Bacon in Baghdad

On Fresh Air the other night, the Washington Post's Rajiv Chandrasekaran, author of a book about the Green Zone, talked about the various offences committed by Halliburton in their management of the cafe in Saddam's former palace. The problem, Chandrasekaran explained, was that Halliburton showed no sensitivity to the fact that they were in a Muslim country, instead serving bacon at every meal. Bacon and eggs at breakfast! BLT's at lunch! Bacon cheeseburgers for dinner (and sausages, too)! Now, ordinarily I'd agree about Halliburton's wastefulness and cultural insensitivity (not to mention their apparent intention to murder all military personnel through coronary heart disease). But this is bacon we're talking about, so I paused for a moment to consider. And you know, I think this might be the only thing I've heard of Halliburton doing that I think is both smart and frugal. For one thing, there is no other food that can hold up to three meals a day. Bacon is the perfect breakfast basic; the perfect luncheon sandwich meat; and the perfect spice for burgers and salads. And everyone who is not prohibited by religious doctrine loves it. What else can make such enormous gastronomic claims? Chicken? I don't think so. Steaks? Be serious. And since Halliburton is buying in bulk, shouldn't they buy in maximum bulk for the best prices? And since our taxes pay their contract, doesn't the purchase of enormous quantities of bulk bacon start seeming -- dare I say it -- patriotic?

Of course, it goes without saying that forcing bacon on a Muslim country is just wrong. But in all seriousness, once you've invaded that country for no good reason, and through your deliberate negligence thrown it into a civil war, is a little apple-smoked flesh of the unclean swine really a dealbreaker? Probably a better moment to demonstrate our sensitivity to Muslims would have been finding out that there's more than one kind of them before invading. And at this point we need to save every penny for the Iran war. So I say, bring on the bacon!