Fred, Fred, Fred!

Save your postage, Fred, and use it to buy me lunch sometime!
by Charlie Leck

Fred is a good, good friend. He is one of the most loving and generous guys you’ll ever meet. We’ve been paling around for 30 years. No one is more fun in a round of golf or in any conversation outside of politics and religion. He’s a sucker when it comes to those particular topics. He’ll believe anything that is over there to the right of Ganges Khan and disbelieve anything to the left of Billy Graham and George W. Bush.

He must think my liberal soul is leading me to Hades and he’s trying to hold me back from such an eternal fate. He’s constantly sending me messages about my political errors and the glory of the right wingers. He recently urged me to read and get on the band wagon with a retired Iraqi General, Georges Sada, who wrote the book, Saddam’s Secrets. Mr. Sada claims to have proof that the weapons of mass destruction, which we were unable to find in Iraq, were flown out of the country to Syria by a group of Iraqi pilots.

I try not to answer Fred’s remarkably innocent and simple messages. This time, however, I could not resist.

Dear Fred:

I read the book by Georges Sada nearly a year ago. Your buddy and fellow radical right-winger, the Crozz, sent it over to me. An amazing read even if not solidly backed by evidence to document what it claims… “Some guys told
me…..”

I always get suspicious when I read words like that, Fred. Don’t you?

And even fellows in George W. Bush’s administration were (are) leery of Mr. Sada and his opinions. He’s generally viewed as a nut case, but smart enough to have gotten himself on the American speaking circuit.

The fact that he’s an Arab Christian doesn’t hurt him among the evangelicals in America either. They want desperately to believe him and so they do. “Kurds are converting by the hundreds in northern Iraq.” He said that over a year ago. No one – not even conservative FOX News – has been able to document that claim or find evidence of any more than a single conversion here and there.

Fred, don’t you smell a book deal here somewhere?

The General – excuse me, the Major General -- reported that “he had been told” that Iraqi pilots, in private planes, flew weapons of mass destruction “to undisclosed locations” in Syria in 2002.

Great, Fred! Who told him? The Major General gets vague about that.

“Some guys!” That doesn’t translate well to English.

So far the evidence from Georges is about as solid as the stuff President Bush presented to the Congress and General Powell presented to the United Nations. If you want to believe it badly enough, you will.

It took the Major General a long time to come forth with his revelation – happened to be after the April 2004 story broke of an al Qaeda plot to unleash tons of explosives, including sarin nerve gas in the city of Amman. The General started putting 2 + 2 together. Let’s see, some guys told him about those pilots and Jordanian intelligence (that word always strikes me as oxymoronic) reported the plot. Hhmm!

“Yes, yes,” is his evidentiary conclusion, “the weapons must have fallen into the hands of terrorists.”

Yup. I’m convinced.

Fred, wait up here a second or two. I was simple enough to be convinced by Bush, Cheney, Rummy and Powell that the Iraqis had WMD in their nation. Why should I be silly enough to believe some pompous, former Iraqi military guy who has less supporting documentation than Rusmfeld and Powell presented?

Here’s the answer, Fred. If I really WANTED to believe, I would. I would be orgasming with excitement and belief because I can now write to Charlie Leck and say: “See!”

Fred, go ahead and believe in some two-bit, former Iraqi military officer. I’m not falling for it twice. The fact that he’s Christian doesn’t impress me. So were Bush, Cheny, Rumsfeld and Powell.

God preserved his life for a purpose! That’s what Major General Sada says. God preserved mine for a purpose also: To finger frauds like Sada.

The Iraqi people were thrilled to be liberated by the U.S. armies! That’s what Sada tells us in his book. Sure!

He (the Major General) personally talked Saddam out of hitting Israel with a massive chemical weapon! Come on Fred! Come on! Israeli and U.S. Intelligence both know that Saddam did not have and never had a delivery device that could put “a massive weapon” into Israel.

“The U.S. liberation saved hundreds of thousands of lives!’ Now we’re down to pure bull-shit, Fred. Pure! Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians have died as a result of our war in Iraq and you probably really know that and just won’t admit it.

He smuggled the Bible into communist Russia. Fred, there have been Bibles in Russia and openly available for the last three decades. Come on, Fred.

“In 2006, U.S. forces found WMD in Iraq. Our government just won’t tell us about it.” Again, that’s what Sada says. Fred, please, don’t insult my intelligence. If such had been found, George W probably would have gone to Ground Zero in NYC to make the announcement. He wouldn’t keep his trap shut about such a discovery. What purpose is served by keeping it secret? Fred, do you ever wonder? Do you ever question?

Now, our author is a speaker for the Young America Foundation. Wow! I’m sure it’s an organization to which you give considerable funds, Fred. That’s sad! I read the line-up of other speakers the Foundation offers us and I want to throw up. John Ashcroft! Now there’s one of my personal heroes. Ann Coulter! Oh, gee whiz!

Fred, I tried to be open-minded when I read this book. At every turn I found an abundance of vagueness and the sleaziness of an old west medicine man. You’ve gotta watch out for those guys, Fred. If you don’t, they’ll be selling you vats of Doctor Spermkin’s WONDER CURE ALL!

And it’s all published by Integrity Publishers – now that’s a great name in publishing – they also produce the work of Pat Robertson (another of my very favorite commentators).

Fred, to repeat, the Bush Administration wouldn’t touch this one. It knew that citing this book would blow up its face.

Sada did testify before the House Select Committee on Intelligence. I didn’t see or hear any of the testimony. About all anyone got out of the Major General was that the men who flew the weapons out of Iraq weren’t talking about where they went.

Fred, save the postage you spend on these goofy mailings and use it instead to buy me lunch some time, will you? Then we’ll talk about golf and football.

Your friend,Charlie

Thanks to Joshua Holland and his article, “Bushco, the dog, flew my homework to Syria,” for helping in answering Fred’s letter.