BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Saturday it was up to Iraqis and not the American-led occupiers to control violence unleashed since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

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What is wrong with you Iraqis? After only a generation or so of living under an iron-fisted dictator, you’ve had three whole months to figure out how to create a free, peaceful and orderly society. And you still haven’t done it. Is it any wonder that we in the United States are at the end of our patience? Ordinarily, we’d be willing to spend an unlimited amount of money on rebuilding the nations we lay waste to, but you mugs act like you’ve never had a democratic nation before.

So look here, Iraqis: We did you the favor of removing Saddam and plunging you into chaos. You get that for free. And of course we helped get all your provisional authorities in place, several of whom have yet to be blown to bits. No charge for that favor either. It’s on the house.

But we’re a busy nation, and we’ve got lots to do. So here’s some things you can do to improve your lot and keep the peace:

1) Dance in the Streets - Your failure to do all that much dancing in the streets when we marched in… well, that was disappointing. We expected that throngs of you would crowd around on public thoroughfares, waving American flags, and doing that music-less hopping-up-and-down dance of joy that you foreign types seem to enjoy. You sort of let us down on this one. But it’s not too late. Get out there and start hoofin’.

2) Quit it with the Ethnic Tensions, Already - Wow, we definitely didn’t expect this one! Sure, when dictatorships crumbled all over Europe in the 90’s, horrifying age-old ethnic tensions were unleashed and led to years of bloody, chaotic conflict. But we thought you guys would be different. We thought you Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and what-have-you’s would be able to to get along (maybe there wouldn’t have been so much tension if you’d all just danced in the damn streets like you were supposed to… see #1). Anyway, quit it. Just cut it out - we don’t care who started it. Work it out or heads are gonna roll. Er, more so.

3) Protect Those Borders, Stupid - What do we look like, policemen? You’ve had three damn months to get a civil force out there and prevent dangerous Al Qaeda thugs and various nutbars from sneaking in and wreaking havoc. But you haven’t done it. See what you get? See? Is it any wonder that we’re at the end of rope with you guys?

So there’s some pointers - ignore ‘em at your own risk. If you insist on being a bunch of non-dancing, leaky-bordered, always-blowing-each-other-up losers, then we’re just gonna go home. We’re gonna just take our oil and go home.

Yes, we said our oil. Until you’ve shown that you can handle the responsibility, there’s really no point in turning it over to you, is there? You’ll just ruin it, anyway, like you seem to ruin everything we give you.

Bye for now,

The U.S.A.