The full deck...

yeah, what a week eh?

I saw an article http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/03/04/Mueller150403.html that claimed the US paid off the Republican Guard and snuck the top echelon guys out of Iraq to new homes (some in the US) with huge wads of cash. The second echelon guys also got cash but were relocated within Iraq. Don't know how true it is but it would explain the lack of resistance in Baghdad. Maybe Tariq Aziz moved to Rome and opened a Pizza place near the Vatican.

The way things are going relocating to Syria or Iran wouldn't be much help. Maybe even the Vatican will become a target, they were pretty evil in claiming the war was unjust. I thought for a while there that the Pope was going to excommunicate a few Senators...

I saw an article that claimed a satanic cult of freemasons rule the world. If you dig hard enough, especially on the internet, you can find an artical that will say about anything you need said.

It is a slippery slope from 'the US bought off Hussein' to '9-11 was a government plot to attack arab nations' to the kind of 'jews are gonna getcha' stuff one finds all over the place. You can find yourself standing in some really ugly crowds at the bottom of that slide. Don't people think to themselves "What sort of people have I heard spouting this crap all my life? Am I that type of person?"

**

As for Aziz, he was a core member of a hateful, brutal regime that caused the suffering of mlllions of people. I heard he hung around after saddam left the restaurant we bombed. I say, hoo-ray if he's chum; keep looking if he isn't.

http://www.iraqiacres.com/ ... along the lines of surreal ....


That's the thing about the Pope and Aziz... everyone knew Aziz's history (presumably even the Pope) so why did everyone authenticate him like that? Why even share a table with people like that? Is politics really so whimsical?

... that site isn't real, is it?

That little "Full Deck" stunt is verging on being top of the "dumb and dumber" ideas to come out of the whole business.
Too close to the really tasteful practice of posing with dead Vietnamese complete with an Ace of Spades card stuck in the mouth of the corpse .... or leaving a 'calling card' with a dead NVA.
I'm not at all queasy but there is a limit to what will motivate people and what has the opposite effect.
The "Full Deck" is a perfect example of how not to get results.... >

"What sort of people have I heard spouting this crap all my life? Am I that type of person?"
have you ever asked that question to yourself when you saw the white-trash pro-gun massive?

Oddly enough, Moshi, I have seen a lot of people who were for this war, and pro-gun ownership, that weren't white trash. The stereotype may exist in some circles, but that could be pretty much disproved by about ten minutes of asking around in any large urban area. Actually, I don't mingle with a lot of white trash, though someone as cosmopolitan as yourself might find it hard to believe.

I noticed that Sean Penn lost a couple of handguns when his car was stolen the other day. I wonder what percentage of the Hollywood intelligentsia are against the war and happily toting guns, or who leave that nasty business to their bodyguards. Granted, they have permits, but it never really matters that gun-ownership is legal, does it?

People who think the US government paid off Hussein's regime to leave Iraq, or 'allowed' 9-11 to happen, are a bit fewer and further between, though. I would have to say, given the *other* opinions of those I have seen with that point-of-view, I would prefer to be white trash. I've never been the kind of guy to live with that kind of paranoid bias and fear of authority. It is only a small step from there to ranting about 'zionist plots'...

I appreciate your post, though. Illuminating.

I must be "uber white trash" since I own guns *and* a knife collection.....hmmm....that is offensive in so many ways, Moshi. I am hoping that you meant it in some other way than how it came across.

the poor who have rights and not a whole lot more are usually very vocal in defending those rights - that should surprise no one.
OberWeissTrashMeister BKB

the whole thing with the cards started with operation phoenix in the vietnam war, before congress decided to shut it down. how it spread to the field units i don't know, but it got out of hand.

David: your link also says that the Al Jazeera journalist was killed at the Palestine Hotel when the roof was hit. That's incorrect. The Al Jazeera offices where he was killed weren't at the Palestine hotel. That was a separate earlier incident than the shelling on the hotel. The journalists injured/killed at the Palestine hotel were working for Reuters on the 17th floor (as I recall) of the hotel. That can be easily verified. Just a nit, but when something can be easily verified is wrong (but makes a better story) what about the other things that are claimed but not so easily documented?

Wombat: spotter playing cards were used in WWII to familiarize American troops with enemy and allied aircraft. The military says (and it seems likely) that spotter cards are the basis for the "spot the Iraqi regime member" playing cards rather than the practices of some troops in Viet Nam.

