November  1, 2009 –(Note: Article Placed in Finals of Humor Press Writing Contest)

“To Be or Not May be the Answer”

Pashtun terrorists operating out of the Mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan have once again demonstrated an uncanny, and fluid like, ability to adapt their methods and tactics to meet the challenges posed by American Military Strategy.  Specifically, in the past two months Taliban fighter groups, operating in small constantly shifting groups of three to thirty Pashtun, have incorporated Obama’s slow deliberative decision making methods into their own fighting and contemplation strategy. This was evidenced last week, when a suicide bomber, wrapped in a vest of explosive devices, forced his way on a Kabul bus and while holding sixty eight terrified Kabul civilians hostage read out loud, in perfect Shakespearean English, from Hamlet’s “To Be or Not To Be” soliloquy. He then, in flawless Pashtu, demanded that bus riders take an American style “yay, or “not to yay” vote on the matter, which he promised he would factor into his decision, after radio consultation, with suicide vests salesman and other Afghan arms dealers.

Major General Humphrey Bogtrump explained:

“For centuries Pashtun fighters have proven themselves flexible in adapting to the ever-changing ups, downs, and steep drops of the Hindu Kush terrain as well as the ups, downs, and steep flops of their enemies fighting strategy. What the “To Be Bus Bomber”, has showed us is that the Taliban fighters have outright adopted America’s military strategy without even filling out the required paperwork”.

The General’s statement was reinforced the next day, by a group of nine Taliban attackers who fired two rocket launched grenades into a crowded Kandahar market, charged forward, and then stopped to debate whether to continue the market attack or pursue a more effective fighting strategy elsewhere. An Afghan bird cage vendor who overhead the attackers “debating”, told American military officials, Canadian AID contractors, and two hundred caged parakeets, that the attackers had stopped to argue whether they should, instead, be attacking a marketplace in Pakistan:

“One of my birds heard one of a Taliban attacker shout: ’no no, the extremist fastfood burger, fries, and loose change problem originates in Pakistan. Why are we attacking a market in the wrong country?’ “. 

The bird cage vendor said that one particularly stubborn Taliban fighter threatened to filibuster the attack by reading the names of every Kabul street address to his colleagues until they cut off ammunition and funding for the market place attack plan. He also told U.S. military officials:

“My birds and I heard one Taliban attacker insist that he only would fire his rocket grenade at the police station across the street if, in return, his fellow attackers promised to vote to increase agricultural subsidies to Afghan pistachio farmers.”

Major General Bogtrump’s assistant, corporal Roberto Jackson, more broadly known as “Jack-Slant” made the following statement to newspaper officials from thirty two countries and to two hundred Afghan parakeets:

“What the General meant to say a few days ago is that it looks like our program of teaching American Democracy to a people living in the fourteenth Afghan century is working”.

Corporal Roberto Jackson’s, assistant, private Jack Roberts, more narrowly known as “Jack-Straight” clarified his boss’s statement to parakeets and reporters:

“It looks like the enemy has adapted to our strategy by imitating it, and thus, have inherited all the benefits and flaws of the American system”.

As if to corroborate Private Robert’s statement, a group of eighty seven Taliban fighters, from Afghanistan and Pakistan, were caught, six hours later, sneaking into Iraq.

To highlight the problem the American press widely quoted a Kandahar parakeet squawking “imitate, imitate, imitate” while the Canadian press widely quoted a second Kandahar parakeet “squawking “Obama, nobama, nobomb-a-drama.”

The European and Japanese, and Brazilian press, instead choose to quote a third Kandahar parakeet shouting:

“USDA Pistachio subsidies, please, thank you, democracy”.

Meanwhile, after viewing an extreme version of Hamlet for seventy two hours Kabul bus riders were released and provided with promissory “to be” notes.  Afghan police were “distantly” following the explosive vest wearing “Hamlet bomber” across Kabul as he continued to deliberate and recite Shakespeare to terrified audiences.  Four London and two New York theater directors expressed interest in auditioning the “Kabul Hamlet Bomber” for leading roles in upcoming Shakespearean plays, while theater directors worldwide praised the Taliban bomber’s “genius” for discovering a whole new genre of  “extreme” theater, and have expressed interest in putting on their own extreme versions of Hamlet or other “to be or not” plays.

In light of the Taliban’s new strategy of deliberation and imitation, White House and American Defense Department officials have promised to undertake a thirty eight week, forty six person, twelve agency, panel review of U.S. global military strategy. An official, who refused to be named, but went by the side name of “Jack-Straight, said given, the Taliban’s new strategy of imitating U.S. military strategy, a plan for complete American withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan might be considered as a viable fighting option, but only, after consultation with “vested interest” salesman and American arms dealers.

Meanwhile the latest weekly statistics indicate that theater attendance across the world has fallen, while Shakespearean enactments, with both human and parakeet casts, at bus stations and on buses around the world have risen “dramatically.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 31st, 2009 at 9:53 am and is filed under Main Posts, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.