Article: Make War not Love: Sex & the City (of Baghdad)

"I'm SURE there must be an equal number of men and women in Baghdad," I told my bunkmate, "if we could only figure a way to match them all up". Let's see. There's all the Iraqi women who have almost no chance of finding a husband because so many Iraqi men have been killed in the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War and George W. Bush's current pet project. These women have as much chance of finding a husband as the women of New York City - where rumor has it that there are six women to every man. These Iraqi ladies could use www.match.com!

Then there are the guest workers. They come here and work for peanuts and leave their wives and sweethearts back home in Bangladesh, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, etc. These guys are desperate for female companionship. www.eHarmony.com, where are you when you are needed the most!

Then there are all those poor lonely far-from-home security guards. Most of them come from Peru. How in the WORLD can you snag a girlfriend in the Green Zone when you need a translator to ask for a date? This is a big problem, folks. I recommend trying www.latinamericancupid.com. And for the Georgian security guards, there's always that old standby, www.russianbride.com.

And what about our troops? Many of them have wives and husbands back in the states. And of course they are all staunchly faithful, but you know they gotta be hurting. And I'm really impressed by all the young male and female troops who work side by side together daily in a professional capacity without crossing over the line. No www.chemistry.com is going to keep them from performing their duties. Good job!

And what about all the old folks, the geezers and the little old ladies like me over here? Hook us up with www.Silversingles.com ASAP! We don't have much time left to fart around.

Sometimes the repressed sexual tension in the air around here is so palpable you could almost cut it with a knife. Let's do something about that!

At this point, however, my bunkmate, who herself is a hottie and never has to worry about this sort of thing, made an attempt to change the subject to something more intellectual but I was on a roll. "If we can only get everyone in Iraq who is lonely, horny and/or unhappy properly matched," I pointed out, "then everyone here will have better things to do than constantly trying to blow each other up." Not to mention that it might cut down on the insurgents' (excuse me, they are now being referred to as "Al Qaeda" even though they are not) ghastly new technique of using chlorine gas to eliminate other contestants playing The Dating Game.

Currently, I am living in the Green Zone press room (I still haven't gotten embedded) and the chances of me getting out into Iraq proper to start playing Cupid are just about nil. For instance, today I decided to get some exercise and go for a walk. In order to walk around the neighborhood, I had to pass through a bunch of checkpoints, go through several body searches and convince a handful of contractors, lots of Iraqi policemen, a group of Peruvian security guards and more than a few Georgians that I was not a terrorist. "I'm not a terrorist, guys. Honest. I'm just trying to find the press room again. I'm just LOST." But nobody believed me. Hey, guys. Do I look like an evil-doer? Are these beady eyes? Don't answer that.

Even though the soldiers, security guards, policemen, body-searchers, passport-checkers, and MPs are totally wonderful and totally nice and totally doing a fabulous job and I just love them to pieces, their presence here in the Green Zone does give it a touch of "flava" reminiscent of East Berlin circa 1955.

So it looks like the Iraqis, Americans, contractors, Peruvians, etc. are gonna be making war and not love for a little while longer - at least until I can follow Cupid's example and figure out a way to sprout wings -- and to smuggle in a bow and arrow!