Today, I read one of the most hilarious and thought provoking articles I’ve seen in a while. TV producer and director George Schlatter wrote a hysterically funny article in the Huffington Post in which he suggested a change in the way we fight Muslim extremists.
Quite apart from the comedic nature of the article, a moment or two of introspection is deserved at this point. Increasingly there is an advancing tide of political and media figures of all political affiliations who are basically saying; “Isn’t there another way to fight these lunatics”. There is, and those who question our existing tactics are dead-right to do so. Fighting asymmetrical conflicts requires completely different tactics from those that the United States Army spent 50 years studying end developing in order to fight “meeting engagements” on the plains of Europe. Fighting a bunch of towelheads hiding in caves in Helmand province require a different tactical approach than meeting the massed forces of the former Warsaw Pact advancing through the Fulda Gap in formation, using coordinated air, mechanized regiments, and mounted infantry. Engaging the enemy of today using cold war military thinking is sheer madness. However, I’m digressing, as per usual. Back to today’s rant.
Apparently the only thing that terrifies these people of this faith is coming in contact with anything to do with pork. My solution is to stop shooting rockets and bullets and bombs. We fire bacon and pork chops at the militant Muslims. We develop a rocket and giant squirt guns that will not hurt anybody, but it only spreads the area and the target and the terrorists with bacon fat
Now, this sounds like a joke, but I believe that a Muslim will run away from bacon fat and a pork chop faster than they will from a grenade or a bullet. Why don’t we try it? Why don’t we notify an Al Qaeda training camp that on Monday morning the entire area will be carpet bombed with bacon? It is cheap. It is a renewable substance and I believe that their faith is so strong that they will surrender to any enemy rather than be doused in pork by products.
Sheer unadulterated genius, but he has even more….
While this sounds facetious, it has a better chance of winning than what we are doing. The enemy will surrender if they think that they will spend the next hundred years wading through bacon grease, pork rinds, shredded pork and barbecued spareribs. This is cheaper than bullets or bombs and I believe it will be much more effective.
The mental imagery conjured up by this article is utterly priceless. Given that we are using the venerable B52 to bomb the Taliban in Afghanistan right now, it would be a relatively simple issue to rearm them with bacon. Yes, live pigs. A B52 has a payload of approximately 70,000 lbs (31,750 Kg). Given that the average weight of a full grown pig is around 250Kg, this means that the bomb bays of a B52 could hold around 127 live pigs. If that was thought to be insufficient, then the more advanced B1B bomber has a payload of 216,000 Kg which is approximately 864 pigs. Imagine what havoc a squadron of B1′s could accomplish. Think what would you do if your town was suddenly carpet bombed with 8600 live pigs. Let me rephrase that slightly, they (the pigs, that is) were alive when they left the aircraft. Terror killed some during the drop, and impact from a 17 kilometer height took care of the rest. I wonder what the splatter radius would be, if you dropped a 250kg pig 17 kilometers?
Now let’s move from the great outdoors to your typical urban conflict. Instead of (as Mr. Schlatter pointed out) firing conventional weaponry at insurgents, suicide bombers, et al, fire pork sausages filled with liquid bacon fat. The dialog might go something like this;
[Scene: the clatter of small arms fire, whooshing sound of former Soviet block RPG's being launched, and lots of yells of "Alluh Ahkbar!" (God is Great!) as battle with a coalition patrol commences. Suddenly there is a very loud resounding bang...we go now, to our correspondent on the ground in one of the backstreets of - let's say - Fallujah who has his tape recorder running....]
[first insurgent staggering back into a house] “Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhh!!”
[second insurgent] “Abdul, my brother, are you shot?”
[first insurgent] “No by the grace of Allah (praise his name etc) I am not shot but the infidels have – NO DON’T TOUCH ME – the infidels have done something worse”
[second insurgent] “Allah be praised that you are not shot my brother, but what have they done?”
[third insurgent]“Yes, and by the prophet (praise his name etc) WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SMELL?”
[first insurgent] “they were broadcasting that they were going to fire pork rounds at us, then did so and I am soaked in bacon grease!”
[first and second insurgents in unison] “Allah have mercy on your soul Abdul, get the fuck away from me, you are unclean and……”
BOOM!
[sounds of screaming, and as the dust clears, all three insurgents are laying in a pile of pig guts, pig parts - including a head]
[first insurgent] “ARGH! WE HAVE TO LEAVE HERE WE ARE ALL UNCLEAN MY BROTHERS, WE CANNOT RID OURSELVES OF THIS FILTH”
[second insurgent] “Fuck that, I’m joining the army, no way I’m going through this shit any more Al Sadr can’t pay me enough to get pig bombed”
[third insurgent] “I’m going to see my cousins in London, screw you people, I’m done here”
