hey....NAME THAT WAR!!!!!
November 29, 2003
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
A drum roll, please: It's time to announce the results of
the Name That War Contest.
In a column 10 days ago about Iraq, I expressed frustration
at the absence of a good name for our war there. So I
offered prizes (Iraqi 250-dinar notes with Saddam's
picture) and invited readers to send in entries.
Then I fled to Guatemala and El Salvador, and when I
returned to the office this week, there were 4,000 entries
from all over the world.
Hundreds of people offered "Bush's Folly," "Burning Bush,"
"Bush League War," "Bubba's War," "Shrub's War," "Operation
Quicksand" or "The Crawford Conflict." Then there were
zillions of "Iraqmire," "Iraqgate" and "Iraqnam."
Lois from New Zealand suggested "Operation Bushwhack Iraq."
Avie Hern of California offered "Bushkrieg."
Some people suggested that instead of Operation Iraqi
Freedom, this is "Operation Iraqi Liberation." I thought
they were hawks until I recognized the acronym: OIL. Also
on the petroleum front, Peter Wilson of Pennsylvania
offered "Mother of Oil Wars."
Some names were interesting but a bit long. For example,
Charles Hayes of New York offered these options: "Bremer
Takes a Baath," "I Waged Two Wars Against Saddam and All I
Got Was His Headache" and "Visit Scenic Saddam and
Gomorrah."
Imaginative, but try to fit those into a headline. Or this
from Pat Malach of Oregon: "Operation Gee Whiz, This
Liberation Thing Seemed a Lot Easier When We Were Drawing
It Up Back at the Think Tank."
But some entries were so concise they sounded as if they
could have graced a Robert Ludlum thriller: "The Iraq
Pre-emption," "The Bush Incursion," "Bush's Botch" and "The
Big Uneasy."
The last is, of course, a play on the movie "The Big Easy."
There were lots of other pop culture references (my
assistant, Christina Lem, had to translate some for me; I
speak foreign languages but have never been fluent in pop).
A Minnesota astronomer who evidently likes Britney Spears
offered: "Operation Oops, We Did It Again." And movie buffs
urged "Operation Kick the Dog," "The Empire Strikes Out,"
"Apocalypse Right Now," "Mission Implausible: A Job Well
Spun" and "Trek 2: Wrath of Neo-Khan."
Scholarly readers argued that the distinctive quality of
this war was America's claim that it has the right to
invade other countries if they are developing weapons of
mass destruction and may threaten us. John Parry of North
Carolina suggested "Pre-emptive War I," leaving room for us
to continue the series if we move on to Tehran and
Pyongyang.
On the model of the War of Jenkins' Ear, one reader
suggested "The War of Bush's Flight Suit." Harold Kramer of
Massachusetts singlehandedly came up with "Rummy's
Retreat," "Cheney's Chaos," "Perle's Predicament,"
"Powell's Problem" and "Rice's Regret."
Others came up with "King George's New Colony," "The War of
the Roves" and "The War That Cried Wolfowitz."
Donn Blodgett of Vermont urged "Coup d'États Unis," and
Linda Kolker of Georgia recommended "The Charge of the
Right Brigade."
Honorable mention in this contest goes to "Operation
Unscramble Eggs," by Russell Schindler of New York; "Desert
Storm und Drang," by Robert Proctor of Connecticut; "The
'Raq," by Jeff Schramm of Missouri; "A'bombin'nation," by
Kent Moore of North Carolina; "Tigris by the Tail," by Paul
Reeves of New Mexico; "War of Mass Deception," by Scott
Dacko of New York; and "Iraq: A Hard Place," by Chris
Walters of Texas.
The five winners, each of whom gets a 250-dinar note left
over from my last Iraq trip, are: Brad Corsello of New York
for "Dubya Dubya III"; Richard Sanders for "Rolling
Blunder"; John Fell of California for "Desert Slog," Will
Hutchinson of Vermont for "Mess in Potamia"; and Willard
Oriol of New York for "Blood, Baath and Beyond."
More seriously, during this holiday weekend, I hope we'll
think often and appreciatively of those Americans who are
in Iraq right now. Humor cannot erase their fear and
loneliness in the face of Washington's policy failures, or
the heartbreak here in so many homes where bereaved
parents, spouses and orphans are struggling in this season
to remember why they should be giving thanks.
nytimes.com
Now remember it's just A CONFLICT SUDDENLY TO RUMMIE.....funny....it WAS A WAR JUST BEFORE THINGS STARTED GOING BADLY~ |
