Author: Michael Reagan
Publication: FrontPageMagazine.com
Date: March 10, 2003
The so-called human shields who
offered to make themselves targets of U.S. bombs, artillery or rifles
have been described as useful idiots - they are not - they are stupid
idiots.
And cowardly ones at that, as some
showed when they promptly scurried off after finding that good old
Mr. Misdunderstood, Saddam Hussein, meant to use them as . that's
right . human shields . to protect strategically important sites
where the bombs are sure to fall..
Realizing that this might get them
killed was enough to dim their passion to defy the U.S. by placing
their bodies between Iraqi sites and the gun sights of American soldiers
and Marines.
Besides, they discovered, much to
their surprise that a lot of Saddam's armed retainers are, like their
dictator, a bunch of thugs who pointed guns at them. They were forced
to shield strategic sites such as power plants, instead of the orphanages
and hospitals they wanted to cover with their bodies, providing of
course that no one would be targeting them.
One 22-year-old college student
from Pennsylvania complained to the Chicago Tribune about his shield
site and all those Iraqi guards with itchy trigger fingers pointing
automatic rifles at them.
"The people staying there sleep
50 yards from stacks billowing black smoke," he whined. "And it's
sinister. Twenty minders are there for eight shields."
The shields were taken to a Baghdad
hotel for a meeting and were given a choice of what they wanted to
shield: oil refineries or power plants, not hospitals and old folks'
homes.
Just how stupid these people are
was amply demonstrated by one of the organizers of the movement,
a Californian named Liev Aleo who has a website, becomethechange.com
which instructed would-be human shields on the art of being human
shields.
"We'll be everywhere," she proclaims
on her website. "The news media will, in all cases, be our biggest
protection. . . . We're talking about 5,000 people deciding whether
tens or hundreds of thousands of people will die. We can be assured
that the cameras will turn most, if not all, would-be aggressors
away from their violence."
One has a vision of United States
Marines fleeing in panic at the sight of the news media's deadly
cameras.
According to the Chicago Tribune,
in the FAQ section of her website, she denied that Bush would ignore
the intimidation of the news media cameras and heartlessly bomb the
sites being shielded.
"He won't," she insists. "The public
relations problems of such a massive attack, by the United States
government on its own citizens, are insurmountable."
Unfortunately, the 5,000 useful
idiots she expected to answer the call to martyrdom dwindled to a
few hundred, many of whom decided that cameras would not provide
sufficient shielding. So they scrambled off.
According to Nathan Chapman, one
of the shields who took off, few of his comrades seemed to understand
the gravity of what they were doing. Many seemed to view it as an
excellent adventure, rather than the ultimate sacrifice.
"OK, honestly, I was terrified the
whole time I was there. There could be civil war, getting killed,
being taken hostage by the government, being mentally destroyed,
all kinds of things," he told the Washington Times from the safety
of Amman, Jordan. "I don't think they did have that understanding."
Obviously. They couldn't. They're
stupid.
