Halliburton Corporation defeated by rocket-launching donkey

A couple of things strike me here. First of all, and I know this is so 19th century of me, but I find it fascinating that a company supposedly geared towards plumbing for oil has such amazing capabilities in the development of blast walls and other seige defenses. Blast walls in Iraq, dog cages in Guantanamo. This ain't your great-grandpappy's wildcatter oil company.

I also find it fascinating that a donkey managed to defeat the formidable defenses of the Halliburton corporation. All of their billions of dollars could not deter an attack by pack mules. In Vietnam, the communist forces were able to resupply allong the entire length of the Ho Chi Mihn trail using bycicles, oxen, men and yes donkeys to pack supplies along several hundred miles. All of our magnificent technology could not stop the power of fighting men on foot with a cause in their hearts.

Paging Robert McNamara, your table is ready.

===

Missiles Fired From Donkey Carts in Central Baghdad
By JOHN F. BURNS

November 21, 2003

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/international/middleeast/21CND-BAGH.html?ex=1070082000&en=f9aad9009816c8ae&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

The Palestine and Sheraton hotels in central Baghdad were hit by a volley of five rockets fired from donkey carts at about 7:15 this morning. An American civilian in the Palestine Hotel was severely wounded and was being evacuated to a United States military medical center in Frankfurt, Germany. Just before the attack on the hotels, eight rockets hit the nearby Oil Ministry, setting off a fire in the upper floors that burned furiously for a couple of hours after the attack. There were no reports of casualties in that attack.

Three donkey carts covered in hay, a common sight in Baghdad in the early morning, were found loaded with home-made concrete rocket launchers with steel tubes. They were housing either 107-milimeter Soviet-made Katushya rockets or 122-milimeter Brazilian-made Aspro rockets, powerful weapons that can hit targets at a range of 10 miles. The donkeys attached to the carts were all tethered to trees and the rockets were set off by a home-made system using timer fuses and car batteries. One was outside the Palestine Hotel and another outside the Oil Ministry. A third cart, carrying 32 rockets primed to fire, was discovered near the Italian and Turkish embassies in the city's diplomatic area, but did not explode.

(snip)

The wounded American, who was not identified, is an employee of a Halliburton subsidiary company that is the prime subcontractor for the rehabilitation of Iraq's oilfields. The subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root, is the company that erected 20-foot- high blast walls intended to protect against truck bombings around the Palestine and Sheraton hotels and many other military and civilian installations in Baghdad.

and now the four donkeys are in "coalition care"----are they going to be interrogated? ;-)

or....."Damn those Democrats! They got their ass to bomb the Ol Ministry!"

Why those guys are obvious terrorists. They are leading the resistance against Microsoft!

:tinfoilhat: Waiting for THAT spin to surface on the cable news, lol.

so maybe they'll try to pin that on Wesley Clark.

(Oh dammit! I said "...pin that...", as in pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. That was bad. I hate that!)

*snort*!

That too was painful.

Sorry. I had to do it. And I'd do it all again!

You mean, they've lost their open-ended, no-bid contracts? Or they're going to be out of pocket for their losses? Or that somehow or another these attacks aren't going to be paid for out of the U.S. Treasury?

Halliburton just writes another invoice, pads the number by 15% or 20%, and sends it off to Crash Cart, who makes sure a check is generated. Halliburton? Defeated? Dream on.

And he defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu with artillary pieces pulled over mountains by Viet Minh troops.

Technology cannot overcome will.

Bad donkey! No treat for you!

I keep hearing we're going to stay until we "win". What the F does that mean?

Until every donkey is killed! Or has switched to our side!

((Giant sucking sound of money going down the drain in Iraq ...))

thought of it. DMD, mmmm I like the sound of it.

"AHHHH, Nothing like the smell of donkey shit early in the Morning"

Come, we find some hay

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/7321399.htm

WASHINGTON - Most people would never suspect the lowly donkey of being an instrument of terror - which is exactly why anti-U.S. insurgents used the beasts to launch rocket attacks Friday on two hotels and the Oil Ministry in Baghdad.


The coordinated strikes were a twist in the age-old practice of asymmetric warfare, in which weaker forces identify and then exploit the vulnerabilities of their better-armed enemy.


This kind of unconventional strike doesn't have to inflict major casualties and damage to succeed. Just pulling off such an audacious act deals a blow, as occurred Friday in the heavily guarded heart of Baghdad.

<snip>

"whut you said." :toast:

Every afternoon, a factory worker in left work to go home, pushing a wheelbarrow full of straw. And each day the guards would shuffle through the straw looking for purloined goods and found nothing.

After years of this ritual, the fellow retired and was leaving for the last time. One of the guards couldn't stand it and said to him, "look, I won't say anything, but I can't figure out what the hell you are up to. Have you been stealing something all these years?"

The fellow smiled and replied, "wheelbarrows."

;-)

Using donkeys, timed fuses, and car batteries to launch a missile. These people are alot more resourceful than we make them out to be.

I hate to say it, for our soldiers, but in a protracted fight. Our soldiers have thier hands full against this kind of brainpower.

Bush has really done it this time. Another USSR vs. Afghanistan.

A central theme is the trumping of high tech power by low tech means. As when a key character hijacks a nuclear sub and acquires his own h-warhead armed with a kayak and a knife made of glass....

who raises horses, but knows little about donkeys, I have to wonder how in the hell they get them to stand still when that noise goes off! Not only are these guys resourceful, they are very good trainers. Gives BushCo another definition to "kicking their asses" I guess.

through the streets of Los Angeles by the LAPD. FOX News is carrying the chase live. They are reporting that beneath the hay lies the WMD that Saddam Hussein supplied to this most deadly of all terrorist organizations. Police have tentatively indentified the cart's driver as Osama bin Laden.

This is a Weapon's of Mass Destruction Delivery System.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Next occasion that the administration wants to rattle the chains of the American people over some imagined terrorist threat they'll have us out in the toolies lookin' for donkeys...with our duct tape and plastic sheeting.

Might backfire given it's symbolic reference ...

Possible suspects being sought by the CPA

This one was caught at the scene and is currently be interrogated
<snip>


Police Sketch of Possible Suspect
<snip>


Wanted Poster being currently Posted in Baghdad

:kick:

on their ass for cruelty to animals! :D

Seriously though, those poor singed donkeys. :( I hope they'll be okay.