Operation Grow Up

Dartboard is dismayed at the silly names the Bush administration gives its incursions abroad. In Afghanistan, America got Operation Infinite Justice, in Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom. Dartboard can’t even call them adolescent; they don’t deserve it.

When Dartboard hears names such as these, Dartboard can’t help but imagine President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sitting in a backyard treehouse playing with cheap green plastic army guys. “Hey George, let’s call this one infinite justice, ok? Infinity is coooool.” Try sloppy and overblown.

We don’t have to look very far back to find much more appropriate operation names. Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, for instance, were descriptive and sounded good but still avoided being infuriatingly simplistic. How about Operation Overlord or Operation Torch in World War II? They managed to sound sufficiently cool and army-ish to appeal to Americans with short attention spans, but not bombastic enough to sound like Tom Clancy’s latest video game. Even the Germans got it right with Operation Sealion.

A note to the president: if you’re trying to package your war, don’t do it for the least common denominator of Americans. Most of us are through with treehouses and little green army men.

—STEPHEN W. STROMBERG