NOTE: We figure most people have a TV and know what's happening. So we're going to provide some background on the events through surveillance-camera taped conversations with Cody Barstow and Riley Collins over morning coffee. They meet at the Mo-Jo Shop (once called the More Coffee Shop, but shortened, "Bring me some Mo' Jo"). We will continue to report on the Clown invasion and other events as they warrant, however.
Northern Alliance. War Slackers.
MOJO CITY, Nov. 7, 2001 -
EDNA (WAITRESS): Seven-item omelet on special today, boys. Four ninety-nine.
CODY: Coffee included?
EDNA: Get real.
CODY: Gimme the Heuvos. [the surveillance tapes shows Riley nodding in agreement.]
EDNA: You guys still locked on Afghanistan?
RILEY: Could mean major war, tens of thousands of American ground troops, and widespread craziness in the Middle East, Edna. Yeah, we're still on it.
CODY (to Edna, who wanders off): The Northern Alliance … we're putting too much reliance on it, Edna. They're pretty damned worthless from most angles. Absolutely unable to gather under a single banner and manage coordinated attacks. And I'm not really all that sure these guys understand war as a matter of the courage needed to risk your life to kill the other guy. They seem to want to just stand around a lot and curse each other over their walkie-talkies.
Off ... as in not functioning. Rewind ... as in not exactly moving forward. Some might say this describes the Northern Alliance.
Previous
Stories
Clowns
Fell Tyler Poofs
The Gunman
Old Glory
Additional
Stories
Cody's
Travels with Fred
Prior
Cody/Riley Stories
Concert
for New York
The
New Anthrax Killings
The
Anthrax Killings Pt.II
Pocatello
Elections
It's too damned late.
The weather sucks.
CONTACT:
Scott
MacGregor
managing editor
Cody Barstow
contributing editor
RILEY: Apparently, they're completely hapless. They claim to take over three villages south of Mazar-e-Sharif …
CODY: They actually did something?
RILEY: Well, we don't know. Even Rumsfeld's saying he wants the smoke to clear before he comments on it …
CODY: Incredible. What the hell are we doing wasting our time with them?
RILEY: Here's the bad part. Think about this group of amateurs …
CODY: Not quite amateurs. They've been at it for a number of years …
RILEY: Still amateurs in the way they go about it. But imagine what happens when you throw them into some street fighting in Mazar-e-Sharif or Kabul. The Taliban have those places down cold. They know the alleys, the insides of the buildings. If they manage to sucker the Northern Alliance into the cities and …
I'm thinking of how bad things were when we tried to retake Hue during the sixty-eight Tet. Or how things went straight to hell in Mogadishu … Somalia. Street fighting. And those were our guys who got beat up. The Northern Alliance is going to get its ass handed to them.
CODY: Massive carnage.
RILEY: So, when the Alliance fails, we gonna have to move our forces in.
CODY: Agreed. No one else to do it. If we don't, we end up showing ourselves as not having the resolve to pursue this war on terrorism.
RILEY: More bombing. Massive U.S. ground troop movement. Tanks and arty. Badboys pulling guerrilla tactics on our forces. This is supposed to be a new war?
CODY: Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. I did my time in Vietnam, dude. This is sounding just like it all over again.
RILEY: You know, that tortilla in front of you has the face of Jesus on it? I want it.
CODY: Got some bean crud on it.
RILEY: I'll wash it off. I want it. I've got another one like it at home. Matched Jesus tortillas. God, what a shrine.
