SCENE:  Still ruins.  What did you expect?

BOB:  Actually, dear viewers, it's kind of dangerous right now-- being Canadian and all when there are Americans in the vicinity.
BRIAN:  Lots of Americans seem to hate us Canadians because the Prime Minister of Canada decided not to send troops into Iraq.
BOB:  Completely forgetting that there are actually Canadian peacekeeping troops around here, somewhere.  It's just that there are no Canadians actually physically fighting this war.
BRIAN:  Like, blowing up buildings.
BOB:  And their own troops.
BRIAN:  Americans are good at that.
BOB:  In World War 2, there was a saying that the non-American allies used to bandy about.  It goes something like this:
BRIAN:  "When you call in the British, the enemies die...."
BOB:  "When you call in the Canadians, the enemies die...."
BRIAN:  "But when you call in the Americans, everybody dies."
BOB:  Because even back then, the Americans were notorious for being undisciplined cowboys who blew up everything indiscriminately.
BRIAN:  They really are the masters of "Friendly Fire."
BOB:  Mutually Assured Destruction is an American term.

Pause.

BOB:  But, anyway....
BRIAN:  Yeah.  Looks like both the US government and the general populous have conveniently forgotten that Jean Chretien initially said he would send troops into Iraq if the UN said there was reason to attack.  But the UN didn't.  So Chretien didn't.  Canada would have been on board if there had been a democratic decision to do so.
BOB:  But that's okay.  Let the cowboys play their games.
BRIAN:  Actually, it doesn't help matters much when people in power in Canada call Americans bastards, and Bush a moron.
BOB:  Yeah, and while it is true that Bush is a moron, all Americans aren't bastards.
BRIAN:  But, also, it does show something.  It still is telling.
BOB:  What is?
BRIAN:  The American reaction to the fact that Canada isn't going into the war with them, the American reaction to the Anti-Americanism in Canada right now.
BOB:  Yeah?
BRIan:  Yeah.  They can dish it out, but they can't take it.
BOB:  What do you mean?
BRIAN:  They can publicly boo Canada, like they did when those skaters won the Olympics a while ago-- Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, that was their names.  Americans can hang the Canadian flag upside down and then joke about it-- and they did this a while ago, too.  In relation to those skaters.  Pat Buchanan can call Canada "Soviet Canuckistan" and mean it, and get away with it-- we don't do a goddamn thing but laugh at him becuase he's an ignorant Born Again Christian redneck.  But Americans can't take it when Canadians call them names.  Their itty bitty little feewings get hurt.  They're just like little kids.
BOB:  I guess so, yeah.
BRIAN:  Well, not all of them, just the ones who are running around throwing garbage at Canadian cars, and slashing the tires of Canadian cars, and yelling at visiting Canadians to go home.
BOB:  And when I heard, just for a minute there, when it first came out that Canada wasn't going to support the USA by sending troops into Iraq-- when I heard that some American official publicly said that maybe the reason Canada isn't sending troops is that maybe we're "with Saddam...."  I mean, what the hell is that?
BRIAN:  Yeah.  No kidding.  I mean, Christ!  What kind of paranoid, xenophobic, ignorant moron-mind says something like that.  This is the exact sort of pea-brained bullshit that gets Americans called morons and bastards and spat upon globally.
BOB:  Yeah, and the best part is, they need Canada.
BRIAN:  Exactly.  They better watch who they spit on.  They want all of Canada's water and lumber.  So they better calm the hell down.
BOB:  And without Canada they'd have no Jim Carey, Alanis Morissette, or Celine Dion-- there would be no Celine Dion in Las Vegas.  There'd be no James Cameron and no Titanic.  No Saturday Night Live.  No Mike Myers.  No Captain Kirk.  No entertainment industry to speak of.
BRIAN:  Good heavens, no!  How could they live without that?

Pause.

BOB:  Every time I see Bush on tv he looks like a smug ape.
BRIAN:  He actually looks like an autistic child, to be truthful.  He looks like he doesn't really understand what he's looking at when he sees the lights and the cameras.
BOB:  He definitely doesn't sound like he understands what he's saying when he reads his cue-cards.
BRIAN:  But he seems happy.
BOB:  Oh yeah.  He's happy.

Pause.

BRIAN:  Everyone's so happy.  Because they're being told over and over they're winning.  And they probably are, but still, all the news from the USA is so obviously filtered.  And, I mean, it's so transparently filtered, too.  It's all fake, like I said last time.  But, still, I mean, in the first Gulf War, it was filtered, too.  But the first Gulf War was all still kind of crazy, chaotic.  Like, you could watch CNN and you could tell they were trying to filter it, and you knew they were more-or-less successful-- but this war, watching everything unfold on tv, it's like it's all surface, like it's all staged and very well rehearsed.  It's a Warhol war.  It's like a coloured photocopy of the first Gulf War.  It's like an improved reproduction.  Instead of being in Kuwait, they're actually in Iraq.  Instead of just pushing Hussein around, they're actually going in there, trying to kick his ass-- and they will kick his ass, this time.  And, instead of fumbling and trying not to seem scared, all the reporters are calm, very distant, almost unaware of the artillery and booms behind them.  All just totally detached.  Like they know it's all just a simulation.  Like they know that the second they step in front of the camera they cease to be real.

Pause.

