I was talking with some friends last night about Iraq, and how it’s like the traps set for monkeys – a coconut with a hole and some rice inside, the hole big enough to put a hand through but not to pull out when the hand is full of rice. The monkey is trapped because he won’t let go of the rice and pull his hand free.
In my view, the “rice” for Bush and the neo-cons is the permanent bases they want so badly and won’t let go of. And oil, of course, there’s always oil.
Anyway, as it turns out, William Raspberry already thought of this analogy a year ago.