Iraq and US – it’s all about perception?
It’s a beautiful Sunday. As I’m “surfing” through the Internet, I find some articles about US and Iraq. As you know the US are partially withdrawing from Iraq. The impact?
Let’s see two opinions:
Wall Street Journal online has an article titled: Why We’re Winning Now in Iraq. The Daily Star has another article – written by a “former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva”: Exit strategy from Iraq: Will US withdrawal diminish its image?
So what is it? Is this withdrawal a success? Does it matter only what one wants to see – victory on it’s part? Is perception still everything?
Insemnari similare
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James opened the hotel-room door as quietly as he could, but Angelina was already awake. Sitting on the couch, very fetching in a man’s bathrobe, looking out at the pollution-tinted dawn.
“Getting thirsty, Jim?” Chaise said. His eyes were surrounded by darkened shadows. Working night and day on his crooked schemes. But he still had enough energy left for some gratuitous sadism. I didn’t answer, but tried a dry cough instead.
He did not try to stop me. Knowing that he had absolute power over me as long as Angelina was his prisoner. I slowly strolled the streets among the wage slaves hurrying to work. Entered the now familiar environs of the mechomart and buried myself in its depths. If I were being followed I wanted to lose my tail. I entered the first office building I came to. Up the elevator alone. Down the stairs and out the rear door-did this sort of thing a number of times until I was sure I wasn’t being followed. Only then did I go and buy a cheap telephone. After I first threw mine away. Chaise had had the entire night to bug this phone-and to plant more of his bugs on me.
This really was a rich little part of Fetorr. Instead of a robot salesman, there was actually a human being doing this smarmy job.
“Lunchtime,” I rumbled in echo. “Let us dine at some exclusive and hideously expensive restaurant while my applications are being processed. And return to find out who my mentor will be.”
“Thank you, it was. But completely without profit I want you to know. I am but an employee and Chaise gets all the profit. Any word on your mother?” I tried not to sound as disturbed as I was.
“Of course you do. But I was also thinking of the little matter of reaching the Colosseo. I’m sure that all the police have my photo by now and are on the lookout. The streets are not safe.”
“What do you mean?”
Unhappily, it was not easy to come by. Magicians, down through the centuries, have been a close-mouthed lot. Passing their secrets on all too reluctantly, keeping the details of their trade very close to the chest. Despite the billions of entries in the databases I searched, I could find very little real information. Just card tricks and vanishing rabbits and things like that. I had the strong feeling that Bolshoi’s Big Top would sneer at my act if that was all that I could do.
“Retired and living in Happy Hectares, a retirement home for actors. Sounds very nice.”
“The house is sold out again tonight-so bonuses are in order all around. And who may I ask is your visitor?”
He sat back and thought about that. “You are right. There is nothing financial about your role in this matter. I will take care of that. You will be involved in a simple bit of industrial sabotage.”
We went to join Grissini and to congratulate him. He shrugged it off as his accepted due. And shook an admonitory finger.
Attention squared now.
“Generally speaking, yes.”
“This appears to be circular trade with a vengeance. First he robs his own bank. When the insurance company pays him off he has essentially doubled his money. Next he cleans out another bank and blames you for it. Then he blackmails you into working for him in order to steal the armored car credits. Which he next launders through his bank to make more investments and more credits.”
“Blob of ink?” Angelina asked, puzzled.
“You betcha. There are a lot of other ways to earn money-both legal and illegal. I would feel a lot better if we pursued some of the other possibilities rather than having ourselves in hock to Chaise.”
I went behind the rear of the display and found cabinets, a paint locker, shelves of parts and models. Plenty of places to hide. Plenty of places that would be well searched. I had to move on.
I noticed that Bolivar hadn’t joined the conversation. He had obviously found his perusal of the papers more interesting. I was about to ask him about it when he wadded the sheets into a ball and said, with some enthusiasm: “Got it!”
