Today:

About the War. That is, Gulf War II. We won.

Yet we have not won the peace? Now, how is this so? While I've read many speculations--"Dubya's a philistine who cares nothing for history, yet slavishly preserved the [G1 megatron mode]Oil Reserves[normal][TM]" is one--I strongly suspect that time is the primary factor.

The battle was joined on March 19, 2003. Today's date is May 17, 2003. Which means that not even two months have passed since the war itself started. Takes me longer than two months to work on a fanfic chapter, and I still haven't finished Tamed Instincts--the poor story will be 2 years old this August.

Now, a fanfic is part of a large hobby. While I hope to update more often, and I've always taken care for things such as grammar, sentence structure, [most important] characterization, and plot; fan fiction is something I do for recreation, performed during my spare time. Yet I take my time writing because of the aforementioned highlighted issues. Writing quality is something I care for a great deal more than speed and quantity.

Try reading, for example, Angst Under Sakura Trees versus the glut of a majority of Hiei/Kurama fics on FF.Net. I enjoy the former. The latter is too painful for me to complete. [that is, "ahh! not another one!"] It's not due to any yaoi bias(which I, to keep the rant on point, disagree with); or even the fact that Kuwabara's the main character(though Kuwie was a point in its favor).

The simple fact is that in the case of AUST, the characters behave logically*. For example, Kaz behaved like an older, matured version of himself in his late teens. That is, he neither remained stuck in Goofy mode (which he never stayed in to begin with! he can be serious too....) nor started acting like, say, Dr. Wily without good reason.

Good characterization is what I strive for when I'm writing characters. In fanfic, it's definitely important--the characters are already defined in a sense. The worst condemnation that can be levied on a fanfic writer is to note that a character is OOC. Better to kill that character off, or write the person into a distant country/outer space/new dimension/spacetime fabric; than to mess up that character.

Which is why AUST made me so happy. It showed that the writer knew enough about the show that Kuwabara could be Kuwabara while outside YYH. The writer either saw a sizable amount of eps, or did enough online research to get an accurate gist of the character.

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But great fanfic characterization, with all the care and effort it entails...takes time. And if something as relatively trivial as that takes time to ensure enjoyment for reader and writer, can you imagine that rebuilding a nation under the jackboot of Annoying Dictator A for 30+ years will take longer than two months?

Or should L. Paul Bremer bob his head[jeannie/IDoJ], wiggle his nose[samantha/B-W], and chant "bibidi, babidi, buu"[DBZ/Tori-A's pun on Disney]; and voila! Iraq is a prosperous democracy.

Maybe if it were two months in DBZ Hypertime. Any normally lengthy task could be accomplished in DBZ Hypertime. Of course, it'd probably take an even more [relatively] interminable length of time than if the job were done in real-time, but what do I know? I'm just a Silly Human, unable to fathom why the eternally wiser International Community didn't simply band together, ala the governments in Getter Robo Armageddon, and tell Saddam the following:

"Hi. We are the world, we are the children. And we know that, in addition to being a real-life Force of Evil on the earth and an enemy to the Planeteers[think of the marsh arabs!], that you have Weapons of Mass Destruction[tm], the giddy eagerness to use such weapons on your enemies/citizens/someone who mocked your mustache, and the desire to build a nuclear bomb you don't need.

Furthermore, you lost a war against the US when you tried to invade Kuwait 12 years ago. When the engagements ended, you agreed to disarm. To date, you have not shown concrete evidence of doing so.

"Now, we're reasonable people. But one nation, the United States, is concerned that you will sic innumerable numbers of Slack-Jawed Yokels on them, Israel, and any other nation that doesn't like you feeding people into giant paper shredders. The Community is concerned about the devastation that said yokels could wreak with a sophisticated nuke in a briefcase. And as the United States tends to ward off threats, their armed forces have already massed at your borders, practicing maneuvers.

Now, we can't really demand the US leave, as we don't have that kind of clout. However, there is a way out of war with the American WAR MACHINE. You must go. Listen to the other shieks and leave; ordering the officials to grant UN inspectors unfettered access through all of Iraq. Go to Tahiti and stay for the remainder of your life.

If not...diplomatically, our hands are tied; and at this point you would speak with the United States and other armies.

"The decision, the POWER, is yours, Mr. President."

At that point, we could have avoided the conflict entirely. But we didn't.

Nevertheless, the US will win the peace. But like anything of quality--even good fanfix--Iraq(and Afghanistan) will take time.

So calm down and wait. :)

* in this case, I mean according to the dictates set forth by TPTB for YuYu--Togashi and the geniuses at Studio Pierrot. the same geniuses whom I praise for a masterful execution of character death, and the same ones I take issue with for humiliating My Guy[tm] with the same cheap stunt in two consecutive episodes. I know he's the Silly Human, but come on...we human beans is good peoples. :D * good reasons: wacky magical spell turns YYH heroes into characters from Rockman, or a parody of said Mega Man game. *