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Coming Soon: Operation Ishtar?
Dec. 22nd, 2003 09:10 amNot a Deep Political Statement or anything, just a bit of childish snickering...
First off, the War On Terrorism picked up a couple of names that were... culturally unfortunate, like 'crusade' (I trust I don't have to tell anybody here why that was a bad idea) and "Something-Or-Other Justice", which also trod on a few toes because Islam views 'justice' as the prerogative of God. Or something.
Then things settled down for a while, and we went back to business as usual with a string of unremarkably stupid names that sound like B-grade action movies. Operations Coyote Moon, Black Eagle, Storm Catcher, Lionheart, that sort of thing.*
Last week, however, we had the capture of Saddam in 'Operation Red Dawn'.
For those who haven't watched the movie of the same name (and if you haven't, save your money), it tells the story of a bunch of heroic patriots who fight a long and bloody guerilla war against the foreigners who have invaded their country and toppled their government. Hit-and-run attacks, blowing up tanks, that sort of thing... maybe not quite the message we wanted to send?
But now, for sheer bizarreness-in-naming, we have a new winner:
Troops of the Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment blockaded Rawah, near the western border with Syria, for a sweep dubbed Operation Santa Claws, the U.S. Army told Associated Press Television News.
Who thinks of these names?
[BTW, I cheated a little bit. 'Coyote Moon', 'Black Eagle', and 'Lionheart' are actually Van Damme movies, and 'Storm Catcher' was Dolph Lundgren, but I'll be surprised if anybody besides Mentat noticed the difference...]
First off, the War On Terrorism picked up a couple of names that were... culturally unfortunate, like 'crusade' (I trust I don't have to tell anybody here why that was a bad idea) and "Something-Or-Other Justice", which also trod on a few toes because Islam views 'justice' as the prerogative of God. Or something.
Then things settled down for a while, and we went back to business as usual with a string of unremarkably stupid names that sound like B-grade action movies. Operations Coyote Moon, Black Eagle, Storm Catcher, Lionheart, that sort of thing.*
Last week, however, we had the capture of Saddam in 'Operation Red Dawn'.
For those who haven't watched the movie of the same name (and if you haven't, save your money), it tells the story of a bunch of heroic patriots who fight a long and bloody guerilla war against the foreigners who have invaded their country and toppled their government. Hit-and-run attacks, blowing up tanks, that sort of thing... maybe not quite the message we wanted to send?
But now, for sheer bizarreness-in-naming, we have a new winner:
Troops of the Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment blockaded Rawah, near the western border with Syria, for a sweep dubbed Operation Santa Claws, the U.S. Army told Associated Press Television News.
Who thinks of these names?
[BTW, I cheated a little bit. 'Coyote Moon', 'Black Eagle', and 'Lionheart' are actually Van Damme movies, and 'Storm Catcher' was Dolph Lundgren, but I'll be surprised if anybody besides Mentat noticed the difference...]
