Pick a Date for Iraq

“Okay, not the most "PC" of games, and you may or may not agree with the imminent war on Iraq.. but put all that aside and pick a date and an hour block for when news breaks that we're blasting Saddam and his boys to oblivian.

My pick:

Jan. 27th, 11am Eastern Time.”

“Might as well pick my birthday, Jan 30th. Noon sounds good”

“Jan. 15, 7 p.m. EST.”

“Just heard on NPR, likely would not happen until Feb. I'm guessing Feb. 2. Milliard Filmore's birthday. (13th president of US.)”

“Maybe if the groundhog sees his shadow that day, we'll get six more weeks of war”

“Rumsfeld just leaked that February date to lure Sad Sack Insane into a false sense of security.”

“I can't pick a date 'cause I'm still not sure why we want to invade Iraq.

Not that I don't like a good war every once in a while.

Ok, March 10th, 2003.”

“Millard Filmore's birthday is in January and the 7th of that month!

(GEEZE, I need to take a hike.)

But I still think Feb. 2 works. Good time to stick your head, and the rest of your body in a hole!”

“Sigourney Weaver!

LOL”

“I know this may sound sick... but I'm looking forward to watching the war on the news stations, now that I no longer work in broadcast news. It'll be nice to be able to sit back and watch, knowing I'm not one of the poor saps running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to put it all up on the air!

Where's my popcorn?”

“You will need salt with that!

8)”

“The day of the Apocolypse...

REPENT!”

“From News.Com.AU

Troops prepare for March Iraq attack
December 18, 2002

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,5696341%255E2,00.html

SENIOR Australian defence commanders have been briefed to prepare for a war against Iraq in March.

Troops from the Special Air Service will spearhead Australia's involvement as US and British forces lead the major air and ground assaults.

Senior military officers said they expected US President George W. Bush to give the green light early next month to begin the final 60-day preparations for the March campaign.


[snip]”

“March? That long? Sigh....”

“Along with the date we should also try to guess the various news media "themes" for the war; e.g., "America Goes to War, Hour 2" or, how about, "The Hunt for Sadaam", "Line in the Sand"?

"Malice in the Palace"?
"Bush at War: A blast from the Past"?”

“LMAO @ aero!

"Baggin' Baghdad"”

“In 1991 we were brewing up a batch of home-made beer when "Desert Storm" started. Seraching for a name for our new batch we christened it "Armageddon Ale". have a blast with your friends!”

“aero, how about: "North Korea Lobs Nuke on Los Angeles While Bush Fools Country Into Thinking Weakling Sadam is the Biggest Threat"”

“"The Bagdad Boogie"
"Nuken' to the Oldies"”

“I think this thing is already modeled out by the military experts with multiple scenarios and outcomes. I bet you anything they forgot about N. Korea...”

“"Iraq Gets Jacked"
"Kickin' Sand in Saddam's Face"
"Baghdad Go Boom!"”

“I want to hear James Earl Jones voice in the background on CNN, "Baghdad Go Boom! This is CNN!"

"Big McIraq Attack"”

“LOL!!!!”

“"Hussain in Pain"
"Kickin' Some Iraqi Ass"


Newspaper headline: "Cans of Whoop Ass Opened Left and Right in Baghdad"”

“Gulf War II: Junior's revenge”

“Maybe if the groundhog sees his shadow that day, we'll get six more weeks of war"
treebeard
09:09:37 AM
12/20/02

LMAO!

Jan 14th, 2003”

“The Koreans are still wannabes.”

“From the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/20/opinion/20KRIS.html

Hold Your Nose and Negotiate
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF


President Bush finally turns out to have a clear, forceful plan to deal with North Korea's defying the West by restarting its nuclear warhead assembly line.

The plan is to invade Iraq.

The White House is trying to play down the crisis on the Korean Peninsula so that it can focus public attention on Iraq instead. But North Korea raises risks that Iraq does not — because it already has a couple of nuclear weapons, as well as artillery and missiles that can dump nerve gas on American military bases in Asia, and Taepodong missiles that can drop nuclear warheads on Alaska and, soon, the lower 48 states.

Washington's failure to engage North Korea has in a few months turned a minor problem (a uranium program that would take years to produce weapons) into a major crisis (the restarting of a reactor with enough plutonium to produce five additional warheads). Now the administration is allowing the situation to drift on a trajectory that conceivably could end up as another Korean war.

"The potential threat posed by North Korea at this point is worse than anything else that we face," said James Laney, a former ambassador to South Korea. "This needs to be attended to now, at the highest levels of this administration. We need to get engaged with South Korea and figure out how to solve this diplomatically, since war would be catastrophic."

An official with an international organization puts it this way: "North Korea scares the hell out of me. I've been there, and it petrifies me. By comparison, Iraq doesn't scare me at all."

Perhaps it's a cheap shot to complain about North Korea policy, because the North is a country made for pundits here in the peanut gallery — it's possible to write with withering scorn about any alternative the administration could choose. All our options regarding North Korea are hideous, and those responsible for making policy on North Korea must have committed mortal sins in previous lives for God to torture them so. To his credit, Mr. Bush has so far shown a most un-Bushian patience in reacting to North Korean provocation.

We now find ourselves with three choices. First, we can negotiate with North Korea, which shows some signs of seeking the same kind of tentative opening to the West that China pursued in the late 1970's. The downside is that negotiation would reward bad behavior, and so Mr. Bush has ruled out this option.

