Human
shields, dunces of war
For the most part, the war in Iraq is over.
We went in, toppled the regime of Saddam
Hussein, and freed the Iraqi people who
had been so long oppressed by a ruthless
dictator and his sons. In retrospect, everything
went according to plan, but when looking
back, one can see some pretty ridiculous
and dare I say inane attempts at stopping
the war.
Take, for instance, the grossly misguided
souls who ventured all the way to Iraq to
use themselves as human shields. In a March
2, 2003, article from http://www.telegraph.co.uk,
a British news Web site, the majority of
the British human shields left soon after
the war started, “deciding that their much-heralded
task was now too dangerous.” Apparently
standing in front of giant ballistic warheads
coming straight at you can be a life threatening
thing.
According to another article on the same
Web site, even the “holy pontiff” himself,
Pope John Paul II, was urged to go and serve
as a human shield. Luigi Malerba, a writer
for the Rome newspaper La Repubblica, urged
the Pope to go by saying, “That which human
shield volunteers have gone to Iraq to do,
John Paul II could do with much greater
authority.” Let’s be honest here, the Pope
can barely get around without the aid of
a wheelchair; do you really think he can
stop a war?
It is easy to see that most human shields
had good intentions yet lacked an integral
element — brains. Soon after the war started,
a news story came back to the United States
about an Olympia, Washington, native named
Rachel Corrie, who was run over by an Israeli
bulldozer about to demolish a house in the
Rafah refugee camp. Sounds tragic enough,
right? Wrong. Corrie was a member of the
International Solidarity Movement, a group
that is supported by numerous Palestinian
apologist groups and calls for, among other
things, divestiture to Israel, or the boycotting
of anything Israeli-related. Furthermore,
the building that Corrie died in front of
was not being demolished for fun by the
Israeli army; it was being demolished because
buildings in those camps are frequently
used as cover by snipers and terrorist suspects.
It is ironic how groups like the International
Solidarity Movement are supported under
the guise of promoting peace in the Middle
East when, in reality, these groups are
supported by terrorist sympathizers who
would like to end the so-called “illegal”
occupation by Israel. Such a blatant double
standard, wouldn’t you agree?
On
www.humanshields.org,
a Web site littered with massive amounts
of anti-United States propaganda, I found
an interesting statement from an individual
by the name of Christiaan Briggs. This statement
pretty much sums up the ludicrous mentality
of this movement.
“We have proven that a rag-tag bunch of
people from all walks of life can bypass
our undemocratic governments, act and affect
change. We have learnt a lot from this action
and we are in no doubt that this movement
is only just beginning. F—k you Bush. We’re
gonna monkey wrench your little party.”
What a telling statement.
Gerry Wachovsky is a business major at Cal
State Long Beach. He can be reached at senorbucho@aol.com.
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