Hey, is it just me or does anyone else find the Miller Time military preening of the Administration more than a bit unseemly? I can understand the prestidigitation on WMD’s – hell, politics and sleight of hand are practically synonymous, and Americans have always been suckers for a slick sell.
But the Holleywoodesque victory in Iraq already ensconced in history alongside D-Day and Iwo Jima, was really about as impressive as the Los Angeles Lakers rolling over a mediocre high school basketball team….
Really, think about it. The Iraqi army had a snowball’s chance in the Sahara of giving the US Lakers anything to worry about, WMDs or no WMDs. The fact is, there are only a few teams on the planet who could give us a game; Russia, Britain and China, maybe, on a good day. Every other developed country, including France, German, Israel, and Italy, would be equivalent to the Lakers against a college team, at best. And once you get down to lesser powers like Pakistan, North Korea or Brazil, you are at the Lakers/High School matchup level. Other recent US military “triumphs” like Afghanistan, Panama and that-Carribean-island-with-the-law-school-whose-name-I-always-forget, were clearly equivalent to watching the Lakers take on a tough middle-school squad.
Now, if NBC’s Saturday afternoon Game of the Week was the Los Angeles Lakers vs. Brookline High School, how many Americans do you think would turn in? Care to make a bet on what the Vegas line on the game would be? So how come our stirring “victory” (in-progress) is being hailed as the second coming of Macarthur, Patton and Montgomery? Stay tuned for the next chapter….