D-Day 2006, What if Iraq was fought like WW II

Dec. 20, 2006

Tomorrow morning, patriotic Americans will be cheering as the airwaves buzz with the news that 1,500,000 additional troops have launched a second invasion of Iraq to smash the insurgents.
The event will go down in history as being comparable to the surprise D-Day invasion of France in 1944.
In his autobiography written years later in 2019, former President George W. Bush unveiled the workings behind his top secret plan which surprised the whole world. How, on Thursday, Dec. 21, 2006 the skies of Iraq were filled with parachutes and the streets choked with tanks as the U.S. Army, Navy and Marines launched Operation Squawking Eagle. The 1.5 million troops came from bases around the world which were drained of their personnel.
Congress did its part prior to the invasion by pretending that Washington was completely flummoxed over what to do about the war, dithering over the merits of either pulling out of Iraq or temporarily adding a mere 50,000 troops. “We sure fooled ‘em,” said incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
But that was only the beginning, because on D-Day, 2006, Americans also learned that they would finally have to sacrifice on the homefront as well.
An immediate draft was announced (constitutional rights were suspended due to a “state of emergency“) and by Christmas Eve, an additional 10 million young people were inducted into the armed forces. Many were notified that they‘d been drafted in a message from the President that was transmitted via their iPods. The draftees were told that 5 million of them would be deployed to Iraq, with 2 million sent to Afghanistan.
And that’s not all. Patriotic Americans were told that their taxes would be raised by 300% to cover the cost of the war.
“We’re playing high-stakes Texas Hold’em poker on this one and we’re all-in with every chip we’ve got, just like James Bond in ‘Casino Royale,‘” said President Bush in his historic speech to the nation. “It’s time Americans started putting their money where their mouth is,”
On a sad note, talk radio comedian Rush Limbaugh was the first casualty of the second invasion. He dropped dead of a stroke on the air upon hearing the news that even wealthy conservatives would have to pay for the war they started.
In that same historic speech, President Bush outlined his bold winner-take-all plan. He noted that
establishing democracies in Iraq and the Mideast was as vital as defeating the Nazis and imperial Japan in World War II. Yet, America hadn’t come close to matching the sacrifice of the 1940s.
Bush made the following points:
• In World War II, there were 16.1 million Americans in the military at a time when there were fewer than 150 million citizens -- a far cry from the 152,000 troops in Iraq. A similar proportion today (with 300 million citizens) would mean 30 million in the Armed Forces.
• In World War II, a Republican candidate for president demanded higher taxes to pay for the war.
• In World War II, tax rates to pay for the war were as high as 90% of income if you were a wealthy American making over $25,000 per year.
Bush’s plan worked like a charm. With 6 million troops in Iraq lining virtually every street in the country, the insurgency was soon crushed. True, American forces lost more than 43,000 lives by the war’s end, but that was far less than the 58,000 who died in Vietnam, or the 292,000 servicemen killed in World War II.
History tells us that America won the war in Iraq in 2009 after overcoming its earlier setbacks. Unfortunately, when Russia, China and Iran entered the war on the side of the disgruntled Turks in 2010, they launched World War IV, a conflict from which few survived anywhere on earth.
And so it goes... Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, and a Cheery Kwanzaa to ya everybody, and thanks for reading.