St Anthony. The patron saint of all things lost and wretched.
How fitting, therefore, that we share the same name.
For I have staked my legacy on both, time and again.
Yet there are those who would rob me of my divine deliverance.
Fortunately, I remain a defender of the faith. My own, that is.
How else could I comfortably sit atop the world, my eyes closed and with no falsifying dream to harbour?
The landscape of the world have I changed, that is true. And now this scorched earth is compelled to turn her face upwards for my decimation.
They say I kill where I please. That my manners are tearing off heads.
And for this I must at redemption wink.
Yet history, with its limitless potential for visionary hindsight rewritten, is alone worthy of judging me. I have no need to recognise the court of public opinion, where the herds of self-proclaimed independent minds find their world becoming bigger as their eyesight gets worse. I, for one, do not wish to see the lines on their idiot boards.
But bless my cotton socks am I in the news. Although it is I who stands accused. Behind-the-scenes warmongering, they say. Playing caped crusaders with a certain swaggering urban cowboy as we conjured up new games without frontiers and wars without tears. A big bloody deal it was, too, they cry. Hawk Roosting by another name. Oh well, it is all wrapped up the same.
So take their bait I shall, just this once. For I want my truth to triumph; to have my legacy noblesse-decreed and baptised by the warmth of my own saintly glow. Just like that invisible sun known to give us hope when the whole day is done. And if I am to be recast once more as The Saviour politic of the people, as I surely must – it is imperative to secure all this now. Or at least before old Chilcot goes public. It is, quite simply, my Call of Duty, if you will. Whatever I may say about history.
But rest assured, there shall be no taking a bow. No turning out the lights. The party is not over, even if mine continues to languish in opposition. Indeed, the show must go on. And so on it did I go, wearing yet another brilliant disguise to rejuvenate this faded masquerade.
I-R-A-Q
That four-letter word they would have haunt me forever.
An incantation to invoke visions of my anticipated fall from grace.
For them, it is my Banquo’s ghost.
My Long Road To Hell
Or so they have always contrived.
But I am The Saviour of my own absolution, or do they forget?
How easy it was for me, then, to sit back and allow my luminosity to radiate beneath global media’s forever refractive glare. The camera, after all, never lies. Except when out of focus and shooting Occidentally from the hip.
We were a fraternity once. An axis-of-diesel-guzzling-weasels.
Our mission was to remake the world. Not in our own image but to our own absolute profit. And how we welcomed collateral damage as cheapening the cost of empire. Admittedly only possible when someone else pays the price.
Our merry band of men may have disbanded as our official power waned in tenure – but our altruism did we bequeath. So gracious were we in enlightening the next generation of leaders about opening up their eyes and their imagination. To recognise that brute force is the best way to deliver the citizenry from liberty and keep them from peace. And that when justice is done then freedom lives in the barrels of a warm gun.
One man who understood this almost as well as I was a certain current affairs maestro. That unthinking man’s pundit. He whose intellectual Global Positioning System has always remained unfailingly in sync with an establishment narrative preferring to posture as conventional wisdom.
How utterly inspired, then, was his latest move. Promoting his flagship show as offering a unique insight into America-in-Iraq and yet inviting only us men of war to speak. We alone were afforded the privilege to retrospectively revise our positions, if we so wished. Is there a better way to assume a political career less ordinary?
Altogether humdrum, however, was the way in which the anti-warmongers flash-mobbed the throwing down of their figurative arms in predictably choreographed despair.
Obviously there was no moment of truth in terms of honest dialogue. Naturally those upon whom war had been waged were not sought for commentary. Yet those expecting this and much else were more fantastical in their delusion than even I had been prepared to believe. This pre-programmed review was not about the people of Iraq. It was not about accountability or justice. Had it been, does anyone really think I would have made an appearance? Even if it was to steal the show.
The writer is the Deputy Managing Editor, Daily Times. She can be reached at [email protected] and tweets @humeiwei