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Dissonant branding strategies? Americans unhappy with British product positioning.

NASHVILLE, May 3, 2002. A Brit may have penned The Hunting of the Snark, but the British are apparently unaware of the fine tradition in the American South of snipe hunting, the equivalent of a wild goose chase; either that, or they're just being cheeky in naming their latest sweep through the mountains of eastern Afghanistan for al Qaeda forces Operation Snipe:

"It's a game bird, a bit like pheasant," said Lt. Col. Neil Peckham of Wiltshire, England. "It would be a bird that is hunted as part of an organized shoot."

And in the United States? Capt. Bill Peoples of the U.S. Army, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, stood silent for a few moments, then exploded.

"You have got to be kidding!" he bellowed, angrily waving his arm. "I'm not going to answer that question."

He said a few other things, too -- less polite things -- but asked that they not be published....

Britain, Peoples said once he calmed down, "is a coalition partner of ours, and I don't think it's right for us to make fun of what they name their operations."

You're darn tootin', soldier. And actually, it's an absolutely perfect name for the military task at hand, even if it did come about as a Freudian slip.