(DV) Binh: Send Imus to Iraq

Now that NBC has shlocked shock jock Don Imus, I can think of a number of great job opportunities for this trash-talking racist/sexist/anti-Semitic S.O.B. Here are the jobs I think Imus would be great for from best to worst:

1.) Join the Army, be part of Bush's doomed surge. The Army recently raised its maximum age for new recruits to 42 in a desperate attempt to fill the boots headed to Iraq, but it won't be long before they get up to Imus' age of 67. There are Vietnam veterans fighting in Iraq who are over 50, so I don't see any reason why we can't send a guy who called Palestinians "stinking animals," referred to Iraqis as "ragheads," and praised Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani for being willing to use nuclear weapons on Mecca and other cities in Saudi Arabia. He can take the rest of the tough-talking arm-chair generals who support the surge with him, like John McCain and William Kristol. I don't think overpopulation is a problem, but if you do, this would be a great way to start tackling it.

2.) The Green Zone needs security guards. OK, so maybe it's a little unrealistic to expect 67 year old Don Imus to lug 60-95 pounds of gear into an all-out firefight in the streets of Baghdad. But Iraq is the land of opportunity! There are PLENTY of jobs that need to be filled since a staggering 2 million Iraqis (8 percent of the population) have fled freedom's march which began in March of 2003! I see older men and women hard up for money working at airports in the U.S. checking bags, screening passengers, operating X-ray machines, so why not in Iraq? Since Iraqi forces were in charge of security at Iraq's parliament building and it appears that the latest bombing was an inside job, it's clear that we need reliable red-blooded patriotic freedom-loving gung-ho Americans to show the natives how the job is done!

3.) Bush needs a "War Czar." Sure, pushing pencils in Washington is nothing compared to engaging in the up-close-and-personal rape and murder of Iraqis, but everyone's got to do their part, right? I guess if we can't find Imus any spots in the Army or in private security firms, we could give him a job where he'll have to walk a political minefield instead of a real one. Bush is looking for a professional fall guy, or "War Czar," as its known in Rove-speak. So far, 3 generals have turned down the job, which would basically mean assuming responsibility for running the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. All quagmires, all the time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 12 months a year, for however many years it takes until "victory." Or until Bush leaves office in January 2009 and the next President fires you for losing the wars, whichever comes first.

Obviously, who ever thought up this idea is no history buff -- Vietnam part II (Afghanistan) and part III (Iraq) won't end any differently from the original, and the last time a Czar was in charge of a war it ended with workers and peasants overthrowing capitalism and establishing Soviet power. Something tells me that's what Bush has in mind when he says "victory."

4.) There may be an opening at the World Bank. Sure, Paul Wolfowitz isn't fired yet, but I have a feeling getting your mistress (he's still married by the way, for all you pro-war family value nuts out there) a $30,000+ raise and then claiming the ethics committee approved it when it didn't may be the straw that broke the camel's back for this neo-con of neo-cons. The bank's staff association has called on him to do "the honorable thing" and resign. Wolfowitz has given his reply: he will do no honorable thing so long as he lives, and intends to keep his job impoverishing and exploiting Third World nations on behalf of American capitalists. Imus would be a much better candidate than Wolfowitz because Imus' wife already has a job elsewhere, and while supporting an unwinnable war this late in the game makes you look like an idiot, inventing it makes you look even worse. It's too bad Wolfowitz will never have to look for a REAL job like the rest of us because he'd never get one with the words "Iraq war" on his résumé listed as one his personal accomplishments .

Pham Binh is an activist and recent graduate of Hunter College in NYC. His articles have been published at Asia Times Online, Dissent Voice, MRZine, and ZNet. He edits Traveling Soldier, a newsletter for anti-war military personnel. His blog is prisonerofstarvation.blogspot.com, and he can be reached at: anita_job@yahoo.com.