Editor’s Note: Some readers, perhaps those with a military connection, may at first glance feel this entry is inappropriate or offensive. Please note, however, that it is satire, a deliberately provocative writing style that highlights the ridiculous by being even more ridiculous, while seeming to be just as serious as the original subject matter.)
To Be or Not May Be The Answer
Pashtun terrorists operating out of the mountainous regions of Afghanistan have once again demonstrated an uncanny, and fluid like, ability to adapt their methods and tactics to meet the challenges posed by American Military Strategy. Specifically, in the past two months Taliban fighter groups, operating in small constantly shifting groups of three to 30 Pashtun, have incorporated Obama’s slow, deliberative decision-making methods into their own fighting and contemplation strategy. This was evidenced last week when a suicide bomber, wrapped in a vest of explosive devices, forced his way onto a Kabul bus and, while holding 68 terrified Kabul civilians hostage, read out loud, in perfect Shakespearean English, Hamlet’s “To Be or Not To Be” soliloquy. He then, in flawless Pashtu, demanded that bus riders take an American style “Yay,” or “Not To Be” vote on the matter, which he promised he would factor into his decision, after radio consultation with suicide vest salesmen and Afghan arms dealers.
Major General Humphrey Bogtrump explained:
“For centuries Pashtu fighters have proven themselves flexible in adapting to the ever-changing ups, downs, and steep drops of the Hindu Kush terrain as well as the ups, downs, and steep flops of their enemies’ fighting strategy. What the ‘To Be Bus Bomber’ has shown us is that the Taliban fighters have outright adopted America’s military strategy without even filling out the required paperwork.”
The General’s statement was reinforced the next day by a group of nine Taliban attackers who fired two rocket-launched grenades into a crowded Kandahar market, charged, and then stopped to debate. An Afghan bird cage vendor who overhead the attackers told American military officials that the attackers were arguing whether they should, instead, be attacking a marketplace in Pakistan:
“I heard one of the Taliban attackers shout: ’No no, the Western burgers, greasy fries and loose change problem originates in Pakistan. Why are we attacking the wrong country?’ .”
The bird cage vendor said that one particularly stubborn Taliban fighter threatened a “filibuster” by reading the names of every Kandahar street until ammunition and funding for the marketplace attack was cut off:
“I heard a Taliban attacker insist that he would fire his rocket at the police station across the street, only if, in return, his fellow attackers voted to increase agricultural subsidies to Afghan pistachio farmers.”
Major General Bogtrump’s assistant, Corporal Roberto Jackson, known as “Jack-Slant,” made the following statement to American newspaper reporters:
“What the General meant to say a few days ago is that it looks like our program of teaching American Democracy to a people living in the 14th Afghan century is working.”
Corporal Roberto Jackson’s assistant, Private Jack Roberts, known as “Jack-Straight,” clarified his boss’s statement to parakeets and reporters:
“It looks like the enemy is adapting to our strategy by imitating it, and thus, have been provided with all the benefits and flaws of the American system.”
As if to corroborate Private Robert’s statement, a group of 87 Taliban fighters, from Afghanistan and Pakistan, were caught six hours later sneaking into Iraq.
The American press widely quoted a Kandahar parakeet squawking “imitate, imitate, imitate” while the European quoted another Kandahar parakeet shouting: “USDA Pistachio subsidies, please, thank you, democracy.”
Meanwhile, after viewing an extreme version of Hamlet for 72 hours, Kabul bus riders were released and provided with promissory “To Be” notes. Afghan police were “distantly” following the suicide-vest-wearing “Hamlet bomber” across Kabul as he continued to deliberate and recite Shakespeare to terrified audiences. Four London and two New York theater directors expressed interest in auditioning the “Kabul Hamlet Bomber” for leading roles in upcoming Shakespearean plays, while theater directors worldwide praised the Taliban bomber’s “genius” for discovering a whole new genre of extreme theater, and have expressed interest in putting on their own extreme versions of Hamlet.
In light of the Taliban’s new strategy of deliberation and imitation, White House and American Defense Department officials promised a 38-week, 46-person, 12-agency panel review of US global military strategy. An official, who refused to be named, said given the Taliban’s new strategy of imitation, a plan for complete American withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan might be considered as a fighting option, but only after consultation with vested-interest salesmen and American arms dealers.
Meanwhile, theater attendance across the world has fallen, while Shakespearean enactments, with both human and parakeet casts, at bus stations around the world, have risen “dramatically.”