Pligget
Little to say for myself


Friday, March 28, 2003  

It's All Going Pear-shaped

The big chiefs back at headquarters are clearly left with much egg-on-face now that it seems the mission in Iraq is going to last much longer than expected. They had obviously planned for a lightning campaign lasting just a few days, and the idea had been to send the boys straight in - with minimal preparation of the ground - for a saturated "Shock and Awe" approach until it was all over.

Now it's all going wrong they've started to blame... the military. You can almost hear the angry communiques now:

  • "How on Earth are we expected to keep funding all these embedded correspondents for weeks on end? They're all on double time with 20% danger-money and $200 per diem!"
  • "What sort of copy can we expect them to file if they're just sitting around waiting for some fighting to start?"
  • What are we going to do with the butchered TV schedules now we've cleared the decks for the duration?"
  • "How are we going to keep viewers tuning in when they start to lose interest?"
I suppose we can expect to see more and more criticism of the coalition forces over the next few days, as the quest for something new to say (for 8 hours a day, or in 1000 column inches) gets more and more desparate.

posted by Plig | 17:15 |

Comments: Post a Comment
Forget the sentimental notion that foreign policy is a struggle between virtue and vice, with virtue bound to win.
Forget the utopian notion that a brave new world without power politics will follow the unconditional surrender of wicked nations.
Forget the crusading notion that any nation, however virtuous and powerful, can have the mission to make the world in its own image.
Remember that diplomacy without power is feeble, and power without diplomacy is destructive and blind.
Remember that no nation's power is without limits, and hence that its policies must respect the power and interests of others.
Hans Morgenthau

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts
Bertrand Russell

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one
Albert Einstein

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative
Martin Luther King Jr.

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man
Bertrand Russell

I think it would be a good idea
Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun
Pablo Picasso

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others
Groucho Marx

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it
Mahatma Gandhi

Always make new mistakes
Esther Dyson
archives
blogs I like
Mr. Happy
me-ish
Poor Man
Plastic Bag
Making Light
Electrolite
Body and Soul
Sideshow
Little Red Boat
Great Communicator
The Autoblography
Londonmark
Matthew Yglesias
Troubled Diva
Wherever you are
What you can get away with
Mad musings of me

Team Leadership
CB2020
MyLandmarkForum
Neale's Blog

< # Blogging Brits ? >

The look of this blog owes much to Mena Trott, but everything posted to it is my copyright, unless I say otherwise. If you want to use or quote any of it, please do the decent thing and let me know.