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"Human shields" worst idea yet
 Joe Palmersheim -- Staff Column
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According to the news, the war on terrorism is the worst thing in the world. Protests are flaring everywhere, opinion polls show that no one wants a war and now, best of all, a group has gone to Iraq.
This group calls themselves the human shields, and their function in this war is to stand in front of key Iraqi facilities in the vain hopes that their idealism will somehow prevent a smart bomb from destroying the building.
This is the stupidest thing that I have ever heard.
And it seems that everyone is getting into the act, from Susan Sarandon, to Martin Sheen and even cute little Janeane Garafalo. They seem to think that because they are celebrities, they can tell the rest of us how they feel, and in the same process get some nice free publicity for themselves.
I came to this conclusion over a few beers with some friends on an idle Saturday evening. CNN was on at the bar, and the bit about the human shields came on. Some representative was on, blathering about how this group was 'deploying' another group to Iraq, where, in between not showering and listening to the Grateful Dead, they can stop a war. Maybe in the process, they can introduce granola to a grateful starving Iraqi population.
What I feel is that people have the right to an opinion, as long as it doesn't interfere with others. But when people feel pretentious enough to put themselves in harm's way and then cry when things don't go their way is just stupid. These human shields are more likely than not going to come home in boxes. They will be martyrs, but only to their own stupidity.
I'm against the war, or the idea of it anyway. I think we are fighting not for the Iraqi people, but merely for oil and the excuse to keep ourselves muddled in the affairs of the Middle East. I don't agree with this, but you don't see me standing in the way of a bomb to prove my point. Do these people have nothing else to live for? Are they that convinced of their ideals that they really believe that nothing will happen to them? Let's face it, these people won't be stopping anything; they will merely be collateral damage that piles along the roadside in the process.
I've heard people talking about running to Canada, because they think the draft is starting again. It's the late 1960s all over again, only instead of hippies taking the streets, we have Joe and Jane Abercrombie, all-American Consumers, wringing their hands over things they can't control or change. It seems that the war hasn't even started yet, and we're already spitting on our soldiers.
Joe Palmersheim can be reached at [email protected]
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