The Swayze Connection - So Saddam was captured as part of Operation Red Dawn.

For those of you too young to remember, Red Dawn is the name of a jingoistic Soviet-bating "America under siege" NRA propaganda flick dating from the first Reagan administration. It starred a young Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, and Charlie Sheen as high school kids forced to take up arms as guerrillas against a Russian occupation. Could the connection be random coincidence? Perhaps, but then why did commanders in Iraq nickname their geographic objectives Wolverine 1 and 2, hmm? (The movie heroes take their resistance group's name from the high school's tenacious little mascot.)

Okay, I can see some gung-ho army types choosing to name an operation after a favorite movie. But maybe they should have reconsidered whether it was a good idea to draw Iraqi parallels to a movie that lionizes rag-tag irregulars fighting a seemingly hopeless battle against occupation by a foreign oppressor.

Historical footnote: Red Dawn was the first movie released with the MPAA's brand new PG-13 rating.