THE WEST IS THE BEST

Not too long ago Paul Wolfowitz, mastermind of the Colonization of Mesopotamia, President of The Earth’s Bank, Shining Knight of the Neo-Conservative Code of Honor (“America as Lord and Savior”), traveled to Africa. He gave many speeches, smiled many smiles, shook many hands and even climbed down occasionally from his white SUV to walk on the dry dirt. It was tiring work. The thousands of new African faces each day seemed to sap the energy out of Paul. On the final day of the trip he found himself in the middle of a drought-ridden region in East Africa. He was suffering, fatigued and dehydrated under the merciless tropical sun. He was far enough from Darfur to be safe, of course, but close enough to have disturbed his black and white dreams the night before. He had been tormented by a statement that he’d made not too long ago:

It's a very bad thing when people exterminate other people, and people persecute minorities. It doesn't mean you can prevent every such incident in the world, but it's also a mistake to dismiss that sort of concern as merely humanitarian and not related to real interest.

Even in his weakened state, Paul saw the real interest as clear as desert day. His aides had informed him at the morning briefing that it stood at 4.3%. Mere humanitarianism, on the other hand, seemed freshly and deeply complicated, as if he had discovered after all these years that he’d been adopted, that he was not in biological fact the son of Polish Jews but rather just another American Mutt with no special story to tell, only as human as anyone else. Paul began to lose faith in everything he’d been taught about Africa. He scoured the stainless steel corridors in his mind for something, anything, to help him understand. As a freshman at Cornell he’d read Jean Pictet’s “The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross”:

The wellspring of the principle of humanity is in the essence of social morality which can be summed up in a single sentence, Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. This fundamental precept can be found, in almost identical form, in all the great religions, Brahminism, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Islam, Judaism and Taoism. It is also the golden rule of the positivists, who do not commit themselves to any religion but only to the data of experience, in the name of reason alone. It is indeed not at all necessary to resort to affective or transcendental concepts to recognize the advantage for men to work together to improve their lot.

Suddenly, out in the sand, Paul saw a young woman carrying water in a large plastic container balanced on the blue cloth coiled like a snake around her head. He imagined her seven miles down the king’s highway where she’d dipped into an ancient lake. He imagined her husband working in the gold mines and he imagined her children slowly going insane as they waited and waited for the rains. Then he imagined the janjaweed on the edge of town swooping down to take the young woman away like the Nazis took his grandmother. Paul began to sway under the weight of his visions. By this time a local man had approached, recognizing Paul from the Internet. As Paul fell to the earth the man asked:

“Why are you persecuting me?”

Paul smiled faintly, his eyes mere slits into his slippery soul. He stared at the bare black feet in front of his face, and then he looked up at the man and responded, in sing-songy scratchiness:

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land

Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

There's danger on the edge of town
Ride the King's highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby

Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby
The snake is long, seven miles
Ride the snake...he's old, and his skin is cold

The west is the best
The west is the best
Get here, and we'll do the rest