LUDIC LOG

With apologies to Myles na Gopaleen. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The brother has it all set right.

Has he then? What would that be?

The war, ye thickie. How we can sort them Iraqis without too much strain on the delicate sensitivities of your man the American. O goodness knows he likes to talk a good fight now and again but let a few of his young uns come home in a plastic sack and all of the sudden he's more pacifist than Gandy. The brother has a plan what will set it all right and a fiendishly simple one it is at that. It was well received when he laid it down at O'Malleys last evening.

Simple plans are often the finest. Could you vouchsafe me a preview before I have to hear about it on telly?

Oh, I'll tell you all right. Wouldn't dream of keeping it a secret. I'd tell it for free just to see the expression on your face. The beauty of it is that it's so easy that a child of four could understand it and yet all you university chaps would never have thought of it. A simple plan from a simple man. The brother says that's what'll make it go down easy with that Mr. Bush on Washington, D.C. He's a man who appreciates simplicity.

True enough. But I simply cannot wait any longer! What is this clever plan?

The trick is, Mr. Bush and his fellers grow out a mustache.

A mustache? Between the lot of them? I'm not sure if I follow.

Sure and I wouldn't expect a man like you to suss it quick. It's too simple for you, y'understhawnd. Here's what I mean. A lot of your what -d'ye-call-international community, they're running their gobs about how we need to get the Iraqis on our side after we do away with that Saddam Hussein character. We can't have them potting about hurling dynamite at the troops and what-not. Damn the shooting end of it, says the brother, you could do with out save you get the hearts and minds. That's the way he put it. Hearts and minds.

Indeed. The propaganda aspect of diplomacy can scarcely be neglected.

So, your Arabian, you see, he's not inclined towards democracy by his very nature. It's not in his blood, you follow me? He don't want for voting and town meetings and fancy ballot initiatives like your men the French. He only asks for a clean pillowcase for his head and a handful of dates and a chance to shout his heathen gibberish at Mo-hammed three times a day. What you want for a chap like that is iron rule. What they call discipline. Your Arabian is a simple type. He needs the firm hand, like a schoolboy. He's one for democracy only if you shove it down his throat.

I see. And how does the mustache enter into it?

Well, as the brother explains it, the mustache is a very important symbol to those people who have a knack for totalitarianism. It's highy symbolic-like. All your great dictators have had a bit of fur on the lip, such as a Stalin, a Hitler, or a Lucifer. One of the lads down pub asks what about Pol Pot? and you know what the brother tells him?

I cannot begin to guess.

Do you know what the brother says?

Please tell me.

He says oh, he would have, mark you, but your Chinee can't grow hairs! D'yee see? The Chinee can't grow hairs! And old Napoleon, I suppose. But otherwise begob if it's not set in stone. Now you look at your Iraq. That's run by a chap with a fine speciment of a mustache. And all his cronies and what have you have the mustache too, from what I can see on the telly. Your Iraqi is a man who's used to being told what to do by a feller with a robust mustache. Can you deny it?

There is simply no way to do so.

Oh aye. So what's needed is for Mr. Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and all that ilk to start cultivating thems a mustache now, so that by the time the war is over they'll have a fine set of 'em and when they show up on ITV or whatever they have over there, nary and Iraqi will question it. That's the brother's idea, you see. Your Iraqi chap will look up at the telly and see a speech by some new feller with a think mustache, and sure enough he'll get to thinking, well, I don't know this Colin Powell, but damned if that's not a fine mustache he's got, better do as he says. Problem solved.

So it would seem. But what, I wonder, of the female members of the president's administration? In charity, I fancy that Condoleezza Rice is incapable of growing a mustache.

That's the beauty of it, you see! She'll be so wrapped up in them veils and gowns they make the ladies wear over there, you won't be able to tell if she's got it or not. Good plan, unless I'm far wrong.

It is inconceivable that you would be. Here's my bus, then. Goodbye!