Alright, I found some information on who else, apart from the Brits, is going to help out violating international law… errrrr…. grabbing Iraq’s oil… errrr… overthrowing Saddam Hussein to install a US puppet… errrr… to install a democratic regime. Here we go:
Australia is going to provide around 2000 soldiers, planes and some ships. According to the German weekly Der Spiegel, Australian premier Howard - who in parliament was called a “murderer” by members of the audience - thus wants to make sure his country’s interests are best being dealt with. I see.
Denmark offer a submarine and a corvette (and probably some hardcore porn) to deal with Saddam Hussein’s magnificent navy.
Poland is sending 200 “specialists” (don’t make me comment on that…). Poland’s president Kwasniewski, a former comunist (you can’t be too choosy with your allies these days…), said that sometimes politicians have to disregard public opinion. I’m sure the Poles know how that feels because they’ve been subjected to that since at least 1945.
The Czech Republic hasn’t decided what to send. I mean they needed a few months to find a new president! Maybe some pretzel sticks and some beer? If you mix Czech beer with water - ratio 1:100 - you’d get some decent American-style beer!
Slovakia - which, I believe, Mr Bush once mistook for Slovenia - is sending 69 specialists. Funny how many specialists there are in Eastern Europe. There might be a shortage in specialists in Slovakia because of this.
Romania will send four “special units” including military police. Presumably the same kind of special units which they used to kill demonstrators in their own country. I can see how those would be very useful. During World War II, the German also relied on foreign troops to do the *really* dirty work.
Regional hyperpower Bulgaria - where the former king is now prime minister (how creative!) - might send up to 250 people but they won’t participate in any slaughter they said. That’s nice of them. I’m sure they’ll get some crumbs once it’s over.
Albania is going to send 30 to 70 thugs from their powerful local mafia. No, make that soldiers. Plus, the US can use Albanian territorial waters which might be immensely useful if they moved the whole country by a few thousand miles. They’re still debating on whether they want to do that.
And I gotta quote/translate this directly from Der Spiegel: “Turkey again would like to decide on stationing 62000 US troops and 300 planes and helicopters.”Isn’t that sweet? They’d like to make up their minds. They already made up their minds about invading Iraq’s northern parts to quell those pesky Kurds. Well, you gotta set priorities, I guess. Oh, btw, that’ll be it for Turkey and the EU but don’t tell the Turks…
I also heard that Ukranian housewife Swatislava Krutska wants to support the effort. She might send some sandwiches, provided she can get them out of the country and provided nobody is going to be too picky about those cucumbers she’s growing next to that Chernobyl plant.
Rumour has it that German opposition leader Angela Merkel might, once again, offer her unconditional support in order to get a few seconds of airtime. If you’re irrelevant you can’t be too picky about how to achieve that in pacifistic Germany.
Update (19 March 2003): The BBC was kind enough to provide us with the full list of the “Coalition of the Willing”. Apart from the countries listed above, we also have:
Afghanistan, Azerbaijan (they got oil so they know it’s best to be on the right side), Colombia (where there are lots of US military “advisors” already… did anybody say Vietnam?), El Salvador, Eritrea (they were willing to provide some extra hunger [OK, that was a rude one]), Estonia, Ethiopia (funny how noble causes like this one can unite Ethiopia and Eritrea), Georgia (no, not the US state…), Hungary (my office mate already apologized to me for that [no, I’m not kidding]), Italy (it’s actually only Berlusconi but we don’t want to be that picky), Japan, South Korea (yeah right!), Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia (do they even have an army? I thought they still needed NATO to not completely disintegrate), the Netherlands (sending some amphetamines for US fighter pilots which is a safe thing to do as there no Canadians around which could get killed), Nicaragua, the Philippines, Spain (no troops from there, either - talk is cheap, and Aznar will be out of power soon), and every human rights fighter’s absolute favourite Uzbekistan.