Patton would be spewing.
Posted: 2003-03-19 03:53am
Just ignore the anti-war rhetoric (not the point of posting the article).
But I ask myself, where have all the good generals gone?
But I ask myself, where have all the good generals gone?
Can You Believe It?
Is this going to be a war or a movie set? The Pentagon has hired a Hollywood art director to create a $200,000 set where Gen. Tommy Franks can brief reporters on the war against Iraq. Altogether, according to a story appearing in The (London) Times, a reputed $1 million is being spent to convert a hangar into a high-tech center for the international news media.
OK, I'm old-fashioned. I'm a World War II brat. I'm used to American generals who slogged around in the mud, rode in tanks and waded ashore from landing craft. I know that the world I grew up in is gone with the hot-air hurricane blowing out of Washington. I know Weird World has replaced it.
But, come on, folks, a $1 million media center in the desert? A Hollywood art director? A $200,000 set so Gen. Franks will look pretty as he talks to the media types in comfortable old Qatar, far away from the guns and bombs? I don't know what else to say, except that it's flaming outrageous and a bloody awful waste of the taxpayers' money. No wonder mugging this Third World country is going to cost billions of dollars. What's scary is that if Gen. Franks' judgment on military matters is no better than his judgment on media matters, our young soldiers will be in trouble.
I've often thought that Washington, including the Pentagon, is a sort of open-air insane asylum. Here we have congressmen ordering the House cafeteria to change the name of french fries (a Belgian invention, by the way) to freedom fries. How juvenile can old men with sagging bellies and no brains get? If those nabobs worried more about the Constitution and their duty and less about what fried potatoes are called, several thousand human lives might be spared. This is a serious time and no time for adolescent sulking because an old ally doesn't want to jump off a cliff with us.
As of right now I'd swap George Bush for Jacques Chirac in a New York second and throw in Donald "Reckless Mouth" Rumsfeld as a bonus. French President Chirac might have a rascally side, but he at least has better sense than to light a match to see what's in that gasoline tank called the Middle East. I fear those "serious consequences" referred to in United Nations Resolution 1441 will apply to us as well as to Saddam Hussein. I'm a great believer in not interrupting the naps of canines, and we're about to wake up every pooch in the billion-plus Muslim world.
But those of you who like to watch reality shows will probably enjoy the set. The art director is George Allison, who did the set for ABC's "Good Morning America" show and has worked on several movies. The set was built in Chicago and reputedly packed off to the Middle East via FedEx for a shipping cost of $47,000. It will feature two podiums, five 50-inch plasma screens and two 70-inch television projection screens. Whether it will provide stadium seating and a refreshment stand, I don't know.
Of course, you won't see anything on those screens the generals don't want you to see. In fact, you won't see the set for a while. Photographs of it are forbidden. Apparently, they want to have a sort of world premiere. They might even have a red carpet for Gen. Franks, and, given the recent past, for all we know his wife might show up for the first briefing in a Hollywood gown. I wonder if they can get Billy Crystal to be the master of ceremonies?
In the meantime, of course, our sand-sucking GIs will be enduring the usual miseries of war, which, as any old soldier will tell you, never takes place in a comfortable environment with a decent climate. The Pentagon wizards are leaking the news that the war will be over in a week, thanks to their tactic of "shock and awe," which is a euphemism for the good old German blitzkrieg. I pray that for once they are right, but I wouldn't bet my retirement kitty on it. Even on movie sets, there are often accidents and unforeseen consequences.