Excuse me if I seem to lack compassion, but I don't feel sorry for those fools turning tail and fleeing Baghdad at all. Not one little bit. I refer to the so-called "human shields," of course. Their motives were not pure, they were the worst impulses of puffed-up ego disguised as pure motives. So they were going to protect the poor brown Iraqis with their superior white (or white-by-proxy in the case of any ethnically-enhanced members) bodies, were they? So they were going to stand in front of helpless old ladies and cute widdle kiddies and shake their fingers at the descending carpet bombs and god and all his little angels were going to come down from heaven and stop those naughty missiles in midair! Or even better, they were going to become gobbets of martyr-flesh that their admirers back home could write sobbing paeans and folk songs about. "We'll be dead but we'll be famous! Just like Kurt Cobain!"
No, I don't feel sorry for these people. I feel not one shred of pity; not one feather-light touch of regret for the lost fineness of their motives disturbs my soul. They got off with much less pain and trouble than their egotistical, self-aggrandizing, manipulative, and smug actions deserved. They are lucky -- no, more than lucky. They illustrate everything the world's less fortunate -- who do exist, though they don't deserve to be the playgrounds, punching bags, and water boys for the elitist Westerners who proffer to "care" about them -- hate about rich, coddled Americans, Canadians, and Europeans. We're like Wile E. Coyote without the charm, the Teflon people -- nothing sticks to us. Join an "antiwar, human shield" group, go to a country our leaders are about to paste, tell the people there that we are their "friends," get money from the very government that is oppressing those people, get coddled and treated like special guests, tell yourself that you are One With The Iraqis... then when it finally gets through your titanium-plated skull that you are -- Ew! Eek! -- expected to actually be a human shield, instead of a picturesque Protector of the Innocents -- and when you are revealed as a total and complete hypocrite above and beyond the call of even the most venal politician because it is obvious that you did not expect there to be all that much danger to the old folks homes and kiddy hospitals you planned to stand "bravely" in front of -- you still get to go home and not even be greeted with a shower of rotten cabbages. If there were any justice in nature an avalanche would bury the bus you were on while on the way back into Turkey and no one would find your frozen corpses until the spring thaw.
No, I don't feel sorry for the "human shields" at all.
(In response to one of Angie's posts -- the one for 8:47pm March 1st.)
Posted by Andrea Harris at March 2, 2003 01:04 AMIf they were going to go over there and be all big and bad and make a statement, they could've at least had the balls to carry through. No, not only are they self-serving egotistical weasels, they are sefl-serving egotistical, cowardly weasels. I find them utterly contemptible.
Posted by: James P at March 2, 2003 at 02:26 AMWhat becomes very clear is that they are cowards. Whether you agree with their political position or not, if they'd actually done what they said they were going to (i.e. stay until the war actually started and take their chances in the bombing) it would have been an act of bravery and principle.
But they didn't. Once it became clear that they might well actually die, they turned tail and ran. Craven, the lot of them.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 2, 2003 at 04:18 AMGuys, the best possible response to these fucktards is resounding belly laughs.
Posted by: Dean Esmay at March 2, 2003 at 04:39 AMAnd the best part: Even though they've demonstrated via their own actions that they are free to come and go, and that the Iraqis under the rule of Saddam are not, they still won't get it. They still will not understand the need to help liberate the Iraqis. They're incapable of understanding.
Posted by: Phil at March 2, 2003 at 09:55 AMAndrea, I do believe that's the first time anyone's suggested that I was too compassionate.
Posted by: Angie Schultz at March 2, 2003 at 11:28 AMi have been joining dean in resounding belly laughs since i saw the story yesterday. have you noticed the news of their departure is, shall we say, a lot less public than the news of their arrival?
these dipshits are a great example of how good intentions can sometimes be nothing more than idiot thought and, better yet, good intentions NEVER equal effective action.
i hope they all die of embarrassment
Posted by: mr. helpful at March 2, 2003 at 12:28 PMBravo Andrea!
A lot of blogs, fantastic as they are, have skirted the core racist and "Eurocentric" arrogance of those wanting to be "human shields" [so long as they were never really in danger!] It was their enlightened "WonderBread whiteness" (regardless of outside skin color and bran intake) that was going to stop the big bad Americans from killing dark-skinned Iraqi babies and grannies, despite the fact that those racist American B52s and smart bombs didn't exactly single them out for special trips to oblivion the last time the US bombed Iraq wholesale.
Hi Mr Nail, meet this Harris person: she's going to hit you square on the head. Is that ok with you? Good.
Posted by: Susanna at March 2, 2003 at 12:28 PMI thought the human shields did the best thing anyone can possibly do: Test their assumptions against reality. A trip to Baghdad gave some of them a clue.
I still believe the human shields had no idea of the danger they were in:
1. From the Iraqi government ... if that government suspected espionage, they'd be dead or in a horrible interrogation in a second.
2. From the U.S. military ... I had no doubt that if they stood in the way of the war effort, they'd be killed.
3. From the Iraqi people ... in the event of a U.S. victory and the fall of the Iraqi government, I could see the Iraqi people turning on those war tourists and attacking/lynching them for defending Saddam Hussein's government. The U.S. military probably would have to intervene to save them.
Posted by: IB Bill at March 2, 2003 at 01:14 PMthese dipshits are a great example of how good intentions can sometimes be nothing more than idiot thought and, better yet, good intentions NEVER equal effective action.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Posted by: James P at March 2, 2003 at 01:37 PMHmmmm, now this is annoying: I can't get the music of Sir Robin's minstrels from Monty Pyton and the Holy Grail out of my head, but I can't remember most of the lyrics, either. All that comes to mind is:
"...brave, brave Sir Robin bravely ran away / When danger reared its ugly head / He bravely turned his tail and fled..."
Posted by: David Jaroslav at March 2, 2003 at 02:37 PMWar is not a children's game. Persons who misuse their protected status to aid a combatant are war criminals. These people are much worse that mere idiots. They are plotting to use our humanity and regard for the law of war as a weapon against us. Legally they do not have the same rights to be spared from unnecessary, disproportionate destruction that would inhere in innocent Iraqi civilians. They are unlawful combatants whose presence on the battlefield is of no moment and who, if they survive, may be tried and shot.
Posted by: Lou Gots at March 2, 2003 at 02:46 PMLou,
Military firing squads have traditionally been for crimes where the convicted still retain some semblance of honor (or when nothing else was feasible). It's the noose for these schmucks, or at least it should be.
Posted by: David Jaroslav at March 2, 2003 at 11:03 PM