The Iraqi Information Minister has been drinking the special Kool-Aid again. Even though Islam frowns upon liquor and drunkenness, the InfoMin has obviously been pounding it back.
Today’s press conference said that the Iraqi Army has whacked the US Army upside the head and will turn the Saddam Airport into a graveyard for the US forces. If this strikes you as funny, as yesterday there were no US forces within 100 kms of Baghdad, now they’re at the airport, this can only be attributed to the special beverages the Iraqi InfoMin drinks.
Yes, the first victim of war is Truth, but there is that line between “positive”news, “spinned” news and out front “propaganda”. InfoMin has crossed into the land of “fantasy” news, completely unconnected with reality, on a level with the National Enquirer and The Globe checkout line tabloids.
However, there was chilling moment of medical lucidity from InfoMin. Paraphrasing: “We have an untraditional surprise tonight. Not by military”. This could mean anything.
I am hoping it means all the ice-cream bicycle peddlers will flock to the Baghdad International Airport and offer Fudgsicles and Rainbow Popsicles to all the US troops, along with unconditional surrender.
I suspect that the massed Popsicle run will not happen. There are a few horror scenarios that could play out.
One, is calling for all troops and citizens to advance in line to the airport to overrun the airport with sheer mass: Give you life for Saddam etc.
Baghdad has a slightly bigger population than Metro Toronto. As much as we would love to see all of Metro Toronto march into Lake Ontario line abreast and drown, it does pose some logistical and ethical problems when applied to Baghdad. The first is how many bullets do the US actually have? Can/would/should we fire on this type of attack?
Two, is lobbing chemical shells, en masse at the airport: “We will make the airport your graveyard” etc.
Three, is lob gas at the neighbourhood around the airport, killing thousands of their own civilians and then point the finger at the US troops, causing the masses to rise up and march on the airport.
Four, is radiological ordinance. A dirty bomb. Not a fission bomb, just a big-ass conventional bomb wrapped with nuclear waste products. It can be done with something as simple as a five-ton truck, rented from Ryder, the Official Rental Truck of Nut Cases Worldwide.
Take the Unlimited Insurance, fill the rental full of diesel and fertilizer then topped with any nuclear waste you’ve got hanging about, even from nuclear medicine, or research labs. Get a dedicated loony to drive it into the airport too fast and the 3-7th Cav. will blow it up for you, scattering radioactive nuclear material all over the place.
In each case though, the result is mass casualties and a dirty battlefield. That denies both sides the actual ground. The US can’t stay there and the Iraqi Army can’t go there: No one can go there, for days, weeks, or years depending on the bomb.
There is also an ethical dilemma for the US. Faced with a couple of million of people marching towards you, waving everything from AK-47’s to kitchen knives, do you just keep pulling the trigger until the crowd all falls down or the barrel of your gun melts?
Can we, as a group, live with the guilt of CNN covering a mass attack, live? I’ll vote yes, but very, very reluctantly. It is too hideous to ponder at any length. At least as hideous as seeing the airburst of a cloud of stuff that drops a bunch of our troops, gagging and clawing at their skin, puking in their gas masks and then lying very still.
Will any of these ghastly potentialities play out in the next 24 to 48 hours? According to the InfoMin, yes it will. How we react is now the question. We know the US cannot and will not go nuclear, even if Iraq does.
Will George W grit his teeth and invite Tommy Franks to “do what needs to be done”? Will Tommy Franks unleash an old fashioned carpet bombing of anything that moves and fuck’em all but six for pall bearers?
Please no, but if that’s the call, then do it hard, fast and nasty.
RoadDave 