I hoped. “No-know he is safe and will get back!” I shouted out loud to build my morale a bit. Went and let myself back into the building. Igor was still out and still snoring. I pulled the blanket over my head and tried to emulate his good example.
“A tax man!” Not in my wildest dream.
We trundled through the morning traffic until we reached the tollway. This was filly automated and switched the truck over to autocontrol as soon as we left the slipway. We speeded up until we were exactly ten meters behind another truck. We stayed there with machinelike precision. With the tollway doing all the driving, Igor fell instantly asleep. I watched the dismal industrial landscape slide by-and timed the service areas. One appeared every half an hour. Very organized.
The hammering didn’t wake me up. I worked it into an elaborate dream and I slept on. Only when I heard the grating sound of the desk being pushed along the floor did I snap awake.
“The reinforcements are on their way,” I said as I reached for the booze bottle. And stopped. Things were getting very complicated and I did not need to complicate them even more with a thick head. I had a small dry sherry and a cigar instead. Gloriana rattled her quills enticingly, so I reached down and scratched her behind the ears. I felt a sense of impending doom and I did not like it. Angelina must have seen my expression because she sat on the couch next to me and took my hand.
“That will give those criminals back on the island something to think about,” Bolivar said with great satisfaction. “Normally I wouldn’t enjoy doing something like this. But anyone who drafts holidaymakers into clearing up atomic debris deserves no less.”
I will admit to feeling some hints of apprehension when we drew up before the warehouse. We waited outside until James had swept up all the bugs inside and put them in his insulated bag. Nor was I wildly enthusiastic when the cuffs clicked back on my wrists. Angelina was not happy either as she applied the makeup to my crunched face. Which looked even more crunched by the time she was through. She admired her handiwork, then frowned.
“How stable is it?” I asked.
“How will that help?” Angelina asked. “James knows nothing about banks.”
They rushed in and I had to step aside or be trampled. Angelina sipped her wine and did not grace them for an instant by acknowledging their rude presence.
“And writing as well,” Angelina said, taking a pad and stylo from the drawer of her dressing table. “Let us first list what we know-and then what we must find out.”
“Nothing,” I growled as I shouted at the computer to turn itself off. “Maybe it is the acrobat-way after all.”
Chaise? Igor? Nothing good I was sure. At this instant I felt just about as low as I had ever felt. Or lower. The door slowly opened. A dark figure slipped through. I started to shout, thought better of it. Waited until he had finished the traditional bug search and sealed away his trophies in the radiation-proof bag. Then I let my breath out in a rush.
“Alone?”
I tried to remember. “No. Just name tags.”
He was turning away when I shouted this after him. Turned back, his face livid. Why had I let my own anger carry me away? I realized that I had signed my own death certificate.
“No wires. You saw the ring go the entire length of my body.”
Angelina raised one lovely eyebrow. “You have been teaching this thing to be your electronic slave?”
“And this is Gloriana.”
“I will not tell you. However I will reveal to you the il-. lusion of the levitating lady. The apparatus arrived this morning and I will go to install it.” He rose, then turned to Angelina. “Did you purchase the black dress I mentioned?”
“A good deal. For one thing-he doesn’t exist.”
“Problem? What do you mean?”
“Let-in-it’s OK. . .”
Was there any point in arguing?
I bet they would! There would be cold shivers throughout the boardrooms. Not my problem. I scanned through the rest of the news, found an obscure item at the very end.
But, even as I suffered through my grisly repast, my subconscious was at work. Analyzing, plotting, scheming, working.
“You are lying; Chaise. I have a feeling that you have never told me the truth at any time.”
For long moments nothing happened. The copter bumped a bit when the sound of the explosion reached us.
“Found that in your pocket. Want to keep it?”
I hung up and strolled away. And dropped the phone in the nearest waste receptacle. Hoping that Bolivar would catch on that I was still probably bugged, and letting him know I would be at the restaurant we had met in before. I knew I had not been followed. But I also knew that I was undoubtedly still bugged.