Memorandum
From: Paul Wolfowitz
To: Donald Rumsfeld
Re.: Who's Next?

Donald, we've got our work cut out for us. Looks like we're going to get away with the Iraq thing — total victory and vindication for Bush Doctrine II, Prevention Edition. We've set a precedent to remove any regime that might conceivably pose a menace to our security at some future point. Forgive me for waxing eloquent, but the eyes of history are upon us as we launch a glorious Pax Americana, and liberate the globe from anti-American viewpoints and general Godlessness.

It's never too early to look beyond Iraq. It will only get easier, as the new democratic Arab regimes cheer the name of the Great Savior and provide diplomatic support — who needs NATO and the UN anyway, am I right? North Korea is an obvious choice. But boy, the last thing we need is to give Mike Farrell an angle. The guy talks more than 10 Alan Aldas, and he wasn't even an original cast member! Iran ... maybe, makes a certain kind of sense, but again, think of the Jimmy Carter situation. He'd make a speech in Tehran or some damn thing, how far our two countries had come since 1980, it'd be like watching Sprewell French kiss Carlesimo. Freedom kiss, sorry.

And no, not France. Who wants to have to govern those assholes?

Congo, on the other hand. They may not be keeping too many Americans awake at night right now, but you never know. With all those diamonds, they could easily afford a nuclear device from a rogue nation with that capability, I don't have to tell you which one, and then what's to stop them from using it against the U.S. of A.? Plus they're Marxist, which speaks for itself. I say we unleash a lightning strike on Brazzaville, knock 'em on their butts before they know what hit 'em. The diamond mines will pay for the whole operation, and if there's a little left over, well, that's all the more to fund our next mission of liberation.

Thailand, that's next on the list. Have you seen the whores there? Disgraceful, each one younger than the last. They endanger the moral health of every American serviceman in Southeast Asia, undermine operations throughout the region with their sinful ways. This will not stand. We'll clean that up fast, put some clothes on the little sluts, something appropriately modest and chaste, a kilt kind of thing perhaps. A firm hand, that's what Thailand needs.

And then comes the time to move on the Shire. You'd never give those hobbits a second look if you noticed them in the first place. They seem so complacent, lolling the afternoons away with a plate of mushrooms and a bowl of pipe weed. But the signs of Islamic radicalism are all there: No shoes. No television. Underground bunkers. Holy men with robes and beards. Everyone seems to be somebody else's cousin. And something else as well, a strange power perhaps. I've felt it. I have my suspicions. And I'll choke the Brandywine with their dead before I see it wielded against the American way of life.

These are wondrous times, Donald. We're floating free, no longer bound by diplomatic exigency, international law, economic reality. All we need is the certainty that we're right, and the willingness to make it count. Hold my hand, Donald. The roller coaster is cresting the hill.

— J. Daniel Janzen (jdaniel at flakmag dot com)