Which wiz kid came up with Operation Odyssey Dawn, the formal name for the bombing of Libya?
The sad thing is that they probably spent more effort naming it than figuring out the strategy.
Following are some good quips on that name:
STEPHEN COLBERT: “Odyssey Dawn? That’s not a military operation. That’s a Carnival Cruise ship.”
JON STEWART: “Odyssey Dawn? You really name a combat operation after a Yes album?
DAVID LETTERMAN: “Odyssey Dawn. I believe it’s the first military operation named for a stripper.
“Apparently the White House tossed out a number of perfectly good names
before arriving at ‘Operation Odyssey Dawn’:
10.Operation Nine Months In The Senate Didn’t Prepare Me For This
9. Operation Organizing for Libya
8. Operation Double Standard
7. Operation FINE! I’ll Do Something
6. Operation Enduring Narcissism
5. Operation So That’s What the Red Button Does
4. Operation France Backed Me Into A Corner
3. Operation Start Without Me
2. Operation Unlike Bush Wars This One Is Justified Because Hey Look A Squirrel
1. Operation Aimless Fury”
[[I don’t know the original source for the preceding list. If you know the source, please advise and add an attribution.]]
I don’t think anybody in Washington D.C. owns a dictionary. If you think about what an “odyssey” is you wouldn’t give that name to a political/military operation.
It reminds me of that story I read about the Bush administration naming their puppet Iraqi army the “New Iraqi Corps” or “NIC” ignorant of the fact that “nic” is a dirty word in Arabic.
Or maybe they used an Arab slur on purpose?
They wouldn’t care. Remember how Poppy said Saddam Hussein’s first name? He insisted on pronouncing it like preppy harbour Olde Haddam.
He knew the emphasis belonged on the 2d syllable.
This is typical Capitol Swamp Leadership Hubris… we do it our way! We don’t care about anyone else!
It’s almost funny how Obama/Biden are worse than Bush/Cheney on every front. What a bonanza of Hope and Change!
If I understand correctly, there is actually a “random military operation name generator” (seriously) that pops up the names for these things. And they HAVE to have cool names, ’cause you can’t simply call it “Operation Pick Some Small Country And Slap It Around,” since honesty and accuracy are not noted military traits.
For further discussion on how the naming of operations can go seriously sideways, google up “Operation Mincemeat” during WWII….
Given the general drunken quality of our ongoing National 10 day drunk, it seems to me there is really only one thing we might call this latest farrago of chest thumping “human rights”:
Operation Another Hair of the Dog that bit Ye.
One of the more hilarious sidebars of this event surrounds the various war horseflies complaining to the Administration of Barrack O’Bush that he was a tad tardy, letting George W. Sarkozy drop the first ordinance because he always wanted to be a cowboy.
Dirk, that’s a great suggestion. I hope you forwarded to your congressman and senators.
Any campaign where Sarkozy is out in front is almost guaranteed to be a fraud.
I think they should try something different this time. Send a couple thousand Unionized Government Employees to Libya to fight for their human rights.
Well Bovard, I’d think about forwarding something to my “representatives ” in the Federal Legislature but one of em just retired to fill a Hollywood sinecure while the other seems to enter extended trances wherein he thinks his State is the District of Columbia or some tony suburb of Tel Aviv.
I thought of another:
Operation Faustian Grabass.
What a great name for this operation! It suggests that our soldiers will go on 10 – year journey to unknows lands, battle with monsters and magic only to get home to their wives. The only problem being, they are with another man and then they kill themselves. Oh yeaaaah.
David
Since the nine-year quest in Afghanistan has already worked out so happily for many military families, then…