Good Branding

From a Wikipedia article on Haiti: "Buteur took charge of the Cannibal Army and promptly renamed it the National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti." That seems like a wise branding decision as it's hard to imagine a "Cannibal Army" having much appeal beyond its base.

Comments

Then again al-Maliki's show in Basra is called Operation Charge of the Knights but looks likely to end as Operation Very Sorry, Moqtada, so one can overdo the appealing name.

Posted by P O'Neill | March 30, 2008 8:59 AM

Now that the name Cannibal Army is available the Clinton can claim free use.

Posted by bjd | March 30, 2008 9:13 AM

Depends if there's a cartoon show named "Cannibal Army" with appropriate marketing behind it.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | March 30, 2008 9:29 AM

"it's hard to imagine a "Cannibal Army" having much appeal beyond its base."

Well, if they had formed a coalition with the carnivores to stand against the vegetarians, they probably could've gotten to 50%.

Posted by Petey | March 30, 2008 9:31 AM

I still think that as names go, it's hard to beat 'General Butt Naked and the Butt Naked Brigade." Who actually _were_ cannibals, strangely enough.

There was also a left-wing guerrilla group in Ecuador called, loosely, 'Alfaro Fucking Lives', or 'Alfaro Lives, Dammit' after a peasant leader than Alfaro.

Posted by Hector | March 30, 2008 9:33 AM

I see this happened in 2003, not in say 1833 or something as I first assumed. Dude was a major figure in the US supported 04 uprising.

Posted by David Weman | March 30, 2008 9:35 AM

Reminds me of the Mitchell and Webb sketch about various Nazi uniform trappings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO5WoLnOOlU

"Are we the baddies?" is a question perhaps some of the Cannibal Army asked, too.

Posted by riffle | March 30, 2008 10:16 AM

I member that a friend once showed me a book's table listing the personal fates of the extremely long list of Haiti's top national leaders over the last 100 years or so. It reads like something out of Mad Magazine, and if anyone can find it on the web, it's well worth taking a look at.

Admittedly, most of the fates are reasonably mundane---"killed... killed... fled... killed... killed... killed... fled... killed"---but quite a few are more "usual" like "vanished" or "exploded" or "went insane".

Posted by RKU | March 30, 2008 11:52 AM

Judean People's front? We're the People's Front of Judea! Judean People's Front...

Posted by zed | March 30, 2008 12:32 PM

"Cannibal Army" is a good brand name if your goal is to scare the crap out of everybody.

Posted by Spike | March 30, 2008 1:34 PM

Spike's right. The purpose of armies is not to appeal, it's to get results through intimidation and force. We'd probably get better results if we renamed the "Defense Dept." to "Dept. of Kill'em and Take Their Stuff". Maybe then they'd realize they would better off just letting us have their oil without this pointless resistance so we don't have to kill 'em all.

Trouble is, for lots of participants - e.g. a certain CIC - blowing people up is obviously an essential component of what makes war so much fun. Eliminating the slaughter would kill the whole joy of war for them.

Posted by eb | March 30, 2008 2:38 PM

The US military has now been officially renamed by the Iraqi insurgents as - wait for it...

The Morons.

I remember way back in 2003 some Iraqi fisherman saying that by day he was a fisherman and by night an insurgent.

He said the fishing was harder. It was easy to "net" a US soldier.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 30, 2008 11:05 PM