The Tory Party

A Fox swimming across a rapid river was carried by the force of the current into a very deep ravine, where he lay for a long time very much bruised, sick, and unable to move. A swarm of hungry blood-sucking flies settled upon him.

A Hedgehog, passing by, saw his anguish and inquired if he should drive away the flies that were tormenting him.

“By no means,” replied the Fox; “pray do not molest them.”

“How is this?’ said the Hedgehog; “do you not want to be rid of them?”

“No,” returned the Fox, “for these flies which you see are full of blood, and sting me but little, and if you rid me of these which are already satiated, others more hungry will come in their place, and will drink up all the blood I have left.”

Iraq is the fox. Saddam Hussein et. al. are the first flies that fed. The US is the hedgehog. Except we didn’t ask whether the fox wanted our help.

Furthermore — we’re the ones that maimed the fox. The West created a nation-state out of Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds who had jack-shit to do with each other, all Arab people who don’t DO nation-states, they do families. Saddam breezed in and took it over and found a way to make it go, making the trains run on time, taking blood in trade.

As Colonel Dad, reader of T. E. Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” once said, “Maybe it took a butcher to keep those people together.”

“Beyond the Euphrates began for us the land of mirage and danger, the sands where one helplessly sank, and the roads which ended in nothing. The slightest reversal would have resulted in a jolt to our prestige giving rise to all kinds of catastrophe; the problem was not only to conquer but to conquer again and again, perpetually; our forces would be drained off in the attempt.”

Emperor Hadrian AD 117-138