Just Another Fairy Tale

[HARDCORE]

A long, long time ago, in a kingdom far, far away, a (minority) band of zealots controlled an ancient land, and oppressed it?s majority religious factions! Cries of indignation and brutality flew through the air like blistering hot sands, carried aloft by a mighty desert tempest, only to be crushed under the cloven hooves of a despot?s army of darkness!

The dictator of this exotic little kingdom (We?ll call him ?So-Damned Insane") was viewed as the quintessence of evil, far and wide! He was the beginning and the end of all of this region?s woes, and a fatal bane to any promise that this land of dunes and oasis could ever hope to contain, and so it was!

One thing, however, had slipped the memories of most who dwelled amidst these arid sands, it being that this area (Middle East) had been at war with itself for countless decades, for one reason or another, most of them long forgotten! And since long before that time when this cruel despot inserted himself into power and became a minion of the Beast, the sands had often run red with the blood of those who would be kings!

For one reason or another, the people of this land, most of them poor farmers and herdsmen, just could not seem to get along with each other, or even their neighbors, as history has so sadly attested!

Well, eventually, many an outside land had taken notice of this would-be Alexander, and in ?The Year Of Our Lord (MCMXCI) this lustful lout attempted to pull the last straw from the camel?s festering manger! He launched a massive invasion against a tiny, oil-rich neighboring kingdom, using an excuse similar to one exercised by his mentor, yet another ?Prince of Death & Darkness?, who had scorched the land a little over a half century earlier!

In desperation, this time around, however, a brave, though aging old warrior from the ?Land of the Eagles?, far away to the west, began a short, but not so sweet (and only partially completed) crusade to defang this ?Poisonous Asp of the Desert? (As this desert-dwelling snake was known to the western world)!

After soundly trouncing yon snake, and retiring back to the world of the (semi) sane, the problem again re-ignited in short order, and continued to smolder on for the better part of a decade or more. Again, it picked up heat and momentum as it rolled along unchecked, save for the anemic efforts of the "Round Table of the Indigent" (aka: United Nations)!

Finally, having had quite enough, the ?Big-Heads of Diplomacy? passed a resolution (hollow threat) warning the "Dark Prince? to knock it off, or else! Perceiving this resolution (and the United Nations who authored it) as being naught but a ?Tempest In A Tiny Tea Pot?, ?So Damned Insane? continued to press his fortunes, until this time around, he got the snot slapped out of him for good and all! ?Some people just can never leave well enough alone!?

Well thats it right? All was finally well with the Middle East, everybody (except for France, Germany, Russia, Canada, Mexico etc) was as pleased as Camel?s Pie, and lived happily ever-after! (Yeah Right?!)

Well, it didn?t take long at all until other factions, no longer threatened by the more powerful brigand prince, said: ?Hey, now it?s our turn to kick ass!? Our enemy has been eliminated for us, and all that remains is for us to show our appreciation by booting out our saviors!

And so it came to pass - ?OR SO THEY MISTAKENLY BELIEVED!??

The biggest problem, however, with some ?Tales Of The Arabian Nights?, is that no one ever seems to understand the true moral of the story!?

VERITAS