[Calliope]

"Working in concert with anti-war groups, morbidly obese documentary filmmakers, and the mainstream media..."

Those are distinct groups as opposed to all the same?

Larry...if you ruin one more keyboard of mine I'm calling a lawyer and this is your last warning.

Is this really Dennis Miller or someone like that? Come on tell us. This isn't amateur stuff. If you really are an anonymous unknown Larry I urge you to get a publisher.

[Bad Commie]

In the endless war against assholes, which side is the non communist? I want to be on that side. For example, there is no way I would be on the side of anyone who lives ina country that has had 90% tax rates for most of this century.

I mean, I could actually be IN the country but my only neighbors would be stabbed commie corpses.

I blame Bush for this. Who do you blame?

[RanDomino]

Why yes, we are completely outnumbered in Iraq! That's the sort of thing that happens when you piss on an entire population by arrogantly invading them against their will!

Did we expect them to say, "Oh, we're so happy you freed us from Saddam that I don't mind you parking your tank in my living room. I didn't realize how great being occupied could be until my son was killed by paranoid soldiers shooting at anything that move. Here- have our daughters."??

[JannyMae]

Ahh, another desperate lib who doesn't get it. I love it!

[Susie]

Awesome!

[Janna Watson]

I really hate Bush. What a sonofabitch. First of all, he says that we are fighting terroism by being in Iraq. Oh please! You can't fight a terroist group this way. Terroists have been around for years and the troops we have there are being killed day by day in thousands. We need to withdraw from Iraq and start building up our own national security and this is not cutting it. The Iraquais hate that we're there, and Saddam really wasn't that big of a threat compared to Bin Laden. I could go on but I am tired of discussing war crap. Vote John Kerry on Election Day! For all you who like George Bush I gotta ask What the Hell?

[Pamela Francis]

I can't you people are so full of hate, which is a crime.
I am voting for Bush.