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player ready...`As long as we don’t have a baseball season,” Slats Grobnik said, “we might as well invade Haiti and have some daytime TV that’s worth watching. But President Clinton should do it before O.J.’s trial begins and grabs the ratings.”
The use of military force is a serious matter and should not be thought of as television entertainment.
“Maybe. But it’s only fair for Clinton to win one. Bush had Desert Storm, which was a smash hit for a while. Reagan had Grenada, which was kind of a nickel-dime tussle, but Clint Eastwood still made a pretty good movie about it. Even Gerald Ford had some dinky island, even though nobody remembers the name of it.”
Are you saying this is becoming a presidential tradition, finding an easy foe to kick around?
“Why not? It’s a way of letting off steam, having a patriotic high, giving the troops some on-the-job training, and reminding all the little wise-guy off-brand nations that we’re not somebody you want to give some lip to. Besides, there’s nothing new about that. Look it up. We’ve had presidents who kicked around Mexico and lots of those other chili pepper countries.”
True, but there are those who say that we have no national interest in Haiti, other than wanting to end the nuisance of their boat people. And all we would do is wind up being bogged down trying to install democracy in a dinky country that has no tradition of democratic rule.
“And they’re right about that. It just shows that we’re still good at fighting, but we’re stupid at winning.”
What does that mean?
“It means the old-timers knew how to win. The Roman Empire, Alexander and his Greeks, Genghis and all the other Khans, little Attila and his Hun buddies, and the Spanish guys who came here after Columbus. When they moved in, it was party time-loot and plunder, grab everything that ain’t nailed down, and bring home some servants, baby-sitters, upstairs maids, handymen, and other domestic help you don’t have to pay no Social Security for.”
I can’t believe that you are talking about conquering and enslaving people, taking their lands and exploiting their natural resources.
“Why not? Look what happened after World War II. Italy surrenders and we start booking reservations for vacations in Rome. Japan folds and we give them a new constitution, tell ’em we’ll protect them from their enemies so they don’t have to squander their money on military stuff, and then we let them hustle us out of all the electronics stuff and cars, which we pretty much invented. And we whip Germany and spend billions protecting them from the Russkies and getting their factories going. Stupid. Attila or Alexander wouldn’t have treated them this nice.”
What would you have had us do?
“I’ll tell you what. If we did it right, I’d go home tonight and I’d have a German mechanic living in my garage and taking care of the BMW that his relatives built for me. And for dinner, I’d eat some fettuccine whipped up by the Italian cook who’d live in a room off my kitchen. And I wouldn’t be raking no leaves in my back yard because I’d have a Japanese gardener raking and planting those neat little dwarf trees and calling me papa-san Slats. That’s the way they did it in the old days. You think Alexander the Great went invading those other countries because he wanted to show the world how to eat a Gyros sandwich? Nah, he was after rubies and good-looking Persian chicks to do the belly dance.”
So you would have us invade Haiti for the purpose of exploiting that sad little country and its people?
“Hey, the only reason it is screwed up is they don’t know what to do with it. If people can have happy lives in Wisconsin and Indiana, why can’t they make it in Haiti, where it don’t snow? It’s got a good climate, beaches, a lot of low-cost help, so we could give franchises to Disney to build golf courses and theme parks, and the Bally Company could put in casinos, and Trump could put up condos and time-share resorts. Of course, we don’t say we’re going to own Haiti forever. Maybe 100 years. Then we lease it back to them and give them the option to buy.”
I can’t believe that in this day and age you would be advocating colonialism and the conquering of your fellow man.
“Why not? It’s what made this country great before we went soft. Just ask Sitting Bull.”
He’s dead.
“Yeah, but if he wasn’t, he’d have a piece of a casino. All’s well that ends well.”
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