Iraq, Mars missions confused?

[Theophylact]

Adam Felber (Fanatical Apathy) thinks we got the two mixed up:

PREEMPTING THE MARTIAN INVASION

I’ve been in the Dallas area for the past couple of days, and things are just fine out here… Just last night I visited Mark Cuban’s remarkable new palace, the American Airlines Center, where I thrilled to the promising Dallas Mavericks taking on the magnificent Kevin Garnett and his Minnesota Timberwolves. No, that’s not hyperbole - I literally thrilled. I’m like that.

Nothing in the soil or water supply is making me want to spend more money than I take in or destroy longstanding and important relationships, so I’m gonna have to work up a new theory about how George W. Bush came to be.

Speaking of soil and water samples, I’m glad we’re on Mars. And I'm still not too happy we’re in Iraq. In fact, I’m becoming convinced that we actually mixed those two missions up.

See, we should’ve sent men to Mars, and those nifty little rovers should’ve gone to Iraq. That way, we could have avoided going to war under false pretenses; the rovers could’ve ascertained the absence of significant chemical, biological, or nuclear threats in Iraq, and we would have had more time to come up with a really good reason to invade. The whole humanitarian angle is pretty persuasive, for instance, but imagine how much more plausible it would have been as a primary reason before the war. Those little rovers could’ve gotten to the bottom of that really quick, and without all the finger-wagging and tongue-clucking of certain snotty Belgians.

Meanwhile, our boys could have established a beachhead on the Red Planet, started fixing it up real nice, and possibly gotten a head start on funding and arming a local Martian dictator so that we don’t find ourselves sitting around in 2040 with no diabolic enemy who’s positively begging for a good ass-kicking. Because then where would we be? Imagine us, a generation from now, finally having to put aside our constantly-reinforced terror of evil outsiders. We’d have nothing to look at but ourselves and our fellow citizens and our society, and what we’d see would be a people who had long ago mortgaged their future, abridged their freedoms, and consigned themselves to a life of fear, preemptive aggression, and endless retaliations.

Nope. Not for me, no thanks! I mean, who wants to see that? That, my friends, is why it’s urgently important that we stand up today and denounce Zoltoth, Supreme Overlord of Mars’ Gusev Crater and Outlying Provinces. Zoltoth, hear us – your evil will not stand! America will strike, and our justice will be swift, shocking, and awful.

Er, I mean, "awesome." Shocking and awesome. Anyway, Zoltoth’s a threat, trust me on that one.

[Beemer]

The whole humanitarian angle is pretty persuasive,

I figured it was reason enough.

Cheers!