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UNOWNA
What's it gonna be called ? | |
Wars tend to aquire names in retrospect; The Thirty Years War was an obvious case of this. World War One was known almost universally as The Great War until it was eclipsed by World War Two - know to the Russians as The Great Patriotic War (indeed, the term World War Two wasn't coined until 1945; Roosevelt
preferred the term "The War Against Tyrany". The Iran-Iraq War was often referred to as "The Gulf Conflict" until a johnny-come-lately upstart nicked the name ......
Now, we are facing another conflict and the poor press and media people don't have a convenient tag to hang on it yet (The smart money is on The Second Gulf War).
So what we need is the United Nations Organisation War Naming Agency. When you're going to start a war, you go to UNOWNA, fill in a form with some suggested names you'd like to use for your war, and pay a fee. You can then register your war name, and go and have all the invitations and the nametags printed up in advance, safe in the knowledge that your copyright is secure.
Jenkin's Ear
http://www.usahisto...om/wars/jenkins.htm
They don't make wars like this any more [oneoffdave, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
Vietnam War - potted history and dates
http://www.infoplea...m/ipa/A0001292.html
[po, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
[link]
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We need names of the calibre of 'The War of Jenkins' Ear'. |
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Wars could be named using the same process by which hurricanes and tropical storms are named. This war might be called "Giles", for example. |
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[Rods] That sort of naming convention would be entertaining, but could cause confusion - "Did you mean the War of the Evil between the Baddy and the other really mean Baddy, or the War of the Evil between us and those two Baddies, or that other War of the Evil?"
Which reminds me - when Pres Bush II refers to US and Iragi forces in speeches, he should refer to them as "Goodies" and "Baddies" - after all, that's what he means, isn't it? |
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The Unsanctioned War.
The Irresolute War.
The Unpopular War. |
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Just Vietnam, since the early 1970's. I think your're getting them confused with North Korea. |
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egbert: I would caution that our original reasons for going to war with Germany (they kept invading their neighbors), are very different from the reasons we give nowadays (the Nazis were very nasty people, an expansionist Germany threatened Britain's commercial interests). |
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Likewise, I think we will find that the reasons given for this war in twenty years' time will be very different from the reasons given today (the Iraqi regime are very nasty people, the threat to US commercial interests). |
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War is bad, and we are as rightly reluctant to start this war as the Second World War. Afterwards, however, I think we will consider it every bit as justified, albeit for different reasons. |
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"History is written by the winning side". |
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Although to be accurate, there are no winners in a war; only a 'side' that loses less than the other. |
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[Jinbish] Hey, there's an echo on this web page. |
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DrC, I'm reticent to fully accept some of the parallels people have proposed between WWII and Iraq, (not that they're not applicable, just that each situation has its own peculiarities), but I've recently thought, as you mention, that the uncertainty of the present situation does give us some insight on the doubts our forebears faced in, say, 1938-9. We tend to look back from this side of the outcome and think it was an easy choice. |
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[hippo]: oops, so there is... is... is...
(I've now read all the annos and culled the unoriginal one) |
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"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Diplomacy" |
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I applaud your idea, 8th. It reminds me of the days of my innocent youth, when a president who I then thought was stupid (Reagan? Stupid? Compared to this guy, he's a rocket scientist) managed to give the UN a kind of desultory respect -- which was a kind of respect, nonetheless. |
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Taking the matter of naming a war to the UN would imply that a certain superpower must consider the opinion of the outside world in the first place. That is no longer true here. Those of us living in the U.S. now understand that the world is our football. Got a problem with that, United Nations? Bite me. |
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If such a sane thing as the UNOWNA did exist now, these would be my names of choice: |
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The Oil Money War.
The "Fuck You, World" War.
Tony Blair's Last Stand.
Global Conflict for Dummies.
The War of the Rogue States (small - Iraq -- versus the world's largest: the U.S.)
W's "You Misunderestimated Me" Statement.
The Bitch-slap-Fest of the Playground Bullies.
Daddy Made Me Do It.
Kill What You Don't Understand, Part II.
W's Waterloo.
and my favorite possibility ...
The War to End All Bush Administrations. |
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The Thirteenth Crusade? (Numbering approximate.) |
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Maybe we could just use the larger country's leader's name. Or the smaller country's name. Oh wait, that wouldn't be unique. Then maybe the country they attacked. No, maybe then the reason for going to war. Still won't work. |
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The war where America's Bush attacked Iraq's Hussein over oil. The sequel? |
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Maybe we have to go to numbers, from the time it starts. 2003.03.20.01.12 Catchy? |
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Great work, [Worldengineer]. Now we have wars with IP addresses .... |
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I think it resolves to www.BushGlobalDomination.com
(moderators: this is not, oddly enough, a real link and therefore I'm not placing it in the link section) |
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No, but www.globaldomination.com is a real site. |
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[Dr] Wow, and I thought George W was into global domination. It's actually the slightly nerdly George K, and he's here to dominate the world through curing male sexual dysfunction. |
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The Celebrity Death Match Revival Tour. |
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Terrorist Cleansing Movement? TCM has a ring to it! |
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And, my personal favorite, reminiscent of several childhood games: Squish Saddam. |
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The War of Like, Uh, Whatever, sure. |
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raven, that's Saddam's idea of camouflage. |
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Iraqi Conflct II: The Quickening. |
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It must be a power thing. Nearly everyone in Milosevic's cabinet had the same hair. Although there seems to be a Balkans standard issue male haircut from most of the news footage I've seen. |
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I'm Slim Saddam, yes I'm the real Saddam
All you other Slim Saddams are just an imitation
So won't the real Slim Saddam please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up? |
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ravenswood: It's an Arabic thing, I believe. At a recent Arabic conference the Iraqi representative cursed a Kuwati representative's moustache - using a formal style of insult. |
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<Spartacus>"He's Saddam."
