Make that one order of shock, with a side of awe, please.
So now I’m wondering if the Pentagon perhaps needs to pay a visit to one of those “Men’s Health” specialists you see advertised on the subway.
I should state up front that I’m neither qualified, nor well enough informed, to accurately assess the success of last night’s first strike. But doesn't it come across to you as some kind of curious military premature ejaculation.
Please - don't think I'm saying I feel disappointed, exactly – that’s not the right adjective here. Nor am I relishing the prospect of the “shock and awe” (presumably) still to come.
But, I mean, WTF?! The game is afoot and we have no further opportunity for debate -- so don’t you wish they’d get the hell on with it?
”If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.”
I won't get into the question of whether it will be "done" - over with - once it's done. That's matter for a later post, perhaps.
A headline on the Elevator News Network TV on the ride up this morning described Saddam's “apparently ineffectual” counterstrikes into Kuwait.
But how come Saddam’s first launches in response to this invasion deserve these weak modifiers, when the first U.S. strikes don't?
The Pentagon directs “surgical”, “precision-guided” strikes against “targets of opportunity”. The Republican Guard “lobs a handful of SCUD missiles across the border into Kuwait”.
I sat up till about 2:00am channel-surfing and have been scouring the coverage this morning. There’s little evidence so far that the Shrub’s first strike was terribly “effectual”.
The AP reports of Saddam’s first counterstrike state:
“None of the Iraqi missiles caused injuries or damage, and one was intercepted by a Patriot missile, according to U.S. officers.”
But look at the numbers. Iraq is said to have responded with about four SCUD-alike, or more likely al Samoud, missiles - as far as I can tell.
Shrub’s “decapitation attack” aimed at Saddam and his senior staff is reported to have expended 40 tomahawk cruise missiles and an unspecified number of 2,000-pound bombs dropped from stealth jets.
There has been plenty of coverage of the opening salvos and much discussion of the munitions and methods, but it’s proving extremely hard to learn anything about the damage and casualties on either side. I’d consider this the real heart of the news, yet it appears to be deeply buried.
If you wade through the CNN and AP-dominated stories, you’ll eventually discover a few reports that this sizeable display of American military muscle managed to kill one Jordanian truck driver.
Hang on - 40 tomahawks. One truck driver. That cannot possibly be right, surely?
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf has been quoted as sayoing that the “...U.S. strikes killed one person, hit a customs office and some empty Iraqi TV buildings, among other targets,” but there’s no way of verifying this, of course.
Maybe in the hours and days to come we'll learn more about the real impact of these first attacks, but clearly this is not yet the expected “shock and awe”. It’s not been a successful decapitation either, from what we can discern.
One thing we can begin to estimate, though, is a fraction of the cost so far.
A single tomahawk missile costs about US$600,000.
So that’s US$24,000,000 for just the hard cost of ordnance expended in one element of one attack (of questionable success) in the opening strike alone.
TWENTY FOUR MILLION DOLLARS to do what, exactly?
And yet, disgusting as this number is – I’m still concerned that they’ve so far spent so little.
Now that there's clearly no hope of turning back or holding out for appropriate U.N. authority, I have to agree with The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland in how I feel about this situation. In a must-read article, he writes:
"It is entirely consistent to be against this invasion - yet hope for a speedy victory in the interests of the Iraqis."
He goes on to quote Robin Cook’s resignation speech, saying: "It is false to argue that only those who support war support our troops. It is entirely legitimate to support our troops while seeking an alternative to the conflict that will put those troops at risk.”
And I’m with both Freedland and Cook on this.
Of course I’m against the invasion, and of course I’m backing “our boys” in Iraq. Just do what you have to do; hit as hard and as fast as you can to get it done. There’s no sense in pussying around now the balloon’s gone up.
Get on with it, get it over with, get home.
So now I’m wondering if the Pentagon perhaps needs to pay a visit to one of those “Men’s Health” specialists you see advertised on the subway.
I should state up front that I’m neither qualified, nor well enough informed, to accurately assess the success of last night’s first strike. But doesn't it come across to you as some kind of curious military premature ejaculation.
Please - don't think I'm saying I feel disappointed, exactly – that’s not the right adjective here. Nor am I relishing the prospect of the “shock and awe” (presumably) still to come.
But, I mean, WTF?! The game is afoot and we have no further opportunity for debate -- so don’t you wish they’d get the hell on with it?
”If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.”
I won't get into the question of whether it will be "done" - over with - once it's done. That's matter for a later post, perhaps.
A headline on the Elevator News Network TV on the ride up this morning described Saddam's “apparently ineffectual” counterstrikes into Kuwait.
But how come Saddam’s first launches in response to this invasion deserve these weak modifiers, when the first U.S. strikes don't?
The Pentagon directs “surgical”, “precision-guided” strikes against “targets of opportunity”. The Republican Guard “lobs a handful of SCUD missiles across the border into Kuwait”.
I sat up till about 2:00am channel-surfing and have been scouring the coverage this morning. There’s little evidence so far that the Shrub’s first strike was terribly “effectual”.
The AP reports of Saddam’s first counterstrike state:
“None of the Iraqi missiles caused injuries or damage, and one was intercepted by a Patriot missile, according to U.S. officers.”
But look at the numbers. Iraq is said to have responded with about four SCUD-alike, or more likely al Samoud, missiles - as far as I can tell.
Shrub’s “decapitation attack” aimed at Saddam and his senior staff is reported to have expended 40 tomahawk cruise missiles and an unspecified number of 2,000-pound bombs dropped from stealth jets.
There has been plenty of coverage of the opening salvos and much discussion of the munitions and methods, but it’s proving extremely hard to learn anything about the damage and casualties on either side. I’d consider this the real heart of the news, yet it appears to be deeply buried.
If you wade through the CNN and AP-dominated stories, you’ll eventually discover a few reports that this sizeable display of American military muscle managed to kill one Jordanian truck driver.
Hang on - 40 tomahawks. One truck driver. That cannot possibly be right, surely?
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf has been quoted as sayoing that the “...U.S. strikes killed one person, hit a customs office and some empty Iraqi TV buildings, among other targets,” but there’s no way of verifying this, of course.
Maybe in the hours and days to come we'll learn more about the real impact of these first attacks, but clearly this is not yet the expected “shock and awe”. It’s not been a successful decapitation either, from what we can discern.
One thing we can begin to estimate, though, is a fraction of the cost so far.
A single tomahawk missile costs about US$600,000.
So that’s US$24,000,000 for just the hard cost of ordnance expended in one element of one attack (of questionable success) in the opening strike alone.
TWENTY FOUR MILLION DOLLARS to do what, exactly?
And yet, disgusting as this number is – I’m still concerned that they’ve so far spent so little.
Now that there's clearly no hope of turning back or holding out for appropriate U.N. authority, I have to agree with The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland in how I feel about this situation. In a must-read article, he writes:
"It is entirely consistent to be against this invasion - yet hope for a speedy victory in the interests of the Iraqis."
He goes on to quote Robin Cook’s resignation speech, saying: "It is false to argue that only those who support war support our troops. It is entirely legitimate to support our troops while seeking an alternative to the conflict that will put those troops at risk.”
And I’m with both Freedland and Cook on this.
Of course I’m against the invasion, and of course I’m backing “our boys” in Iraq. Just do what you have to do; hit as hard and as fast as you can to get it done. There’s no sense in pussying around now the balloon’s gone up.
Get on with it, get it over with, get home.
