The Truth, Mainly - 09/10/1990

“I wonder," she says, "what we'd be doing if it was cheap zucchini."

"Well I don't know," I say, sticking my head a little deeper into the sports page. "What are you talking about?"

She points to a front-page headline, "Military Strikes Planned."

"This," she says. "If it was cheap zucchini instead of cheap oil that we buy from Kuwait, would military strikes be planned?"

"Don't be silly," I say. "Nobody would plan military strikes over cheap zucchini."

"Then we really are planning military strikes so we can have dollar-a-gallon gasoline?"

"That's silly too," I say. "Nobody would plan military strikes so we can have dollar-a-gallon gasoline."

"Then tell me again," she says. She sounds like she's not going to believe me. "Why are we planning military strikes?"

"Well," I say, closing the sports page and putting on my Henry Kissinger face, "there are lots of reasons. We can't just stand by and let Iraq expand its borders at the expense of Kuwait. So we plan military strikes."

"But we didn't plan military strikes when lots of other countries expanded their borders," she says. "Of course we could still have dollar-a-gallon gasoline then."

"That's irrelevant," I say. "Saddam Hussein is a murderous jerk who uses poison gas. So we've got to plan military strikes."

"But he was using poison gas in his war against Iran two years ago," she says. "If he's a murderous jerk now, he was a murderous jerk then, but we didn't plan military strikes. Could it have been because we still had dollar-a-gallon gasoline?"

"That had nothing to do with it," I say, talking louder because I'm not so sure now. "We're a loyal member of the U.N. and the U.N. has condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. That's probably why we've got to plan military strikes against Saddam."

She's not convinced. She says the U.N. also condemned our invasion of Panama and we didn't plan military strikes against ourselves. She says we haven't paid our U.N. dues either.

"How about the hostages?" I ask. I feel the argument slipping away. "They're a good reason to plan military strikes, aren't they?"

"Maybe so," she says, "but that's mixing up cause and effect. Saddam didn't take the hostages untilafterwe started planning military strikes. He says he'll let them go if we promise tostopplanning military strikes."

"OK," I say. "But surely you don't think the president is lying when he says we're planning military strikes for all those reasons, do you?"

"I don't think he's lying," she says. "He probably believes all those reasons just like he believed what he saw in the mirror when he read his own lips about no new taxes. But I don't believe them."

"So what do you believe is the reason?"

"I thought you'd never ask," she says. "It's exactly what the president said a couple of weeks ago: to preserve our way of life. And dollar-a-gallon gasoline is very important to our way of life as the president understands it and lives it. He must think if we had to pay three or four dollars or five dollars a gallon, the way they do in Europe, our way of life wouldn't be any better than theirs."

"So when we see George Bush ripping around in his motor boat," I say, "he's just celebrating our way of life, as he understands it, by burning all that cheap gasoline?"

"Bingo!" she says. "He's showing that he's no wimpy four-cylinder president who wears sweaters and whines around about conservation. George Bush is an eight-cylinder president and he'll rev up his engine and plan military strikes to prove it."

"I get it," I say. "It's like the broccoli thing. George Bush won't stand still for anyone messing with our gasoline prices any more than he'd stand still for anyone making him eat broccoli."

"You got it," she says. "I'm proud of you."

"Hey, what would we be doing if Kuwait sold us cheap broccoli instead of cheap oil or cheap zucchini?" I say. "Would military strikes be planned?"

"Don't be silly," she says. "Nobody plans military strikes over cheap broccoli."

Satterfield is a college professor and writes as a means of discovery.