"No, he's Saddam."
"No, *he*'s Saddam.</Spartacus> |
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The sad/bad/frightening thing about THIS Bush war, is that the eventual outcome is fraught with too many terrifying possibilities, deserving names we may rue.
(by outcome I don't mean will U.S. conquer Iraq quickly, but what else happens?!!?) |
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Sponsored by:- CNN. Lockheed Martin. Boeing. Halliburton. The Carlyle Group. And the Republic of Pipelineistan (Central Asian Subsidiary) |
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That sounds about right. After the Falklands "Conflict", BAe staff at an air show (Farnborough, I think), were busy scuttling round their stand sticking hand-made "Battle Proven" stickers on their posters as the reports came in from the South Atlantic ..... |
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Don't see it as a humanitarian tragedy; see it as a sales opportunity. |
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The God-blessed, Allah-willed War |
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Some years ago the U.S. public television network aired a very popular documentary series on the U.S. Civil War. The title of the series was "The Civil War" (clever, huh?). I never knew whether to cringe or laugh at the end of each installment, when the major sponsor was acknowledged with the tag line: "The Civil War was brought to you by General Motors." |
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Should have been General Dynamics ...... |
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I remember that series - it was thoughtful, thought-provoking, well researched and generally very good, as was the accompanying music. |
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Already sick of hearing the phrase "shock and awe", I am reminded of Rod's's suggestion above: |
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//The war of the Whatthefuckwasthat!!!// |
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The 12 years, uh, 90 days, uh, 2 days notice war
The Trash-talkin' War |
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The War that Sacrificed Worldwide Democracy for Oil. |
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//The War that Sacrificed Worldwide Democracy for Oil//
How can that be, given the suggestion that oil revenue be put into a UN-administered trust fund for Iraqi citizens? |
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What is it they are calling it? |
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"Operation Iraq Freedom", AFAIK. |
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Ah these Americans and their fiendishly deceptive code names! |
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The UK MOD are calling it Operation Telic. |
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I shudder to think what the Iraq's Poor Bloody Infantry are calling it. |
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B52's have been taking off lately. I think the 'shock and awe' contingent is coming tonight. |
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On the first part of the journey,
I was looking at all the strife
There was France and kurds and turks and kings
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a GI with a buzz
And supplies but no crowds
The feat: we got to surround the guys
And prepare the battle ground
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You see I've been through the desert in a war with no name,
If felt good to be in the campaign
In the desert, you must remember to aim,
'Cause there ain't no fun in reliving your shame
La da... |
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After two days in the desert sun
The sand began to turn red
After three days in the campaign fun
I was pushing for a river bed
And the story it told of a dict'r of old
Made me glad to think he'd be dead |
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We'll know what to call this one after it's over: |
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Considering not only that G W Bush is in this one but that they're not sure if it's the real Saddam or a stand in, think *this* is suitable... |
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"The battle of Two Evils"? |
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FJ's "The God-blessed, Allah-willed War" gets me to wondering if there's a way we could simply get God and Allah to duke it out face-to-face, rather than through honking great gangs of people? They could have a hand-to-hand fight on the moon, Superman IV-style. |
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"In the red corner - He is just! He is merciful! he is - AL-LAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" |
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"Aaand in the blue corner - the deity with not one, but TWO major faiths to his name, Alllllllllllllmighty GOD!" |
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"Let'sss get rrready to RUMMMMBLE! |
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Is it not the case that Allah and the Christian God are the same guy anyway? |
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In retrospect, we can see that the US did the right thing. Though detractors will say there were no WMD's and BUSH lied and Bush is a nincompoop, I think the end result is a good one. |
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Don't ignore the fact that Iraq was within 2 years of Nuke in 1991 (source: Chief Iraqi Nuke Scientist) |
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Bush never lied. He said we couldn't wait till Iraq BECAME an imminent threat. |
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and I know of not a single Nincompoop who graduated Harvard, with or without Daddy's help. |
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Really. Bush isn't really a bad guy. The people who hate him will hate him even more when he is successful. And now there are people willing to elect another dude who nobody really knows about, just because the bush frenzy has made them lose touch with reality. |
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God bless and remember the lives we've lost in this endeavor. |
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History will show it wasn't for oil. |
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