When I was young I knew little about the cold war, or the nuclear arms race. I knew nothing of the principles or application of the theories of communism. I did know this much though; I hated the Russians. Boy did I hate the Russians. They were just so, well, evil. They were bad people, were mean spirited, talked funny, they were everything that was wrong with the world. And they certainly hated me. Just because I was American. How did I know so much about the Russians? The same way most kids my age did. I watched T.V. Whenever Russians were presented in movies or television they were bad men. Not bad like Michael Jackson was, bad like Michael Jackson is now. I remember watching Rocky IV and being enraged when that Russian guy killed Apollo Creed, in an Exhibition Fight. This was not the way of American boxers. We had great sportsman, like our young champ of the time, Mike Tyson. So why, why would Drago do such a thing? Well, because he was Russian. That's just the kind of thing they did. They'd kill you, even if it was just an exhibition fight. And what was Drago's response to Apollo's death? "If he dies, he dies." Where Russians born with hearts? Maybe, but if so they were black as coal. America would ultimately prevail. Rocky kicked Drago's ass in front of his own people. The Russians wouldn't learn so easily though. Every Saturday morning another battle would take place, in a different ring. On the weekly WWF Saturday show Russian wrestler Nikolia Volkoffwould enter the ring and give a rendition of the Russian National Anthem. He would be met by an angry crowd who would respond with boos, insults and projectiles. The nerve of this guy, to come into our country and show allegiance to Russia through song. Evil. He would pay the price soon enough. After this went on for a few months there was a new character introduced to the WWF. A southern fellow who went by the name "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan. Like the rest of us old "Hacksaw" didn't take to kindly to Russians, especially uppity ones who flaunted their nationality. So what "Hacksaw" would do was any time Volkoff entered the ring and began singing he would greet him, American flag in one hand, 2x4 in the other. He would then beat him senseless. The crowd, of course, was delighted and would chant things like "U.S.A., U.S.A." or "We're # 1" or some other clever chant the would let the rest of the world know they could go fuck themselves. Now, last year when George W. Bush was pushing his was with Afghanistan he used, rather successfully, this same type of strategy. Make the enemy look like a cartoon bad guy. He'd answer tough questions with ridiculously easy answers. Why do these people hate us so much? "Well, you see, some people just hate freedom." Could it have anything to do with the arrogance of our foreign policy? Our military presence in their region? Our years of economic sanctions that have lead to the starvation of a couple hundred thousand people? All legitimate questions, but it turns out no, they're just "evil." Bush was sure to sprinkle the word evil into every speech he gave. It got to the point where every time the guy talked I felt like I was watching an episode of the Smurfs. At any time any noun, verb or adjective could be replaced with the word evil. "These evil people, in their land of evil, are eviling evil as we speak. We must evil evil their evil in order to neutralize the evil. Evil, evil, evil. Thank you." And it worked. Soon after we were bombing the shit out of the Tailiban, who just months earlier we had given 43 million dollars. But that was besides the point. Evil. This all leads us to the war with Iraq. Now Saddam Hussein fits the cartoon bad guy role well. There's no doubt about that. The problem is the people of Iraq, who will ultimately be the ones fighting and dying, they just don't fit the role so well. There is a lot of leg work that needs to be done before we're going to hate people of Iraq like we hated the Russians. The kids still love the WWF, or the WWE as it's now called. There's been talk of a Rocky VI. Bush needs to get on the phone with Sly Stallone, with Vince McMahon. He needs an all out media blitz of ridiculous stereotypes and hate filled language. Forget the U.N. forget NATO if Bush wants the people of America behind him on this war he needs a cartoon bad guy. Someone to get us waving our flags and hating foreigners, someone like Nikolia Volkoff.