[Vision2020] Fedayeen use children as shield

[Bob Hoffmann]

At 06:23 PM 4/1/2003 -0800, John Harrell wrote:
>Sgt David Baird, who commands a Challenger 2 tank from C Squadron of the 
>Royal Scots Dragoon Guards battle group, said that he had witnessed at 
>least four or five children, aged between five and eight, being grabbed by 
>the scruff of the neck and held by Iraqi fighters as they crossed a road 
>in front of his tank.

I remember an anecdote told by a timid nun to my fifth-grade class.  It was 
about how a child in Vietnam would visit American soldiers every day and 
give them a bag of rock candy.  One day the boy came with a bag, as usual, 
but the bag exploded, killing himself and the soldiers.  "So whenever you 
hear that our boys were doing bad things in Vietnam, remember the dangers 
they faced."

That anecdote left an impression with me for some years.  After I had 
developed more critical thinking skills, I recalled the story and asked 
myself, "Well, what were those American soldiers doing in Vietnam?  The 
Vietnamese didn't send the boy to America with a bag of explosives, the 
soldiers had to cross the ocean to get blown up."  I pondered what it meant 
to use women and children to wage war against an occupying force.  (Iran 
used human waves of children to repulse an Iraq that was being aided by the 
U.S.)  This may speak some of the evil of the regime, but it also speaks to 
the desperation of the situation.  Women doing reconnaissance for Iraqi 
fighters?  Do they really need to be forced into that?  I'm sure many women 
on this list, whether they love or hate George Bush, would do the same (or 
openly pick up arms) if our country were invaded by a vastly superior force.

It has been stated on this list already:  This is a situation that our 
government has entered voluntarily.  If the U.S. were reacting to some 
actual military atrocity of Iraq, world opinion might swallow this bitter 
pill more easily.  With a preemptive strike, we lose the moral high ground 
with every civilian death, not as though we have any moral high ground when 
Iraqi soldiers die in this patently illegal invasion.

Bob Hoffmann
820 S. Logan St.
Moscow, ID  83843

Tel: 208 883-0642