Oh, & the playing cards were distributed to the troops as spotter cards not to the general populace, so for troops to use for ID purposes, what's so objectionable about that? The press release:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2003/n04122003_200304124.html

Goodmorphing: "Is politics really so whimsical?" That and more. But it was a diplomatic mission from Iraq and Aziz was a authentic rep of Iraq. The Pope meets with reps of nations (Blair, Arafat for a couple examples) as well as pop stars.

i don't see abu abbas in the deck, but we'll happily take him anyway.

sig, see BKB's comment re Operation Phoenix.
The idea of giving the average ground pounder a 'Who's Who on Iraqi's Hit Parade' is not a bad idea.
Proceeding about it in such a theatrical way is not going to win any 'Hearts and Minds', more likely to have the opposite effect.
It's all a matter of style, and the 'Deck of Cards' smacks of a really cheap Rambo movie.
How do you think it looks to the average Iraqi, as an aside, it certainly wouldn't looked upon by the countries in the area that are needed to be onboard .....

Duh! " looked upon favorably by the countries in the area that are needed to be onboard so the rebuilding of Iraq can prceed with the minimum of distrust." .... been a long night!!

'Tact' isn't what the US Military is particularly well known for...'going in mob-handed' is more like it...

the original suggestion was probably to imprint those 53 faces in rolls of toilet paper. then the army's more politically sensitized ingroup won the day with their playing card proposal. if only this had been entrusted to the air force, it could have been handled with so much more tact and sophistication.

Diplomacy requires outward esteem for both sides of an issue, even when one side doesn't deserve it. Diplomacy in cases like Arafat, or Saddam Hussein, or Castro, does nothing but grant legitimacy to people who otherwise would be considered criminals, or worse. The UN and the R.C. church have courted people who barely deserve the title 'human'. Arafat was a terrorist, then he talked to the UN, gains favor with religious leaders around the world, courts other 'diplomatic' nations, and suddenly he is a politician. No thanks, he is a killer and should be treated as one.

Aziz's participation in Iraq is no different.


The cards are cards... to play cards with. I have seen decks of cards used to memorize a lot of different things outside the military. Other than putting their faces on milk cartons, I can't think of anything much more tactful. Targets, maybe?

hey, bkb! that would have been better. hadn't thought of toilet paper, or maybe tissue? Heck, ammunition? A bullet with not only your name, but your face on it...

In Australia, we have a guy referred to as the 'Serial Pest'...likes to invade/crash public events...even funerals. At one GrandPrix we expected him to want to be a pest, so the boundary riders [the motorcycles that pick up the drivers when they've crashed, etc] had a pic of his face taped to their fuel-tanks so all of us could be kept up to speed on his looks, etc.
He was discovered 'casing' the joint one day, but was excluded from entry the next.
Pity...we officials have responsibility for the track, over and above the Police [they must be invited onto the circuit], and the Chief Commissioner had granted us 'any force necessary to take him down'....he'd sort out the paperwork later...

I worked in corporate security for about ten years, and you don't know the number of times I got memos saying:

"Joe Blow was terminated and escorted off the premisis yesterday. He made threats on several employees, and his ex-wife works here as well. Don't allow him access to the property."

The kicker? They forget to confiscate Mr. Blow's photo ID, access card and seem to have overlooked keeping any photographic record of the gentleman. We probably had that happen once a week. The next day you watch the poor lobby guard stand there with a frantic look on his face as 1000 workers file past him; half of them with menacing dufflebags. I can't imagine trying to sort out people in Iraq...

I stopped a guy once and sent him all the way home for his ID. Ended up being a Congressman's son and a full partner law firm on the 10th floor...

'...full partner of the law firm...'

i swear words just disappear...

Yeah, right....you just forget to type them, I know...

Wombat, yeah I recall a bit about Operation Phoenix and the card thing. But that's not analogous to the spotter cards. The card trick in VN as I recall (IIRC) was more akin to the Mafia leaving their own special type of "calling card" when they do a hit, as perhaps a boast and certainly a warning to others.

As for hearts & minds and tactlessness, bombast and tastelessness in presentation in the Middle East isn't limited to the US and its forces. (And a lot of the press info the US wants out there and the manner of presentation I suspect is precisely and intentionally aimed to the other gov'ts in the area. Subtle they don't want to be.) The Iraqi people themselves are probably quite familiar with that sort of broad rather clumsy PR/propaganda stuff, given the rhetoric of the regime they had for over 30 years. (I mean, it's not as if they lacked for pictures and statues of their fearless leader. And now they're tossing shoes at them.)

I rather suspect the average Iraqi might not take perhaps all *that* much offense to cards depicting wanted members of a regime in which they had no real vested personal interest, given the other far more pressing matters that are likely on his/her mind. The cards (and likely the posters/handouts they'll have available for the public) are considerably more subtle in contrast to the damages, injuries and deaths resulting from the war as well the conditions present in some areas where there's a lack of electricity, clean water, medical care, law and order, etc. That is, there's plenty around to take offense to if the Iraqi people are so inclined and I myself doubt the cards themselves are really high on the list. JMO.

Now, if they had "Saddam Wanted" oven mitts or "Have you seen this Iraqi dog?" BBQ aprons or throw pillows that might be a tad tacky.