BRIAN: Want to buy a copy of the Saddam Hussein Reader?
BOB:  The what?
BRIAN:  The Saddam Hussein Reader.  It's a collection of writing on Hussein in a convenient, portable format.  Excellent for the trendsetter on the go.  You can read it when you eat your freedom fries in a public place.
BOB:  Saddam Hussein and freedom fries are a good combination.
BRIAN:  I'm still stunned that there are still people in the USA are calling French fries "freedom fries."  They've been doing that for a while, now.  And they're serious.  That just boggles the mind.  Renaming French fries because France doesn't support the war.  But, hey, you can buy little piping hot bits of crispy-fried freedom now, and eat them, consume them, become one with the freedom, let the freedom course through your veins.  Sort of a postmodern eucharist.
BOB:  Of course, in this context, too much freedom is high in cholesterol and causes heart disease.  Guess they didn't think that far ahead.
BRIAN:  Maybe they can rename Canadian bacon "freedom bacon."

Pause.

BOB:  It boggles the mind even more that people in Canada are doing it.  Renaming French fries, not bacon.
BRIAN:  Yeah, well, but not many.  Just the few who can't really get their minds around the fact that the majority of Canadians don't support this war.
BOB:  Yeah, well, there are tons of Americans who don't support the war, either, and lots and lots of British people.  It's easy to forget this because the American media makes it seem like everybody in the USA and Britain is on board.
BRIAn:  Fortunately, though the Brits just call the damn things "chips."
BOB:  And, if Americans are so mad at the French, why don't they just give The Statue Of Liberty back to them....
BRIAN:  But they won't be doing that any time soon.
BOB:  ....instead of saying that they got Hitler out of France in World War 2, that they liberated France so France owes them.  Like that even has any validity.
BRIAN:  It was 50 years ago.  It has no bearing on the world right now.  The USA's acting like a little kid screaming about taking the ball and going home.  And, besides, the US only entered the WW2 right at the end, right when things were starting to wind down anyway.   Germany was already starting to show the strain of Hitler's insanity.  The USA maybe hastened the end of WW2 by a couple of years.  And sure they saved a lot of people, but they could have gotten in earlier and saved more people.  But they didn't.  They chose the easy route.  And so squawking at France about World War 2 is kind of like the pot calling the kettle black.  To use a good ol' down-home cliché.
BOB:  Right.  By the way, they decided on a name for the war now, it's "Operation Iraqi Freedom."
BRIAN:  I guess that's better than "Operation Infinite Justice Part 2."
BOB:  Or "The War Party-- 2."
BRIAN:  True enough, but that was the best I could come up with.  Right now I'm very, very tired.  And my head aches.  Anyway--
BOB:  Anyway.
BRIAN:  Yeah, anyway.  You have to admit it was kind of funny watching the motivations for invading Iraq switch.  It was kind of hebephrenic.
BOB:  Yeah, from having to invade Iraq because of possible ties to Al Qaeda-- which is ridiculous because say what you want about Hussein's government, it's still secular and not fundamentalist Muslim.  And because it's secular, the fundamentalists want nothing to do with it.  So people like the Taliban hate Hussein just as much as they hate the USA.  So there are no ties to Al Qaeda.  Sorry.
BRIAN:  Exactly.  Anyone who'd believe that is either uninformed or just plain stupid.
BOB:  And then it moved from this Al Qaeda thing to the "weapons of mass destruction."
BRIAn:  Weapons, of course, no one has found.
BOB:  And then, because they didn't find any weapons of mass destruction, now the coalition is simply liberating Iraq from an oppressive tyrant.  Which, of course, Hussein is.  Funny how they're resorting to the truth as a last-ditch effort.

Pause.

BRIAN:  And, actually, the war is taking longer than expected, already.
BOB:  Yep.  They wanted to be in and out already.  And it looks like there's actually some resistance.
BRIAN:  Fancy that.  People actually don't like being invaded.
BOB:  But, the Americans will get through it in the end.  They always do.

Pause.

BRIAN:  But, soon, if they don't get the job done, the heat's going to be closing in.  And they're going to be in for a long, hot desperate summer.
BOB:  But there's really no doubt.
BRIAN:  Well, no.  The USA will win.
BOB:  It's just a matter of time.

Pause.

BRIAN:  But make sure you stock up on duct tape, though.
BOB:  And plastic sheeting.
BRIAN:  Storm's a'brewin'.
BOB:  Evil's afoot.
BRIAn:  The perimeter's been breached.
BOB:  The border's under siege.
BRIAN:  Nothing can save you now.
BOB:  Prepare for attack.
BRIAN:  Everybody knows that duct tape and plastic sheeting are guaranteed protection you against anthrax spores.
BOB:  Or nuclear fallout.
BRIAN:  Just wrap your house in plastic.
BOB:  Tape all the windows shut.
BRIAN:  Make sure no air gets in or out.
BOB:  And then just sit back and calmly wait for the twilight of the gods.
BRIAN:  Another good protection against anthrax infection and nuclear fallout is suicide.
BOB:  Remember that, kids, suicide.
BRIAN:  After all, in the end you've gotta die anyway.
BOB:  Nobody lives forever.
BRIAN:  May as well just get it over with now and move on.
BOB:  Over, and out....

Next:  Public opinion / public contagion....