What would it take?

[Tonchi]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

You've all seen the black and green videos of the people on the ground being taken out by helicopters. Could you make out the nationality, race or even the sex of the targets? No, they are just targets the guy on the other end of the radio says are to be eliminated. They could be waving an American flag.....no matter....targets.

Radar, according to a recent article in Vanity Fair, "To Love and Die in Iraq", that is precisely what is happening at the hands of our obedient soldiers every day. They shoot anybody or anything, having been ordered to take no chances. Even civilians under escort of other soldiers have been mowed down, further convincing the Iraqis that we are more deadly to their lives and happiness than Saddam ever was. Iraq is a perfect example of how little our troops are daring to think anymore. Even at the Abu Gharib trials they have all claimed they were "following orders", some of which were apparently from as high up as the Offal Office although there has been a concentrated effort to whitewash that.

Having been in the march on the Pentagon back in 1968, I know what it is like to have a guy no older than I aiming a combat rifle directly at my head. Being young and stupid, in pre-Kent State days, it never occured to me that he would actually shoot me. But that was because those troops were UNDER ORDERS not to shoot. Other venues made it plain that they WOULD shoot unarmed civilians with no compunctions, and I doubt they hesitated and philosophized about whether that girl watching from a distance was any physical threat. That was during Vietnam, and everything I have seen and read lately convinces me that the situation nowdays is 50 times more dangerous for anybody who is "confronting governmental authority".