Yeah, Right, Whatever

Imagine that you have a loved one who is currently serving in Iraq, and imagine that your loved one had the forethought to take a cell phone along to make calls home whenever possible. Good thing, right?

Well, yeah... unless the insurgents got their mitts on intercept technology and could get your home phone number and then make harassing phone calls to you.

Wives and family members of soldiers fighting in Iraq have received telephone calls, believed to include death threats, from insurgents, according to military documents seen by The Sunday Telegraph.

...It is understood that the threats range from claims that a husband or son is dead or will be killed fighting in Iraq, to verbal abuse. Many of those who have received calls say that they were made by people with a poor command of English or with a Middle Eastern accent.

Unfortunately, if I stretch my brain cells into some bizarre yoga position, I can almost see the reasoning behind the calls. If you scare, harass, and intimidate the family of those fighting you, you will distract your enemy ('cause you know they're hearing about it in phone calls home and letters) and cause them to lose just a little of their resolve. And that's all you might need to get that advantage (I mean, it's not like they have a tactical, strategic, logistic, or material advantage to work with). But it still just seems like a... desperate ploy by desperate people. And, it will only work until the families realize what's up and decide to laugh at them.

I remember my cousin prank calling people one night. Yeah, I was there. No, I didn't participate. It seemed... pointless. Maybe I just didn't get it. Then again, (with the exception of putting Limburger cheese in the muffler of someone who really, really deserved it) I never did understand those kind of things. I guess I life of juvenile delinquency wasn't for me.

Hmmm... given what we know, it all starts to make sense to me. The "insurgents" (geez, I hate that name) are unemployed hoodlums who like to spread mischief and chaos whereever they go. They're like some warped inner city gang looking to make more recruits however they can. And now, they're nothing more than a bunch of juvenile delinquents prank calling to pass the time.