P. J. ORourke - Peace Kills

Praise for Peace Kills:

ORourke cut his teeth writing brilliantly caustic dispatches from the most war-torn parts of the world. Hes in peak form with these pieces detailing Americas seemingly insane foreign policy and offering a grunts eye view of the mess in Iraq. (Must Buy4 stars out of 5)

Maxim

ORourke is an actual conservative, with ideas and a conscience, as opposed to the stealth flacks staying on party message that often pass for conservatives in these Hannitized and Limbaughtomized days.

Zay N. Smith, Chicago Sun-Times

We are fortunate to have an erudite companion with a heavily stamped passport, a guy who can read and digest the wonkiest policy paper and still knows a good punch line when he sees one.

Patrick Beach, Austin American-Statesman

Although self-billed as an investigative humorist, ORourkes dispatches convey far more understanding and insight than more serious-toned pontificating.

Bill Virgin, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The esteemed P. J. ORourke is a conservative but so funny liberals love him too.

Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times

Some of the best work ORourke does is when he asks those put in harms way to talk about it. His technique is deceptively simple: He describes what he sees and then tells you what he thinks about it.

Joe Mysak, Bloomberg Markets

The senior satirist of the right returns to dissect foreign policy. Checking out ravaged Iraq, his backgrounder journalism is first-rate and, reviewing a Washington Mall political demonstration, his color reportage is smartly selective and funny.

Kirkus Reviews

ORourkes essayslike Twainsmay well hold up long after the partisan battles of our age become dated and obscure.

National Post

ORourke is one of the most articulate and reasonably honest journalists in the United States, with great dexterity at absorbing telling details and smacking a reader upside the head with a pointed but almost always funny simile. [Peace Kills] possesses, besides clear and entertaining journalism, an admirable cascade of darts.

Globe & Mail

Like Tom Wolfe, he is not simply funnyhe does his homework. The result is a kind of satirical travelogue in which local mores are treated rather in the manner of Mark Twain, but with a tart political twist.

The Sunday Telegraph

ORourke is at his best when he concentrates on individuals rather than ideas. His vignettes are superb. A gutsy polemic.

Independent on Sunday

PEACE KILLS

ALSO BY P. J. OROURKE

Modern Manners

The Bachelor Home Companion

Republican Party Reptile

Holidays in Hell

Parliament of Whores

Give War a Chance

All the Trouble in the World

Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut

Eat the Rich

The CEO of the Soja

P.J.
OROURKE

Copyright 2004 by P. J. ORourke

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America

FIRST GROVE PRESS EDITION

Homage to a Dream from COLLECTED POEMS by Philip Larkin, edited by Anthony Thwaite. Copyright 1988, 1989 by the Estate of Philip Larkin. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC, in the United States, and by Faber and Faber Limited in Canada and the UK.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ORourke, P. J.

Peace kills: Americas fun new imperialism / P. J. ORourke.
p. cm.

ISBN 0-8021-4198-6 (pbk.)

1. United StatesForeign relations2001- 2. United StatesForeign relations1993-2001. 3. War on Terrorism, 2001- 4. War on Terrorism, 2001Social aspectsUnited States. 5. Imperialism. 6. ORourke, P. J.TravelSerbia and MontenegroKosovo (Serbia). 7. ORourke, P. J.TravelMiddle East. I. Title. E902.076 2004

973.931dc22 2003069505

Grove Press

an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

841 Broadway

New York, NY 10003

05 06 07 08 09 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In Memory of Michael Kelly

He could have advocated the war in Iraq without going to cover it. He could have covered it without putting himself in harms way. But liberty is an expensive feast. And Mike was a man who always picked up the check.

2 KOSOVO
November 1999

3 ISRAEL
April 2001

5 EGYPT
December 2001

7 WASHINGTON, D.C., DEMONSTRATIONS
April 2002

9 KUWAIT AND IRAQ
March and April 2003

10 POSTSCRIPT: IWO JIMA AND THE END OF
MODERN WARFARE
July 2003

I like the places I write about. I enjoy the people. Ive had a good time wherever Ive gone, Iraq included. My subject, in a way, is pleasure. This is really a book about pleasantness, which is why I dedicate it to Mike Kelly. He and I were drinking one nighta pleasurable occasionand I remember him saying, Wouldnt it be pleasant if we could do something with the forces of evil other than hunt them down and kill them? If we increased funding and reduced class sizes at the fundamentalist madras schools If all the Mrs. bin Ladens had access to day care and prenatal health services If, when Germanic hordes were threatening Rome, a Security Council meeting of the United Despotisms had been called, and Marcus Aurelius had pursued a multilateral foreign policy working in cooperation with the Parthians, the Huns, and the Han Chinese If Aztec priests had taken it on faith that their captives had a lot of heart If Australopithecus and the sabertoothed tiger had engaged in meaningful dialogue

How pleasing would the whole world be,

If everyone would just say please.

And thank you, too, of course. Thanks being what this part of a book is about. I thank Mike Kellya little late, as heartfelt thanks tend to be. But I assume that Mike is keeping current in Reporters Heaven (open bar and porthole in the floor through which highly placed sources quoted on the condition of anonymity can be watched as they fry). A few years back Mike took over as editor of The Atlantic. I was writing for Rolling Stone, where my job was to be the Republican. After sixteen years even Rolling Stone had figured out that this made as much sense as offering readers a free bris. Also my excellent and long-suffering editor there, Bob Love, was about to head to someplace where Marcus Aurelius would not be mistaken for Beyoncs latest brand of bling. Mike called and said, I can pay you less.

Most of this book originally appeared, in somewhat different form, in The Atlantic, first under the brilliant editorship of Mike Kelly, then under the brilliant editorship of Cullen Murphy. If you think the book good, behold what three short Irishmen can accomplish when theyve lost the key to the liquor cabinet. If you think the book otherwise, assume that, after a certain amount of feeling around in the carpet, they found it.

The first chapter contains material from a piece that appeared in