March 4, 2005, Taking the Hostage Out of the Equation
It would appear that American forces manning a checkpoint near Baghdad had seen Speed too many times, as they adopted the strategy espoused by Keanu Reeves' character of what to do in a hostage situation (i.e., "shoot the hostage, and take them out of the equation") by doing precisely that, resulting in the death of an Italian intelligence agent and the wounding of a recently freed Italian hostage, Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist kidnapped in Iraq.
It would appear that the American troops in that area are sufficiently wary of just about everything, that a car speeding at them and not slowing down was, according to standard operating procedure, to be shot at.
The death of the Italian agent, coming along with the 1,500th American military death during the current Iraq adventure, and along with allegations of abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan by the CIA, I think it's safe to say that we here stateside are darned sick and tired of hearing about the unfortunate things happening in our wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Hence, it's time we started gearing up for our new war: the one against those irritating Syrians. You see, while Syria is not exactly up to a full-fledged "Axis of Evil TM" member, like Iraq, it is a largely secular Baathist style regime, and hence, offends Saudi Arabia, and hence, is ripe for regime change.
Obviously, naysayers (such as m'self) might question just why we might start our war cycle (which begins with bellicose rhetoric, and then right around a mid-term election, becomes an all-out shootin' war-- yes, it'll be a while before we get round to that war... but stick around) with Syria. Sure, Syria is an irritant to Israel, sponsoring various terror groups and all, but then, Israel kind of irritates Syria back, what by occupying the Golan Heights and all... Oh yes: if we attack Syria, Syria just might try to garner sympathy in the Arab world by attacking Israel, ostensibly making the operation an American/Israeli war of aggression (that's how it will be played, anyway) and we might just get World War III out of this yet.
Won't that be glorious? We'll show those octogenarian assholes who think they're the greatest generation that we could kick their asses, by kicking the asses of some swarthy Middle Easterners. Yee ha! Let's put on our shit-kickers, pop open a cold one, and hit our keyboards and remotes while some dufus reservists go do the dirty work... this will be so cool... we are sooooo kick-ass!
Comments
War is Hell. WWII troops made mistakes and so lets not stop Hitler. This is call "casualties of war". Be a man and deal with it.
Posted by sean archer at March 4, 2005 9:17 PM
Oooooh, so manly. I guess "dealing with it" is now synonymous with ignoring any and all human suffering.*
*except that of having your views inconvenienced.
Posted by Social Scientist at March 5, 2005 12:07 AM
I am soooo tired of the comparison of a war among empires, WW2, with an invasion of a lower level second tier country of 27 million people. The accusation that the pro-war folks do not know history obviously is true.
Posted by union at March 5, 2005 2:53 AM
American troops shot at a journalist? I find that hard to believe! Why do you hate freedom, Talking Dog?
Posted by zencomix at March 5, 2005 2:03 PM
Sean, ol' bean, it wasn't the West that stopped the little house painter. It was millions and millions and millions of Russians, very large numbers of whom died in the process.
Be that as it may, there can be no comparison between WWII and Iraq 2003. To attempt to make the comparison marks you as naive. At best.
Posted by Dean at March 7, 2005 3:36 PM
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