What the Heck Do You Know?
Special Operation Iraqi Freakout Edition, The Final Stand
Remember last week’s quiz about Operation Iraqi Freakout? Well, events move so quickly, it’s about as up-to-date as Saddam Hussein’s command and control structure. Think of it as social surveying on the run. Our apologies to those of you who spent hours on the quiz, especially question 11.
The following war quiz has been developed by experts in such things and is guaranteed to have a shelf life longer than a flea. To ensure that it is as topical as possible, don’t wait until tomorrow to fill it out. In fact, don’t wait another minute – dammit, you think the world can wait for you to have your coffee (or baby)? It’s selfish people like you who make the social sciences such a hellish profession to be in!
Ahem.
When you have completed the quiz, please feel free to share your answers with friends, family, American President George Bush or Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (who can currently be found in a hole in downtown Baghdad). Whatever you do, do not send filled out quizzes to us! Can’t you tell how much difficulty we’re already having keeping up with the flow of events?
1) What does President George Bush’s road map to peace in the Middle East look like?
a) Pieces from a dozen jigsaw puzzles kind of smushed all together.
b) A black cat in a basement at midnight during a power failure.
c) A Higgs boson.
d) Texas, East.
2) Despite popular misgivings about the war on Iraq, there have been no public protests against it in Saudi Arabia. Why?
a) The country is down several million dollars in the casino, and it isn’t leaving until it wins its money back!
b) The government will throw you in jail if you express such an opinion publicly. Just another glowing example of American-supported democracy in action.
c) Saudis are too mesmerized by Dallas reruns.
3) Once the war in Iraq is over, what will the Bush administration’s next target be?
a) Liberals, the Heffalumps of the American media.
b) People who share MP3 files on the Internet.
c) The Constitution.
d) 150 countries refused to take part in the war – flip a coin!
4) If Donald Rumsfeld was a dog, what breed would he be?
a) A pit bull.
b) A sharpei.
c) A cross between a pit bull and a sharpei.
5) What does the future hold in store for celebrity prisoner of war Jessica Lynch now that she has been rescued from the Iraqis?
a) She’ll be a regular guest analyst on CNN when the United States invades Syria.
b) She’ll get an honourable discharge from the army and look forward to a bright future as a spokesmodel for Clairol hair products.
c) She’ll be just another (clothed) image in Playboy’s “Girls of Operation Iraqi Freakout” pictorial.
d) She’ll sell her story to a tabloid newspaper and go on the lecture circuit, where she’ll make only 70 per cent of what male POWs on the lecture circuit are making.
e) She’ll be forgotten, just another (non-nuclear) flash in the media pan.
6) When did the “rally to support the United States” held in Toronto become a rally to support the United States’ war in Iraq?
a) When marchers’ backs were turned.
b) When The National Post decided to give it full coverage.
c) When the organizers realized that they were going to get less than half to one fifth of the turnout of an anti-war rally, and they figured there was no longer any point to being coy about their real intentions.
7) He’s at it again! A letter from the press office of Ontario Premier Ernie Eves called those who opposed the American war on Iraq “cowards.” What is one to make of this?
a) They meant anti-war satirists were writing like Noel Coward. Gee, thanks. I never realized how much you appreciated my work.
b) When Eves denounced the use of the term, saying he didn’t know what people in press his office were doing, he was showing us what courageous leadership looks like.
c) They meant that kissing the ass of your largest trading partner is “heroic” (right before they proclaimed that 2+2=5).
d) Hmm…it’s astute political judgments like these that have resulted in the Tories putting off the Provincial election as long as legally possible…
8) What is the best response to looting in major Iraqi cities?
a) “Those crazy kids just need to blow off a little steam.”
b) “Hey – Saddam’s been doing it for years – why not let the average Iraqi in on the action? Don’t you know anything about privatization?”
c) “Hey! Look! Over there! Is that an endangered Austrian Bobolink? … What radio? I didn’t see any radio? No, I don’t know how that brick ended up in that electronics shop window…”
9) James Baker claims that the United States can act as an “honest broker” between Israelis and Palestinians. What did he mean?
a) The US is impartial in the dispute because it’s been selling arms to both Jews and Arabs in the Middle East for decades.
b) Americans honestly know how to break things.
c) He’s this week’s quiz’ person on psychotropic drugs.
