Hopefully you were shopping the friendly pharmacy near the friendly moxie java and friendly vista book gallery and other friendly shops.

But did you really want to stick an iUd up the tailpipe? If so… that’s quite the visual image… and maybe perfectly appropriate.

If you meant iEd… well, I might applaud that too.

Wow! If I didn’t know better, I’d think your rant sounded like jealousy cuz that guys got a bigger …. er … vehicle than you do!

I like your theory, though: Get the HumVees out of Iraq and peace will follow.

Well, the insurgents are trying to help — they blow up HumVees every chance they get. Of course, if we got them out of Iraq, they’d all be here — then, eventually, plain ol’ civilians could get HumVees (as we did with WWII Jeeps) instead of their dolled-up offspring, Hummers. Ho, boy — let’s clear out some traffic!

The statement “The GUARDIAN barely suppressed the urge to stick an IUD up the tailpipe just for being there! No wonder the Iraqi people keep blowing them up” is offensive to me and probably many other people.

There are some people around here who have been killed and maimed because a terrorist detonated a bomb under their Humvee. Blowing up someone’s car is a bad thing to fantasize about.

Do you know the difference between a Hummer and a Humvee? Humvees are military vehicles. Hummers are a way American civilians can directly donate to oil-rich Middle Eastern nations and look tough while doing it.

EDITOR NOTE–This veteran means no offense of the soldiers. The humor is the reference to an iUd up the tailpipe…several readers got the joke.

First, let me say I agree with you.

But an IUD (Intra-Uterine Device) is a little different than an IED (Improvised Explosive Device). The former keeps a “blow up” from happening, the latter causes one…

But, maybe you’ve subconsciously tapped into the real nature of the relationship between Humvees and their owners – of course the tailpipe’s the wrong place to insert an IUD.

Or is it 😉

EDITOR NOTE–Check the other commenters.

Oh my Clancy. How naive. Maybe you should dose up on a little Tom Friedman, pull your head out of the sand and learn a little about the world you live in. The Guardian was certainly baiting us with his humor but nothing is so outrageous as your statement that the people of the Middle East don’t love thier children.

I’m sure that the thousands of Iraqis who died fighting Saddam at our urging in 1991 put their lives on the line just for us and not for their or their children’s future. Don’t make judgments on a huge portion of the planet based upon the actions of a few fanatics. Making sweeping generalizations about an entire region of the earth based upon what you might catch on your nightly news report is the height of xenophobia and gives me great concern for the future of democracy in this country when viewpoints like yours are meant to be pursuasive in our democratic process.

“Our young men and women doing their job in Iraq and the vehicle they drive has nothing to do with the violence.” You tell that to the families 30 to 40 thousand civilian men women and children who have been killed in this dirty little war. Like them, our reason for being there is a moving target. The worst thing we can do to our troops is to allow our government to perpetuate the lies that provide them a less than honorable reason for their service. As Shakespeare wrote all those years ago: “Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.” But continuing to believe that we can spread democracy from the barrel of a gun is only one such perpetuating delusion.

Oil is at the center of our presence in the Middle East on a dozen different levels. As many readers point out, our wealth and the wealth of the world has been streaming over to the Middle East and the governments in the region will continue to utilize this to their own selfish ends whether its the Saudi royal family getting fat and happy by maintaining an oppressive regime to subjugate the poor in their country giving strength to the bin Laden’s of the region, or Iran who will exert more political power in the region by giving Hezbollah not only rockets but cash to rebuild when the Israelis strike back.

If we don’t lower gas prices and reduce the industrial world’s dependence on foriegn oil, no pie in the sky foreign policy will save us from ourselves. People driving Hummers are an integral part to terrorists’ financial network.

Sis, how does lowering gas prices save us from ourselves or reduce our dependence on foreign oil? A lower price provides no incentives for those people driving the Hummers to quit going to the store for a gallon of milk. Which ends up costing more in gas than paid for the milk.

A dramatic increase in the gas price is the quickest way to reduce our dependence on oil. This would jump start many other ways of reducing dependency. Public transit, rideshares, and bikes would be better utilized. Also, new technology and implementation into our daily transportation life would speed up.

And may cause me to read a little Thomas Friedman.

With regard to Gordons last, Why don’t we use our power over food supply? My guess is…. but someone please tell me for sure…. most of the people who hate us in this world: 1)eat our food, 2)go to school here, 3)get medical help here, (here being the west or US.) I really gotta wonder how many shiploads of cheap subsidised US grain go to Iran each year.

We’d have a lot fewer terrorists if Bush had gone after the criminals who did the 9/11 deed in the first place. Only another moron would belive we are in Iraq spreading democracy, or defending freedom. It’s about the second largest oil spigot in the world. When has this country ever cared about brown people when we want what they got?

We didn’t care what Saddam did to his people when he was our guy and the oil was flowing. We didn’t care about the Shah of Iran did to his people when the oil was flowing. This is a war of economics not religion. Religion, like blind patriotism is the ruse to get morons to do your bidding while money grubbers plant an iud up the publics tailpipe.
Guardian, you could end up in Guantanimo for even thinking that way and I hate to think what they are capable of sticking up your tail pipe.

Sis, I did not say who that increase would go to. I think the goverment may be good but they have been shown waste a little money now and then. The big oil companies could be suited under goverment regulation as they are in the business of energy. Many are already working on alternatives to oil and they have the distribution networks. I would prefer Honda because they have a Hydrogen car/home power generation station coming to our shores in 3 years.

There is a book hitting the shelves today, Internal Combustion by Edwin Black. He explores all the myths and realities of oil and energy. He explains what happens with low oil prices.

I wonder how long it took the representatives of war profiteers, AKA the “current administration” to recognize the Sept.11 attacks for what they have become — a BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY!

It ain’t -just- oil. There’s all kinds of money to be made over there. Especially since Cheney as secretary of defense drastically downsized the military, creating all kinds of opportunities for profit minded contractors, who are ripping the country off with impunity, and all too often at the peril of our troops.

I am baffled as to why there is so little outrage at all this profiteering, and outraged at how some companies are getting off the hook with the flimsiest of excuses (e.g. “The contract didn’t specify that the trucks had to work”).

If congress put half the energy into investigating this ongoing ripoff as it gave to a stained blue dress, there would quite a few of Bush, Cheney and co.’s friends in prison now.

If treason defined as waging war agains the US or giving aid and comfort to its enemies, what do you call it when you -use- the US to wage war, for private gain?

I’d still call it treason.