Badgers? Badgers!

It hasn't gone unnoticed that the parts of Iraq controlled by the British tend to be calmer than the American controlled sections. While the most ardent Anglophile would probably attribute this to English efficiency, and those not so fond of America would claim it was because of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay, I think most experts agree this is because the native population of the British zone is such that sectarian strife is less likely.

What if there was another explanation for this discrepancy? And what if it involved badgers?

Not just any badger, but giant man-eating badgers with ill-tempered dispositions. Since I've been fortunate enough never to have come across such a horrifying beast, I will use the words of Basra housewife Suad Hassan, who was assaulted by the creature as she slept -- and displays, in her description of the attack's aftermath, a charming and versatile knowledge of the mammalian class of vertebrate:

My husband hurried to shoot it but it was as swift as a deer. It is the size of a dog but his head is like a monkey.

The residents of Basra seem to agree that the super badgers were released upon the city by the British military for the purpose of intimidation. And who wouldn't refrain from strapping an IED under a truck when faced with requital from such a talented chimera? Suddenly that Sunni over there -- the one whose lower jaw isn't articulated to his upper jaw in a manner which makes it virtually impossible to loosen his oral clasp once he hungrily bites down -- doesn't looks so bad.

Of course the British deny employing souped-up badger enforcers, and even got a military spokesman, a Major Mike Shearer, to declare: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."

A likely story, indeed. The Brits, who have been in the colonization game for as long and hard as anyone, surely know that the badger, aside from the human and the polar bear, is the only animal known to attack without provocation. And, unlike the polar bear, the badger is compact and can be introduced into most climates. The badger's sinister burrowing skills alone are likely to strike fear and compliance into the hearts of any a superstitious third world populous.

It's just too bad our Pentagon is still throwing its time and money at a gay bomb.