WINNING: Charlie Sheen Plays Unwitting Role in Resolving Libyan Conflict

Whether he knows it or not, actor Charlie Sheen is actually helping the United States Air Force fight the forces of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

The U.S. military has always had a unique knack for assigning code names to their historic operations.  So, it should come as no surprise that missions of Operation Odyssey Dawn should be just as unique.

But Dutch radio enthusiast "Huub" must have been somewhat amused to track U.S. military communications announcing the whereabouts of "SHEEN53," an EC-130 cargo psy-ops plane ostensibly named after actor/PR train wreck Charlie Sheen.  WINNING!

Gawker reports:

SHEEN 53 was an EC-130, a specially outfitted plane designed to broadcast psy-ops messages to the enemy. Huub caught it landing at U.S. Naval Support Activity Souda Bay in Greece, just across the Mediterranean from Libya.

Also on Huub's list of creative call signs: "CYLONs," reportedly named in honor of the television series "Battlestar Gallactica."

[Huub] also heard CYLON 41 and CYLON 36, two E8-C radar surveillance aircraft, prowling the skies over Libya. Typically, the Air Force will assign similar groups of aircraft on similar missions the same callsign, with shifting numbers, so it's likely there are other SHEENS and CYLONS out there making lethal, horrible war over Northern Africa.

Let's pray the U.S. military's SHEEN missions don't crash and burn like their real-life namesake.