Bogota, Columbia – In an unusual development in the strife-torn South American country of Columbia, the giant war machine known as Halliburton seems to be growing food. Over the past 6 months, on advice from a high-level undisclosed source, the company has planted the equivalent of 2500 square miles of garden carrots to replace the growing of cocoa plants in conjunction with the US and Columbian governments’ drug replacement policies.
Halliburton has signed on Sr. Fabio Ochoa, a reformed leader of the Medellin drug cartel, and Sr. Alejandro Bernal Madrigal — known as “Juvenal” or “Junior” – to oversee the planting and harvesting of the carrots. Shipping of the vegetables will be handled by the US Secretary of State. Former Sec’y Rice is considering hiring Paul Wolfowitz as a possible head of the shipping department. He has expressed interest in the job as it will allow him flight opportunities for South American cities as well as Mideast locations which will remain undisclosed.
“It’s just like Teddy Roosevelt said,” Bush recently told Columbian carrot factory workers on their break. “You gotta use the stick, and then the carrot. But the carrot’s lead, you see? That’s the major thing. That’s called ‘diplomacy.’”
In BushSpeak: “We’ll support your efforts to say to the Iranians, you have a choice to make: You can continue to do policy that will isolate you, or there’s a better way forward, so that it was the sticks-and-carrots approach.” The president continued saying, “I wanted to tell that Imadinnerjacket fellow that you can draw more flies with honey than with vinegar, but I didn’t think he would be knowledgeable to such a complex thought.”
Now that Bush has misplaced his “shock and awe” stick, he will be compelled to rely on the carrot as a price system payable to the peasants. He plans to rewrite his lesson of history – it can only be that a carrot-and-stick approach fails when the punishment is non-existent. And Halliburton plans to supply tons of carrots at prices that will rival their profits on the Iraq war front. With oil approaching unheard-of prices, they plan to reap the financial benefits available from the formerly lowly carrot.Their motto: “When you mine for gold, sometimes you find it growing right in front of your nose.”
Former President Bush went deeper into the fray of carrots and sticks with his discussion of the nuances of the debate. “It can get boiled down to the simple ‘carrot-OR-stick’ verbal formula, but I see it as more complex. I want to say ‘carrot AND stick,’ – it’s still a choice – just not the one they thought they were going to get.”