Max Hastings "With Bush to Baghdad"
Mar. 31st, 2003 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
favorovSixteen-year-old Jack Jones, expelled from Eton
for beating to pulp a sixth-form Gulf princeling proselytising for
al-Qa’eda, declines a dreary spell at a crammer and opts for a life of
adventure.
Seeing the way the world is going when George W. Bush starts strutting
his stuff, Jack embarks on a crash course in Arabic, and makes himself
word-perfect before securing a post with Oxfam in Jordan. Once
established in the theatre of operations, he takes a bath in heavy-duty
walnut stain, buys himself a depressingly tasteless artificial-fibre suit in
the bazaar, and slip s away into Iraq masquerading as an Algerian
purveyor of pornographic videotapes.
In Baghdad he befriends a poor but honest family bitterly hostile to the
regime, enlists their youngest son as his projectionist, and insinuates
himself and his wares into the ruling circle. Having escaped from the
clutches of the secret police with the aid of his devoted Iraqi sidekick,
under cover of darkness he paints in whitewash on the roof of the
tyrant’s bunker SADDAM IS HERE, enabling a Stealth bomber to
vaporise the building and its occupant.
Before escaping to a hero’s welcome in the allied lines, he is able to
discover the access code of a dead Iraqi general’s Swiss bank account.
On returning to England, after an audience with the mo narch he trousers
the Zurich hoard, buys the Gloucestershire estate of a disgraced Granada
executive, and settles down to a life of honoured contentment, knowing
that he has done his bit for Queen and country before reaching an age at
which shaving is necessary.
http://ww w.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-03-29&id=2935rrr¤
for beating to pulp a sixth-form Gulf princeling proselytising for
al-Qa’eda, declines a dreary spell at a crammer and opts for a life of
adventure.
Seeing the way the world is going when George W. Bush starts strutting
his stuff, Jack embarks on a crash course in Arabic, and makes himself
word-perfect before securing a post with Oxfam in Jordan. Once
established in the theatre of operations, he takes a bath in heavy-duty
walnut stain, buys himself a depressingly tasteless artificial-fibre suit in
the bazaar, and slip s away into Iraq masquerading as an Algerian
purveyor of pornographic videotapes.
In Baghdad he befriends a poor but honest family bitterly hostile to the
regime, enlists their youngest son as his projectionist, and insinuates
himself and his wares into the ruling circle. Having escaped from the
clutches of the secret police with the aid of his devoted Iraqi sidekick,
under cover of darkness he paints in whitewash on the roof of the
tyrant’s bunker SADDAM IS HERE, enabling a Stealth bomber to
vaporise the building and its occupant.
Before escaping to a hero’s welcome in the allied lines, he is able to
discover the access code of a dead Iraqi general’s Swiss bank account.
On returning to England, after an audience with the mo narch he trousers
the Zurich hoard, buys the Gloucestershire estate of a disgraced Granada
executive, and settles down to a life of honoured contentment, knowing
that he has done his bit for Queen and country before reaching an age at
which shaving is necessary.
http://ww w.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-03-29&id=2935rrr¤
