The Treasure of Kabul

Andy Ward knows which Grail is real

I've wandered this grand world in search of it. I've studied the maps brought into the Oval Office for the past year. I dispatched Joe Biden and an army of experts to find it. But now, at the eve of my second year in the presidency, I think I've finally caught the trail. I will launch a thousand-score troops to find the great treasure of ancient Afghanistan.

Some may call me crazy, some may suggest that I am wasting my country's resources on a fool's errand, but they are all wrong. Where the Mongolians, British and Russians have failed, I, Barack Obama, shall find the gleaming gold and jewels that rest below the baking sands of mighty Afghanistan. I can even pronounce it correctly, unlike my predecessor who struggled even with the simplest Spanish names. In time, The United States of America shall be the wealthiest nation for all time thanks to my dedication to the seemingly impossible mission to recover the riches that live below the caves and caverns of that distant land.

The Bush dynasty, in all its hubris, believed the glowing treasure of antiquity rested in the bosom of desolate Iraq and so they made a mission to conquer and unearth that dry, dead land. Fools! All fools! In my studies, which have spanned decades, I have discovered the unique trove of wealth and glory that lives beneath the seemingly unliving sands of long-suffering Afghanistan and I shall prevail in my mission to recover them for my nation.

My people, they don't know what a deep precipice on which they teeter this very moment. Without the ancient treasure of Afghanistan, America will fall. Our paltry industry and worthless culture will crumble below the boots of rising Asia and the rushing locomotive of Europe. Every Snickers bar will be replaced by a Swedish Snuuklarimenska and our highways will be littered with signs only legible in Mandarin! I cannot allow this terrible future to come to pass!

This is why I have decided to launch thousands of troops to that seeming wasteland. That is why they will toil and die for over a year while the rest of the world carries on lamenting the misguided adventures of the waning American empire. Let Western Europe have its progressive socialism and rational technology. We, the Perpetual American Republic, will bear the treasures of a poppy-sewn desert halfway across the globe that no nation has had the means or courage to conquer just yet. Where the mighty, horse-drawn armies of Kahn, the unparalleled fleets of the British monarchs and the raging war machine of the USSR have failed, the gleaming rockets of America shall prevail.

I know the past nine years have been fruitless and prohibitively expensive and I know that my election platform was one of peace and domestic reconstruction, but I am willing to sacrifice my image for the sparkling gold and jewels that blossom like crystalline flowers just below the surface of Afghanistan's near-Martian landscape. Our soldiers will stand slack-jawed in awe of the wealth their valor procures.

So, though we have millions of sick and injured in need of care in our own country, though our captains of industry grow fat on the sacrifices of the common man and though freedoms struggle against an unnecessary erosion in the wake of an increasingly outmoded system, I have faith that my people will appreciate the glory I bring to their country with the treasure I know for a fact exists in the deep caves of Kabul. Osama bin Laden is a dragon sitting atop a mountain of gold that rightly belongs to America's Beowulf. And though my political career my die in the battle for its shining eminence, I am willing to sacrifice so much for my country.