Second, we can ignore North Korea, focus on Iraq and hope that economic pressure brings the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, to his senses. That's what Washington is trying now, but it's not working. In fact, North Korea's economy is doing better than in the 1990's, and if it were pinched, North Korea could always raise cash by, say, selling smallpox virus to Al Qaeda. And even if we succeeded in squeezing North Korea economically, we would be bothered much more than the Dear Leader as tens of thousands of Koreans died of famine and disease.

Third, we can launch a military strike on the Yongbyon reactor. But North Korea would probably respond by turning South Korea (and American bases there) into what it describes as "a sea of flames."

"I think they would respond by shooting artillery toward South Korea and missiles toward Japan," said Kongdan Oh, author of an excellent book on North Korea.

These are three terrible choices, but a president's job is to pick the least awful. And hands down that's the first one, negotiation. One way to hide our embarrassment at talking would be to get Russia to convene an international conference, in which the Dear Leader would give up his nukes and permit inspectors, and outside countries would recognize North Korea.

As Robert Gallucci, a former ambassador with long experience in Korea, put it: "I don't have any difficulty with diplomacy backed by force. But what I don't understand is force with no diplomacy."

Ignoring North Korea doesn't work any better than ignoring a rambunctious toddler; it just encourages further provocation. Next North Korea may begin processing fuel rods at Yongbyon, a step that could give it five to eight more warheads in about four months.

Granted there's no good North Korea policy, but it's still worth finding a better one — like holding our nose and negotiating — because North Korea is already what Iraq might become tomorrow.”

“That just ruined my vacation.

Here I was thinkin' that we had
the bad guys in our sights and all we had to do was pull the trigger.

Nice clean war, tidy up the region and get back to scamming at World Domination dammit.

Rain on my parade....sniffle”

“You'd think Russia and China would be up in arms over N.Korea's actions. We need to make a plan IN UNISON with them.”

“DANG YOU TILT!!!

I was gonna say MEL GIBSON!!!”

“HAHA... Sigourney will kick All Y'all's Skinny Butts, LOLOL.... "hey Babe, watch where you're pointing the flamethrower"

(sorry, but Mel just doesn't have the proper plumbing for this cowboy, <G>)


The "briefings' I mentioned yesterday were quite revealing in what they did not address. The head-liner was a certain Mr. Woolsey, whom I'm certain you're familiar with. While he and his cohorts were long on defense, they were nonexistent on threat... Mr. Kim included.

"An official with an international organization"... outstanding! (inflamatory, and eminently unattributed, lol)

What IS the deal? Is Richard Perl not hawk enough? <GRIN>


Just to slap a small dénouement on yesterday's discussion... what Woolsey said about the ground-based mid-course interceptors based at Ft. Greely was this: they are a holdover from the Clinton administration. When they were proposed, the aim was to give some cover (political and hopefully actual) while not jeopardizing the ABM agreements we had with the Russians.

You were absolutely correct about the efficacy of hitting those puppies during boost-phase; they're MUCH easier to hit when they're 'hot,' moving relatively slowly with few (if any) countermeasures deployed. That's why everyone is so re: the SM-3 tests on the USS Lake Erie. When they're 'cold,' moving very quickly and lighting up the radars with a thousands of contacts... Bad News.

They all hate us anyhow....
So let's drop the big one now!


Speaking of which, I gotta go Nuke a Lean Cuisine. Later!”

“
There.”

“heheheh......good one aero!”

“i liked that one too, hut.



has anyone else ever noticed that tareek azeize looks just like larry tate(darren's boss) on bewitched?”

“don't worry bout the wait arty, we can watch stikky n liz duke it out. kinda like the undercard”

“Feb. 14. 2:31pm pct. Happy Valentines, Sadam! XXOO”

“Oops.

Thanks, Santa.”

“February 14th......send Saddam some love........SWAK”

“I am going with Feb 2nd, groundhogs day. Punxsatawney Phil may not see his shadow but he will see a Tomahawk cruise missile...”

“"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fever, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind... And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in siezing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism , will offer up all their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.

How do I know?

For this is what I have done.

And I am Caeser."

-William Shakespeare”

“Come all ye young rebels, and list while I sing
For the love of one's country is a terrible thing
It banishes fear with the speed of a flame
And it makes us all part of the patriot game

My name is O'Hanlon, and I've just turned sixteen
My home is in Monaghan, and where I was weaned
I learned all my life cruel England's to blame
So now I am part of the patriot game

It's nearly two years since I wandered away
With the local battalion of the bold IRA
I learned of our heroes, and wanted the same
To play my own part of the Patriot game

This island of ours has too long been half free
Six counties lie under John Bull's tyranny
So I gave up my boyhood to drill and to train
And that made me a part of the Patriot game

They told me how Connolly was shot in his chair
His wounds from the fighting all bloody and bare
His fine body twisted, all battered and lame
They soon made me part of the patriot game

But now as I lie here, my body all holes
I think of those traitors who bargained in souls
And I wish that my rifle had given the same
To those Quislings who sold out the patriot game


THE PATRIOT GAME
(Dominic Behan)



Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”

“I Feel Like I'm Fixin to Die Rag

here you go stratdewd, to change the song just insert the name of the country were are getting ready to go to war with.”

“Those terrorist gave us 9/11...Bush will give them 1/19...therefore it's going to happen on Jan. 19.”

“Can I pick a date for Saddam?

How about Rosanne Barr?”

“Get in the now! This crap from the past is not going to help with this future! Is there an Island where we can send you people?”

“Looks like you've inherited my cookie problem. Here's a Blast From The Past for ya...



Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.


Wilfred Owen
1921”

“Let 'em pick their own damn dates! That'll help relieve their unemployment...”