Today’s Iraq War metaphor comes from Prosser, Washington, where—as reported by the Associated Press—a 53-year-old man unpleasantly discovered that a beheaded rattlesnake is still dangerous and should not be underestimated:
Beheaded Snake Sends Man to Hospital
PROSSER, Wash. — Turns out, even beheaded rattlesnakes can be dangerous. That’s what 53-year-old Danny Anderson learned as he was feeding his horses Monday night, when a 5-foot rattler slithered onto his central Washington property, about 50 miles southeast of Yakima.
Anderson and his 27-year-old son, Benjamin, pinned the snake with an irrigation pipe and cut off its head with a shovel. A few more strikes to the head left it sitting under a pickup truck.
“When I reached down to pick up the head, it raised around and did a backflip almost, and bit my finger,” Anderson said. “I had to shake my hand real hard to get it to let loose.”
His wife insisted they go to the hospital, and by the time they arrived at Prosser Memorial Hospital 10 minutes later, Anderson’s tongue was swollen and the venom was spreading. He then was taken by ambulance 30 miles to a Richland hospital to get the full series of six shots he needed.
The snake head ended up in the bed of his pickup, and Anderson landed in the hospital until Wednesday afternoon.
Mike Livingston, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist, said the area where the Anderson’s live is near prime snake habitat. But he said he had never heard of anyone being bit by a decapitated snake before.
“That’s really surprising but that’s an important thing to tell people,” he said. “It may have been just a reflex on the part of the snake.” [full text]
As of this writing, 3,684 U.S. troops have perished in Iraq since the war first began and Saddam Hussein was, in effect, “beheaded.”
Kmareka.com 
To underestimate the tenacity of rattlesnakes, reptilian or human, is to take unreasonable risks that may lead to miserable results. Back in 1988 or so, on a field trip with two colleagues in an area of spectacular geology and no people, discovering a fragnment of 60 million year old crocodile peeking out of a sandstone rock layer, I put my hand where it shouldn’t have been and been struck not once but twice by an unseen rattlesnake. The results were largely in the snake’s favor, not mine.
Our reptilian neighbors should not be underestimated. Our human adversaries who want only to harm us, will strike with the same unthinking and reflexive aggression seen in their slithery analogs. It would have been far better if we had picked the fields of confrontation with these human reptilian adversaries with more care, thought and planning. Unfortunately, I suspect we have made the inevitable field of confrontation more confusing than would have been necessary for reasons that were either illogical or simply not in our best interest.
The misadventures have led to the destruction of the equivalent of perhaps three divisions and the deaths of more than 3500 Americans with a multifold impact on their families. As a parent who has received a notice of harm done to one of mine, and who continues to be fearful of another horrid telephone call or visit for harm to another of my children, I believe that our leaders of both parties have not chosen wisely or shown enough concern for our children. Repeated claims of decapitation of the human snakes that threaten us have been shown to be exaggerated or false. The only issue in this conflict of concern to our government should be the protection of our nation and the well being of the children they send to fight. I believe government has failed miserably in bothe these regards.