Friday, March 21, 2003
at 1:03 PMRaggedy Andy
My former uncle, Greg Stine, called The Father this morning to inform him that my cousin/The Father's nephew, Caleb, is still alive. The helicopter that crashed with four American and eight British men inside was from one of the other two divisions in my cousin's Nightstalker special operations unit/squad/whatever-the-military-term-is. Caleb knows the people who were in it, but he was not in it.
Around one o'clock I watched Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, with his usual charm and candor, address the nation. I could listen to him respond to reporters' questions all day, purely for amusement. Mr. Rumsfeld does not put up with crap. When a question lacks any value, he lets the reporter know immediately, either by his terse, straightforward answer or through a follow-up glare. I love that man's glares.
Some reporter guy kept focusing on the inevitable civilian casualties as a result of bombing parts of Baghdad, which angered Mr. Rumsfeld to the eight hundredth power because he repeated numerous times that American military capabilities allow for more precision than what was implemented during World War II (this in response to criticisms comparing the two conflicts).
The footage of Baghdad as American forces bombed it, as The Father pointed out to me, shows huge explosions, balls of flames, et cetera, but it also shows street lamps that are still lit. If American forces weren't proceeding cautiously, then they surely would have knocked out the city's electricity supply by now. This lends support to Secretary Rumsfeld's position, while the reporter's hypothesis, if indeed he really had one at all, proves unfounded.
In other news around the world, half an hour ago I ate barbecued hamburgers lathered in Masterpiece Original barbecue sauce, which is available at Kroger grocery stores across the United States.
