In the great post-war washup, folks, the neo-cons and rednecks are claiming a whitewash while the libs are cringing. Now I’m hanging with my man Mike - the jury is still out. But, you have to say the battle of the butchers is one that deserves some serious (see 9 April post) analysis.
It’s George vs Saddam time, folks. Who really did kill the most muslims? Welcome to the Middle-Eastern Despot Challenge! As an analyst by day, it’s my responsibility to break out the Excel spreadsheets, throw up few pivot tables and bring you the scorecard!
First we need a methodology. Which dead muslims do you credit to which butchers? Okay, here are the assumptions. Whoever invades takes the points for anybody who dies – civilian, military, whatever. The invader gets the points. In this context Saddam invaded Kuwait, so he scores big-time for Gulf War I. George invaded in Gulf War II, so he gets all the points for that. Saddam was Johnny on the Spot for Iran/Iraq I. That’s a huge slam-dunk!
But George only took up the challenge 22 days ago, while Saddam has been a contender for over 30 years. So, we need to work out who’s got the best kill rate. Hang with me folks, this is where it gets exciting: we’re going to work out who’s killed the most muslims per day!
Now, by my reckoning, the current undisputed heavyweight champion killed around 1.3 million muslims over 34 years in the game (this includes civilian, military, Kuwaiti and Iranian, Swamp Arabs, Marsh Arabs and Peat-Bog Arabs, Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, Jews and miscellaneous peace-time executions, but not including deaths attributable to sanctions). Quite a tally by any measure, it equates to 104.9 deaths per day.
The challenger, ladies and gentlemen, has killed 25,000 in 22 days (this includes civilian and military deaths of any nationality or persuasion but still based on very loose estimates). That’s 1,136 per day! A whitewash it is! If George had been in the game as long as Saddam, he’d have stolen this trophy every single year having killed over 14 million people in 34 years.
What a player! What a sportsman!
George, playing to the home crowd, has promised to stop killing muslims at this unprecedented rate, but we’ll just have to wait and see. The meter is running. If he delivers, there is still room for a new challenger to emerge in 2003. So don’t tune out just yet.
Now, you may want to know how Team Bush trained for the Middle-Eastern Despot Challenge. How did they get their lilywhite asses into such great shape? Here’s the answer.
Meanwhile, George is totally magnanimous in victory and full of admiration for his talented (10 April post) opponents.
Oh what a day! What an event this has been! All the folks out there must be hoping they won’t have to wait a decade for another rematch.