Operation AXIOM
Ten years ago to the day, 19 March 2003, the Iraq War began with the aerial bombing of command & control centers in Baghdad, followed the next day, 20 March, by the invasion of Iraq by the armies of the "coalition of the willing"—the United States of America, the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, the Commonwealth of Australia, & the Republic of Poland. The brutal, decades-long dictatorship of Saddam Hussein & his Ba'ath Party was overthrown within three weeks, though the dictator fled & would not be captured 'til December of '03. To our great shame & even greater lament, the necessary occupation proved to have been ill-planned, & post-invasion reconstruction efforts were improvised & mismanaged, often beset by both incompetence & corruption. Worst of all, long-simmering ethnic tensions were mishandled & the country soon descended into virtual chaos in an orgy of sectarian violence, Sunnis (including both secular Ba'athists & jihadists affiliated with al-Qaeda) versus Shiites (supported by Iran) & both sides versus the occupational authorities. No active weapons of mass destruction programs were found within Iraq, but the oppressive, internationally aggressive Hussein regime was consigned to the ash heap of history; the first representative democracy in an Arab state was founded; & the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi abandoned his nuclear weapons program for fear of being the next target of American-led preemptive war. Approximately four thousand five hundred American soldier, sailors, airmen, & Marines perished in the eight years of the war, along with hundreds of coalition soldiers & an estimated over one hundred thousand Iraqis, both uniformed & irregular combatants & civilians. Some remained steadfast in the belief that the war was justified & that the cost, however terrible to bear, was necessary; others supported the war when they thought it would be easy & clean, but turned against the adventure when war proved that it remains as hellish as William Tecumseh Sherman knew it to be; still others remained steadfast in their belief that the war was unjustified from the first & that whatever good might have merged had been purchased at too dear a price in blood & treasure. Ten years ago to-day.

Autobahn
This afternoon, I retrieved my mother from the aerodrome (Detroit Metro) in the Lumi, the Distaff Son of the Mousemobile. As I motored south on US-23 I espied a trio of '14 Corvette Stingrays across the median in the northbound lanes. Sweet fancy Moses, they were gorgeous! I saw the new seventh-generation Corvette (or "C7") at the North American International Auto Show in January—accompanied by Ska Army—but this was the first time I'd seen an ambulatory Stingray. Not long after, I espied a similarly northbound Porsche Panamera, the first I'd ever seen in the wild.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
First Aid Kit, "King of the World" from The Lion's Roar (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"Well, I'm nobody's baby,
I'm everybody's girl,
I'm the queen of nothin',
I'm the king of the world."

Cue the sweet trumpet part.