Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Animal Planet

Otter and Boon are standing on a hill, looking down on the athletic fields of Faber College. As Boon tees up a ball to prepare to practice his golf swing, he notices Douglas C. Niedermeyer in the middle of a full-on, spittle infused rant at the expense of one Kent Dorfman. Otter spies the abuse that Flounder is receiving, and says, "He can't do that do that to our pledges." To which Boon replies, "Only we can do that to our pledges."
This is the scene that ran through my head as I read the news item about how U.S. military commanders in Iraq didn't know Turkey was sending warplanes to bomb in northern Iraq until the planes had already crossed the border. Don't they know that Iraq is our pledge, and if any hazing is to be done, it should be done with our spittle, tanks and bombs? These comments follow complaints by Iraqi leaders Monday that Turkey hadn't coordinated with Baghdad before sending bombers to strike targets of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. "They said it was hot pursuit," a US state department official told the Associated Press. "But our message to them was that they need to make sure we're aware of what they're doing and that we find out about it before the guns start firing." I think maybe someone has missed the point of a sneak attack: that would be the "sneak" part. The Turkish army also sent soldiers about one and a half miles into northern Iraq in an overnight operation on Tuesday, Kurdish officials said. Kurdish officials said the Turkish troops left Iraq about fifteen hours later. Yes, you read that right: They left about fifteen hours later. Not days. Not months. Hours.
The United States and Iraq have, however, called on Turkey to avoid a major operation, fearing such an offensive could disrupt one of the most tranquil regions in Iraq. Besides, everyone knows that the United States has everything under control over there, and if there is any trouble, we'll handle it. Or in the words of Dean Wormer, "The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me."

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