HEARTS AND MINDS. Lock and load, maggots! General Ralph “Blood 'n' Guts” Peters admits in the New York Post that “while our occupation of Iraq is going vastly better than the media suggests, there is certainly room for improvement.” And for ol’ Blood ‘n’ Guts, improvement proceeds from the barrel of a gun.

Here’s how he proposes to deal with Iraq’s Sunni Muslims, some of whom are thought to be involved in the deadly events of last week:

If the populace continues to harbor our enemies and the enemies of a healthy Iraqi state, we need to impose strict martial law… we need to cut back on electricity, ration water, restrict access to the city and organize food distribution through a ration card system. And we need to occupy the city so thickly that the inhabitants can't step out of their front doors without bumping into an American soldier.

The General also proposes limiting Sunni access to the nation's vast oil profits, and Sunni representation in Iraqi security forces. Thus would every man, woman, and child among them feel the wrath of Peters!

Having laid out the short-term punishment detail, Blood 'n' Guts looks into the future, proposing "alternative plans for Iraq in case attempts to build an integrated democracy fail." Here one is tempted to ask, "Didn't you just say that the occupation is going vastly better than the media suggest?" but this would only lead to a knee in the gut and a court-martial for insubordination.

All Iraq, Peters prescribes, is to be divided into three parts, like Gaul. And the imperial resemblance will not end there. "We're overdue to take a lesson from the Romans and the British before us," barks the General, "and recognize the value of punitive expeditions… we need not feel obliged to rebuild every government we are forced to destroy… Where you cannot be loved, be feared…"

You might have gotten the impression, from all the statue-toppling and sob stories, that our bloody adventure in Iraq has been justified, absent the WMD, by the hope and democracy we are eventually going to bring to its citizens. Well, ol' Blood and Guts don't cotton to all that P.C. bullshit!

We at alicublog thank this belligerent clown for his candor. Now if only the draft-dodging mush-mouth in the White House had his guts. 'N' blood.