Flagwatch™: Brothel Yes, Bus No

May 4th, 2006 | by: WC Bob |

The stars and stripes of the United States flag won’t be painted on the official team bus that ushers around Landycakes and mates at the World Cup. Because of the much dreaded and always nebulous “security concerns,” the US bus will be the only one in the tournament without a national flag painted on the back. That has to hurt team morale.

Maybe we’ll bump up the US in our World Cup Blog Power Rankings tomorrow to help make the players feel better.

Meanwhile, the flag is still proudly displayed on the massive banner advertising a brothel in Cologne. Apparently, there are no “security concerns” there, especially now that Wayne Rooney is hurt and unlikely to be a patron.

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kapcro

God help the person that would attack a brothel.
Mesto

Smart move. That way no one will recognize the bus when it goes through one of those drive through brothels.
Nick

Look on the bright side. If the US get knocked out in the first round, they’ll have first crack at the Ho’s.
http://ecuador.worldcupblog.org/ Trent

Brilliant, that will totally fool any terrorists.
http://www.viuasfotos.com/euler.htm Euler

Blame it on Bush… the bus thang. Bush will blush if he read this brothel matter.
http://usa.worldcupblog.org/group-e/team-usa-will-have-heightened-security.html Team USA Will Have Heightened Security – FIFA World Cup 2006 – USA World Cup Team Blog

[...] Word has it that extra security measures will be taken to protect the USA team during the WorldCup. Perhaps unwisely, the Associated Press published one of these measures and now everyone knows the USA team bus will not have a flag painted on the back, but will instead “be predominantly blue in colour.” [...]
kapcro

If you’re the bad guy wouldn’t you just look for the plain team bus, since all the others have flags painted on them. Maybe they can use taxi cabs instead. How about a decoy flag, like maybe Canada.
http://ecuador.worldcupblog.org/1/team-slogans-announced.html Team Slogans Announced – FIFA World Cup 2006 – Ecuador World Cup Team Blog

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Bobby

This pisses me right off. The naivete that must exist in our decision makers minds to think that not putting a flag on the world cup bus with the same markings as the other buses, even including the slogan “United we play, United we win”, could actually make a difference in the safety and security of the players is absolutely outrageous, not to mention outright paranoid. If they are indeed afraid of a terrorist attack, they should assume that anyone with enough determination to full on attack the bus is probably also capable of figuring out which bus to hit. Even more unfortunate is how small things like this continue to reflect poorly on our international image – one of always having to be different and defiant even when there is no need. Maybe one day we’ll get it together…