10) Why is President Bush having a war confab with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Belfast, Ireland?
a) Togo was booked until the fall.
b) President Bush wanted to get a sense of what an occupied country felt like.
c) He’s tired of Washington and British food doesn’t agree with him.
d) For a change, the protests won’t be about Iraq.
11) According to American hawk Paul Wolfowitz, “One of our real goals here has to be to convince the world’s Muslims that we stand for positive change in the Muslim world.” How can the US ensure this?
a) Make sure Enron executives are not involved in any way in the rebuilding of Iraq.
b) Distract everybody’s attention from the increasing anarchy in Afghanistan by threatening Syria.
c) Send every surviving Iraqi a smiley face bumper sticker.
d) Stop bombing the shit out of their countries.
12) One CNN commentator said that if Iraq had a viable air force, the war would have been completely different. Should he:
a) Be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Stating the Obvious Reporting?
b) Stop confusing what happens in alternative universes for news in this one?
c) Admit on air that covering a military rout is boring?
d) Find a job at another network, because he’s obviously not going to be given a serious assignment on CNN?
e) Find another profession, because news has become just another form of fiction?
13) Where are all of Iraq’s military geniuses?
a) Desperately trying to get gigs on Al-Jazeera.
b) Buried in unmarked graves after being ordered executed by their paranoid leader.
c) Sunning themselves on an Argentinean beach somewhere.
14) Putative journalist Geraldo Rivera was kicked out of Iraq for giving out the location of the troops he was embedded in. (With? At?) Who will come to his defence?
a) Geraldos sans frontiers/Geraldos Without Borders
b) The Hair Club of America.
c) Al Capone.
15) Why will a war crimes tribunal against Iraqi leadership be successful?
a) It will get the full cooperation of the United States of America, which counts for a lot considering the country sold Iraq many of its weapons of mass destruction in the first place.
b) As with weapons of mass destruction, the American burden of proof is – ahem – light.
c) Most of the Iraqi leadership won’t survive to face it.
16) What is Saddam Hussein’s hold on Iraq?
a) His willingness to jail and torture dissidents.
b) His order to shoot military deserters.
c) Rigor mortis.
17) The office of Arab news network Al-Jazeera in Baghdad was attacked by American forces, killing one journalist, even though the station gave the Pentagon the coordinates of the building two months ago and a State Department spokesman had assured the network that it was safe 24 hours before the attack. Coincidentally, the Al-Jazeera offices in Kabul, Afghanistan were hit by an American Cruise missile in 2001. What should we make of this?
a) Any reasonable person would conclude that some Arab news networks are just really, really, really unlucky. (And, you know we’re serious because we used three “reallys.”)
b) “War is a dangerous, dangerous business.” (Thank you, press secretary Victoria Clarke.)
c) You’ve got to stop asking those information-laden questions, man. The build-up’s never worth the payoff!
18) Canadian business leaders met with American officials and found that, despite Canada’s decision not to enter the Iraq war, relations between the two countries would be – ahem – business as usual. What are we to make, then, of last week’s hysterical assertions by the business community that the Canadian economy was doomed because of the decision?
a) Halloween came early this year. The horror. The horror.
b) Have you heard the story about the boys who cried Wolfowitz?
c) This is another shining example of the farsighted thinking of Canadian CEOs that led us to have 85 per cent of our trade with the United States in the first place.
19) The American military hailed the bombing of a Baghdad palace an “extraordinary success.” What was so extraordinary about the success?
a) The four 2,000 pound “bunker buster” bombs actually hit their target. (Makes you wonder about the whole “precision bombing” concept, doesn’t it?)
b) No British soldiers were killed in the American attack.
c) The dead civilians were unrecognizable, so the odds of mourning families appearing on international television are slight.
20) What is General Jay Garner’s main qualification to run Iraq?
a) He lets Donald Rumsfeld beat him at golf.
b) He’s related to veteran actor James Garner, who tamed the west in the TV series Maverick.
c) Living near Disney World, he has learned a thing or two about crowd control.
d) Having served in Vietnam, he knows a thing or two about crowd control.
e) He looks great in military drag.
