So the war continues, as does life. Here it snowed

So the war continues, as does life. Here it snowed today. Sadly that wasn’t a typo, it really did snow almost on April Fool’s Day.

The first couple of days I watched the news networks fairly constantly – what the hey, I was home sick anyway. Watching webcams broadcasting from the war zone was fairly disconcerting. It could have been worse, Al-Jazeera has been broadcasting snuff porn (warning – that link involves kids missing vital parts, like heads. Al-Jazeera has what looks like an ad banner linking to it. Gotta love humanity).

So time goes on, and it becomes fairly obvious that Iraq really didn’t want the full force of American military might lovingly applied, imagine that. So we really are just up and invading a country. Do we have what all Europa Universalis players know and love, a “casus belli” or legal cause to go to war? Guess it depends on if you believe Iraq really has chemical weapons hidden in a basement. I’d think they would have used them already if they had them, personally, but I’m a cynic. And we already overran 3 regular army divisions, and if any WMDs were issued to them, you can bet the “embedded journalists” would be broadcasting pics of them from their webcams night and day. So maybe only the Republican Guard were trusted with them? Who knows. It’s all an academic exercise anyway – my suspicion is after 9/11, some folks in the administration quit caring about things like “casus belli” and started dusting off old grudges. I imagine Syria and Iran aren’t feeling too terribly frisky at this point either.

So yesterday I went through a Popeye’s drivethrough and got handed an American flag sticker along with my chicken. Sadly, it probably wasn’t out of any groundswell of patriotism among the workers, but prophylactic “please don’t hit us because we’re immigrants and the only ones in this area willing to work for minimum wage at a fast food joint” stickers. It’s still sitting on my dashboard, unapplied. Not because I’m not patriotic – I like to think I am, and that my patriotism doesn’t involve stickers someone gave me smelling vaguely of chicken grease. So what do I do about this patriotism, anyway?

I guess I’ll keep watching TV, and posting here until Ashcroft pushes Patriot II through and I have to stop. Fox broadcasts pictures of the “fallen heroes” on an annoyingly regular basis. And I’m fairly certain there’s nothing in Iraq worth them attaining that status.