Thank God. We can all rest easier now knowing this may put in end to the publication of diplomatic gossip. Of course, I’m not sure now where we’ll get our tidbits about Moammar Gadhafi’s hot Ukranian nurses.

Hmmm…maybe Scotland Yard could help us capture bin Laden.

Oh well, the Assange and Wikileaks case certainly teaches us how the most powerful people in the world can get retribution if you piss ‘em off.

In other BREAKING NEWS on this Pearl Harbor Day, reports continue to surface about a cave in at The White House. Not to worry, the building is still intact. It’s just that the President, himself, appears to have caved in and agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

Glad we didn’t take seriously all that campaign talk about ending the Bush tax cuts.

But the tax cut deal is good news! We were worried the millionaires and billionaires might have to fork over more of their riches to taxes and help reduce the U.S. debt. Thankfully, they can now go off to St. Bart’s for the holidays without a worry in the world.

Maybe those millionaires and billionaires will spend their holidays dreaming up new jobs for everyone, since the Republicans on Capitol Hill promised that will be the result of extending those tax cuts…as evidenced by the enormous number of jobs created since the tax cuts were enacted in 2003 and 2004. In fact, the millionaires and billionaires are really going to have to think hard to dream up new jobs because jobs already created are so plentiful.

The President, himself, said the tax deal will create “millions of new jobs. “ Paul Krugman, writing today in the New York Times, points to the OCB estimates which suggested extending the Bush tax cuts will reduce uemployment by 0.1 to 0.3. percent in 2011 and twice that in 2012.

But, hey, what’s $700 billion to the budget deficit when we’re reducing unemployment by 0.1 to 0.6 percent?

The good news is what’s left of the middle class will also get to keep its tax cut. The average U.S. household, which has an income of $49,777 will continue to get a tax break of $2,142. A family which earns $311,330 will get to keep $9,318. The President really wanted them to keep only $8,012.

And unemployment pay will continue for one more year for the 9 million Americans considered now chronically unemployed.

But that shouldn’t be a problem because all the millionaires and billionaires spending the holidays down on St. Bart’s will come back with “millions” of jobs for those 9 million people chronically umemployed.

What could possibly go wrong?

INTERPOL, Situation Room

“Gentlemen, I’ve called you here because we need to issue a Red Alert.”

“A Red Alert? Wow, that’s sounds important. What’s a Red Alert?”

“It’s an important alert, not to be confused with a Blue Alert or a Green Alert.”

“Yes, sir…and why are we issuing a Red Alert?”

“We have a rampant information spreader, a RIS, on the loose, gentlemen, someone so despicable they would willingly publish on the InnerTubes information embarrassing to diplomats worldwide!”

“Excuse me, sir, but are we sure spreading information – even embarrassing information – on the Internet is a crime? I mean, isn’t that pretty much why the Internet exists?”

“You don’t seem to suitably ascertain the severity of this problem, young man. We’re talking major diplomatic embarrassment here!! This man, Julian Assange, has a website, Wikileaks, devoted to peeling back government secrets and diplomatic gossip from around the world. This is much more severe than the website devoted to peeling back the onion, Wikileeks.”

“But, sir, are we sure this is a crime?”

“Doesn’t matter. This man has embarrassed the United States by publishing diplomatic gossip and revealing the results of inter-office fantasy baseball leagues and it must be stopped!”

“But, sir, I’ve read the released cables and, well, to be honest they don’t exactly tell us anything we didn’t already know: Saudi Arabia worried about Iranian nuclear weapons? The U.S. worried about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons? That Alexander Putin is an alpha dog? Don’t we already know these things?”

“Look, young man, did you join Interpol to rid the world of its top criminals or did you join Interpol to argue?”

“But, sir, Assange’s mother has asked us not to hurt him.”

“Mother, schmother…we must protect the United States’ right to diplomatic gossip!!”

“Begging your pardon again, sir, but we’ve been nearly 10 years now trying without success to capture Osama bin Laden. Do we really need to divert our resources now to capturing a guy who puts information out on the Internet?

“Aren’t there far more nefarious undertakings afoot? Like the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats in the U.S. Congress conspiring to cut unemployment benefits to those without jobs at Christmas time? That seems far more criminal to me.”

“Who cares about such trivial matters, young man?” We already have the fire built and the stake whittled. We need someone to burn!!”

But you can’t hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg – isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!

[Leads the Deltas out of the hearing, all humming the Star-Spangled Banner]

“Oh, wait…this just in…

“A crap-load of secret documents has just been released on the Internet which suggests war sucks generally and the war in Afghanistan sucks even more than we already know…

“…and Alberto Contador will take his third Le Tour de France victory in four years.”

Really? The war in Afghanistan is going badly? War is insane and a shame on humanity? No kidding?

The revelations released Sunday on Wikileaks and covered ad naseum by the New York Times, the Guardian of London & Der Spiegel tell us much we already knew: the Taliban is a strong force in Afghanistan; the Pakistani spy corps, the ISI, may actually be helping the Taliban; the U.S. is using more drone missiles that we let on…and…

…oh yea…who’s idea was it, anyway, to start a war in a country history shows has always repelled invaders?

Well, it was our idea – the American people’s idea. Oh sure, we were goaded into by a gung-ho president and congress – and, especially, the some of the world’s greatest news organizations.

You’ll recall a butch of thugs based in Afghanistan launched an amazing and horrible attack on the U.S. back in 2001 using hijack commercial airliners to crash into New York and Washington. It was hell, the worst attack ever on the United States.

Thugs pulled this off; a relatively small band of thugs. The U.S. had to respond in kind. Don’t stop to try to understand what led to this attack. Don’t try to figure out why the band of thugs hated us so much. No time for that. By golly, we’d been hit and we had to hit back.

You know, “whoever slaps you on the right check, turn around and slap the crap out of ‘em.”

Rather than pursuing a smart police action, rounding up the criminals in Afghanistan, we decided to launch a full scale war. Then we decided that wasn’t enough. We had to launch another full scale war on another country that didn’t have anything at all to do with the attacks in 2001.

Makes perfect sense.

We did such a good job in Vietnam we just had to try it again. The Soviet Union had such great success in Afghanistan in the 1980s, we just had to do ‘em one better and show ‘em how you really crush an enemy.

The Wikileaks, NY Times. Guardian & Der Spiegel examination of the secret documents on Afghanistan tell us the war is really bad. Thanks for letting us know.

Violence begets violence. Maybe that’s where we really excel!

Memo to God of Abraham:

CC: Buddha

Maybe you outa give up on trying to make us learn the ways of peace. We ain’t listenin’.