Surprising some of you perhaps, I don't expect I'll have too much to say about the day-to-day events of this war. The troops are in shape - they're the best-equipped, led and trained force on the planet, and they'll prevail handily, though not, of course without some casualties and mistakes. Good luck, guys and gals, and get your asses back here in one piece.

My confidence in the troops was bolstered even further a few days ago, after I happened to run into a few Marines that were recently back from the Middle East. We talked of many things, most of which I will not repeat here for obvious reasons.

One matter of particular interest to me was the prospect of urban combat, and whether the Special Republican Guard would fight or rout. After I expounded upon my worries, I was assured by one salty senior NCO that it didn't really matter. "If they fire at a Marine, they will die. Period." He then explained to me a few things that we've managed to cook up in the area of urban assault. Basically, the old idea of going room to room through the building is toast. If they get fire from a building, they will promptly remove the entire first floor of said building, and see if any of the enemy will survive the ensuing crash.

(As I am typing this, it seems that Saddam has fired off a few of those SCUD missiles he claimed not to have. 'Magine that.)

As for the title of this post, as I was listening to Bush43's speech in which he gave Saddam 48 hours to get out of town, it struck me that someday the Iraqi people will have a national holiday to honor the day that they got their freedom, their Juneteenth. Will it be the day that Saddam dies, or the day the war started, or when it ends?

I submit it should be the Monday the 17th, which is the night Bush gave that speech. (It'd give me another reason to celebrate Patty's Day, as if I needed one)

That speech was, in effect, their Emancipation Proclamation. "Free at last! Free at last! Allah be praised, we are free at last!"

The humanitarian reason has always been to me the one unassailable casus belli. Saddam's ties to terrorism, WMDs, our right to pre-emptive self-defense, reasonable folks could argue either side of those arguments, though I personally think each of those are credible arguments. Saddam manged to create a "perfect storm" of reasons to take him down.

While Saddam's violations of UN resolutions are without doubt, they were more a legal vehicle to get the rest of the UN world on board with the Anglosphere.

I think in his heart of hearts, Bush43 has always felt that way, too, though perhaps I give him too much credit on this issue. He never really pounded the table with the freedom for the Iraqi people issue until the very end, until it was clear that we were going to do it with our "coalition of the willing," and not with the UN. The theme rang clear in both his speech Monday night and the address he gave to the people last night.

It's also the reason that could have been his strongest with the American public. So, why did he downplay it so?

I believe he had to. It would have made the quest for a UN resolution even tougher, as every tinpot dictator realized that if the US, now uncontrained by pragmatic Cold War realpolitik, was truly committed to freeing people, and establishing liberal republics globally, that they could not help but be next on the Pax Americana hit list.

(As I type this, the news reports that the Marines of one of the Light Armored Recon battalions have engaged and destroyed two Iraqi armored vehicles with the 25mm chain gun of their Grizzly. "First To Fight." Heh. My pride in the competence of my former comrades is tempered with a bit of sadness. Why didn't those stupid fucking Iraqis just surrender?)

I was glad to see that the President has so strongly affirmed the US committment to rebuilding Iraq, and setting them on a course of political and personal freedom. He should be held quite firmly by the American people to that cause, and if he strays from it after he has Saddam's head on a pike, I'll be clamoring along with all the anti-war folk to get his on one.

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I wan't going to blog about my visits to the Houston Rodeo this year. Hell, I've still got several hundred pics and a few concert reviews for last year sittin on the hard drive waiting to see the light of an internet day.

But some stuff is just too damn good not to mention.

Lynyrd Skynyrd had been scheduled, along with Jerry Jeff Walker, for tonight's show. However, Gary Rossington had to have heart surgery last week, so the rodeo called in Clint Black to sub for him.

Clint played a few of his standards, and then played "The Breeze" for all the Skynyrd fans. To help with that song, he called up his two brothers, Kevin and Brian, with whom he used to play back in the days before he hit the Big Time. I thought that was pretty cool, as so far as I know (and that's a bigass caveat) that's the first time they'd ever been on a stage together in about fifteen years. Clint's band has a few former rockers in it (Jake, his bassist, is a great jazz and rock player, and Hayden smokes on guitar) so they did a truly good job with the tune.

I'm thinkin' to myself, that song alone made me glad I came.

Then Clint drops this bomb...

He says that he'd been fortunate enough to have been spending some time entertaining our troops, and after hanging around them for a while, just a few days ago, he and Hayden had finished writing a new song, and they were now going to play it for us. Oh, and by the way, you could download it for free. He said it was going to be free, like America. And would we mind calling the local country radio stations and ask them to play it.

It's called "Iraq and Roll"

It will become a number one song on the country charts, the unofficial anthem of our combat troops in the Middle East. I garan-dam-tee it. (I am sometimes wrong, but never uncertain :-)

I dl'd it tonight, then spent a half hour transcribing the lyrics, which follow:

The song flat kicks ass.

UPDATE 3-15-2003: They've finally got the lyrics up on Clint's site. However, the transcription is wrong, with several glaring discrepancies between the song and the published lyrics.

As an example, compare the official version of this line:

"I GOT INFRARED, GPS AND GOOD OLD FASHIONED LEAD"

(And what's up with the SHOUTING, anyway?)

This is clearly wrong. I stand by my version:

"I got infrared, I got GPS I got that good ol' fashioned lead."

Have I ever mentioned I can be a bit pedantic?

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Leafing through my referrer logs I came across this entry from Single out West.

Freaking hilarious - the French and Germans are trying to keep us from finding out they've been fondling Saddam, so to speak.

I'm so glad that the Bush43 has made it very clear that the opinion of oh, say, Cameroon, Syria, and whoever else happens to be sitting on the Security Council this time round matters not a whit. They're not going to vote on whether or not there will be a war, just whether or not the UN commits hari-kari over the issue.

I don't often quote myself here, but I think this quote from this post is worth repeating: "Trying Saddam, in the court of world opinion that is the UN, is like trying to convict a drug dealer, with his supplier, a few of his steady customers, and his best buddy sitting on the jury. A unanimous verdict will prove to be an impossible goal. Only the most naive would either expect or require it."

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