du hast 4 shore.

pro-US: the fightin side of me by Merle Haggard
Defiance: I won't back down by Tom Petty or Johnny Cash
ass-kicking: long-haired redneck by David Allen Coe

America get wise, the arabs got less to lose than you,
You go killin more of them, they be takin more yanks too,
they think god has a big reward if they kill you and go to heaven,
you piss them off more, you will get anotha 9-11

The best choice for explaining the purpose of the war is "Who's Next" by Tom Lehrer.

If the Arabs are so tough... why can't they overthrow their own governments? They're oppressed by some of the worst governments on Earth and they're limited to an occasional military coup? The Iranians had a revolution, why can't the Arabs manage one?

How about that lennon(?) song 'All we are saying..is give peace a chance'

joe,

do you know that anne boylen prayed for her king's forgiveness before she was beheaded even though he screwed her royally??? slavishness and royal devotion was something that europeans had to grow out of (it is not well known, but many protestant ministers were jacobites even though it might meant a restoration of catholicism-their respect for king warred with their love of god).

For the Pro-war crowd we should use (and I always thought they should use this song for those "hip" army recruitment ads):

"Let the bodies hit the floor" - Drowning Pool

As for the anti-war soundtrack...let's see (there's soooo many choices). I'm gonna go with:

"Killing an Arab" - The Cure

...er now that I think about it, maybe that one can be used as a Pro-war song too, if we just kind of conveniently misinterpret its intended message (sort of like how people did with Springsteen's 'Born in the USA' back in the 80's)

Also for Pro-war, in honor of 91's 1000 to 1 kill ratio, I'd like to nominate:

"Can it Be all So Simple" - Wu-Tang Clan

"King Henry screwed Anne Boleyn royally?" Well yeah, that's what kings do to their wives. (Too easy to pass up.)

Scottish nationalism had a lot to do with the Jacobite rebellion, as I've been told. So Protestants supported a Catholic Scot pretender (even though he wasn't very Scottish any more after years in France) over the English Protestant King. Not exactly subbserviance.

Jason:

"Can it be all so simple" - ha! Classic. I'm betting that the kill ratio will rise by at least one order of magnitude. Actually, I think I wrote about that a few months back on the old site.

Also, re: "Let the Bodies Hit the floor" - this guy is thinking the same thing...maybe you've seen these already?

Sen:

Heheheh, of course my lyrics were a bit tongue in cheek - IMO this war (Iraq = 2nd battle of the war) is more about neutering Islam (in the way Christianity's been neutered) than destroying Islam. Once the Saudi National Endowment for the Arts is sponsoring "Piss Mohammeds", we will have won.

More seriously, I am sympathetic to the "don't make them hate us more" argument as long as we aren't killing at random. But we *do* need to topple governments (and undercut radical Islam) as surgically as possible to drain this swamp, and if we get bitten by mosquitos (or worse) while doing so - so be it.

The alternative is eventually an NBC weapons scenario in the US, which *will* mean an orgy of retaliatory violence against virtually every Muslim country that even looked funny at us, and that's what I would like to avert.

Jon + Joseph:

downloading them now off Kazaa...

Joseph:

My opinion on the lack of Arab revolutions - part of this is b/c we back the Egyptian and Saudi Arabian governments with aid (for Egypt) or petrodollars (for SA) and security guarantees, mainly b/c we're afraid of an Islamist overthrow a la Iran. So the US is to some extent responsible for stopping nascent Arab coups in their tracks. Of course, the Egyptian and SA govts have made things worse by employing religion/anti-Americanism as crowd control, which has gotten out of hand and inflamed rather than pacified the masses. They should have gone with MTV...

'Du Hast', great song.
Me being a cynical peacenik though, I think I'll dust off Dylan's 'Masters of War', and maybe one of the covers of Eric Bogle's 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'.

Rock the Casbah is a choice so obvious I'm sure you've thought of it.

The Four Horseman by Metallica (off Kill 'Em all) is another possibility.

Not completely suitable, but I remember hearing "Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed on the radio one night right after the Taliban's lines has broken in Afghanistan and it seemed to fit:

"It seems you're having some trouble
In dealing with these changes
Living with these changes
Oh no, the world is a scary place
Now that you've woken up the demon ... in me

Get up, come on get down with the sickness
Get up, come on get down with the sickness
Get up, come on get down with the sickness
Open up your hate, and let it flow into me
Get up, come on get down with the sickness
You mother get up
Come on get down with the sickness
You fucker get up
Come on get down with the sickness
Madness is the gift, that has been given to me"