There Isn't A More Profitable Undertaking.......

In 1955, a novel was published about the Grand Duchy of Fenwick, a teeny tiny nation no more than five miles long and three miles wide, nestled between Italy and France, tucked into a fold of the Alps. It was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post. And it was made into a movie. I loved that movie. Well, okay; in 1959 I was already a huge Peter Sellers fan and he was playing not one, but THREE parts in the movie. Oh, you probably want to know the name of the movie. Well, it wasn’t titled The Wrath of Grapes as the author originally intended; instead, it was called The Mouse That Roared.

Tully Bascombe takes NY

Here's the short version: the Duchy’s main export is a fine wine called Pinot Grand Fenwick. When an American company successfully markets a knockoff, Pinot Grand Enwick, the Ducky is practically bankrupted. Desperate to do something, anything to save the Duchy, they decide to declare war on America…with every intention of losing so that they might be the recipients of generous foreign aid…à la the Marshall Plan. Well, things didn’t turn out quite that way. As Tully Bascombe, Grand Fenwick's military mastermind, says, "There isn't a more profitable undertaking for any country than to declare war on the United States and to be defeated."

Seems that Kim Jong Whatshisname likes more than just American b-ball. I’m gonna take a wild guess that he also likes American movies…and that somewhere along the line, he saw THE MOUSE THAT ROARED. Just hunch here, but the movie is just obscure (old) enough to not be in vogue and Junior is hoping that no one remembers it. After all, We, the People aren’t real good at remembering history, much less learning from it.

North Korea is in dire straits. The country is close to broke, the population is suffering. And Kim Jung Un, spending what little capital he has on nuclear programs, just announced the 1953 Armistice has been invalidated. Can this little fellow be so delusional as to think the US won’t glass him over should he attempt to launch a nuclear device in our direction? Even China, his sole ally, is displeased with this turn of events. Apparently, the Chinese have deemed this the gateway to Nuttyland.

But is it so nutty? We have a habit of fixing up countries that come after us. Look at post-war Germany and Japan. We spent billions rebuilding their economies. One might look at those as investments, but others might think otherwise. However, this seems to be, for good or for bad, our modus operandi.

Of course, there’s no guarantee US intervention is always welcome.  Iraq and Afghanistan are living examples of that. We had no business in Iraq; it was a phony war drummed up for Cheney for his oil buddies and sanction by the infantile W…who viewed the taking of Saddam Hussein as payback for threatening President Daddy. Iraq is not a functioning government, and there are still homicide bombers roaming city streets and the countryside. Ya, sure, you betcha; we sure did a bang up job with that one. And I won’t even mention the aroigevofeneh gelt that went to baksheesh and other assorted pockets of no merit. Very little of it helped the people of Iraq…like we said it would.

What? Me worry?

The same thing goes for Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai has been showing himself these days to be the south end of a northbound horse. Clearly he’s worried about his own legacy and clearly he’s playing both sides. He knows damn well the money well is about to dry up and he’s gonna use that for what it’s worth to convince his people of, well, who knows what.

So I have a couple of suggestions our foreign frenemies.

  

First, to Hamid Krazy in Afghanistan: Rooze khoobi dashteh bashed. That’s Dari for “have a nice day,” which is Minnesotan for “We’re outta here.” Not one more red cent goes into that country. Not that we had any business being there in the first place, but President Krazy wouldn’t be president if the US hadn’t made that possible, which was stupid in the first place. No more American lives wasted in defense of an administration that has chartered its own path back to the 15^th century. Enough is enough.

BFF....really?

And as for Kim Jung Un, I would say, “ij-eo beolyeoyo,” which pretty much means, “Fuhgeddaboudit.” If you launch that stuff at the US, we’re going to take you out and we are not spending cent to fix you. There is no reward for being a moron, and you are not going to get to play your version of Grand Theft Fenwick. If you want to play Russian Roulette with your country, that’s your choice.

This is the part where we tell our Congress that we are not going to start another unfunded war. We will do what we need to stop North Korea from attempting to bomb us…and then we’re done. They can fix their own country. This is one case where we actually have not gone in for a regime change and we’re not doing it now. Been there, got the tee-shirt, draped caskets, and prosthetic limbs. The US will do what it has to protect We, the People, and then we’re done.  

Sorry, Kim; there is no Country Claus.

Wifely Person’s Tip o’the Week

Do watch THE MOUSE THAT ROARED…yes, it is available on Netflix.