IMHO going to a countrie that your home countrie is at war with and trying to save the assets of the enemy country is treason. Civil Disobedience AFAK doesnt involve going into the combat zone to protect the enemy. Sit ins , protests and boy cotts are the tools of civil disobedience, not geting in the way of real combat. If you dont like your governments politics , write your congressmen or the white house. As soon as you leave the countrie to protect another countrie you are a fucking traitor. You have turned your back on your homeland and in the case of the VAC’s you have taken the law into your own hands. If Iraq is so great then let them rot there.
I think that the term non-combatant is probably a little too narrow. If you consider that there are many ways to fight for a cause (i.e. combatant), surely that should encompass non physical and non violent means.
As such, the human shields, knowingly and voluntarily going into harms way, would be combatants in their own cause which happens to be contrary, though not diametrically so, to the West’s cause. So I wouldn’t see them as non combatants, but combatants in their own right, and as such, a valid military target.
As Royal Nonesuch has said, these people will be camped out at hospitals and schools, sites we are unlikely to be interested in targeting.
There have also been comments about lending aid and support, treason and citizenship revocation. I agree with nogginhead. This seems to be a ridiculous. I don’t know how the American system works, but wouldn’t these people’s actions be protected under the Constitution or something? Freedom of expression? Because in the end, by sitting in a hospital, they won’t be hindering the west’s cause at all.
Today’s wars are not only fought out of necessity (moral, political or otherwise), but also because of perceived public opinion. If this war is to succeed politically was well as militarily, with world wide public opinion against it, it will have to be as clean a war as possible, with little to no (yes, I know it won’t happen) collateral damage. Voluntary or not.
We have a satirical newspaper here in Australia called The Chaser (better than The Onion – sorry brief moment of national pride and advertising) which made a joke about the Predator being jointly funded by Lockheed Martin (or someone) and CNN, so that we would all get our vision of the war in time for the evening news. Not far from the truth these days.
I’m sorry you’re taking the Gore loss, so seriously, but saying such nasty things will not change the facts. 
Some time ago, this was on the news. These people rode in double-decker buses across Europe and half the Middle East to get there. When they left they said they wanted to protect innocent civilians. However, they then stated that they were going to position themselves around bomb targets. I couldn’t decide:
[ul][li]did they misspeak?[/li][li]did they think civilians would be the bomb targets?[/li][li]were they recognizing the fact that Saddam would place civilians around targets?[/li][li]did they really just plan to sit at the bar in Hotel Baghdad?[/li][li]Wow, how about that wild idea that they are really spies. “Yeah, those are Joe’s guts, we hit the right target for sure.”[/li][/ul]
Ditto; BRAVO;** “Amen”**
[ul]
[sup]The rest of her post was equally on target. However, I still don’t agree with replacing cow’s milk.[/sup][/ul]
The “rendering him aid and comfort” part is key. To me, there is something inherently wrong with traveling to a nation we are at war with while American soldiers are risking their lives, representing yourself as an American, and saying “hey, I think what we are doing is wrong and I support your”.
I think it depends on what they do. And how they comport themselves.
If they are planning on sitting on hospitals and such, I think they’re in for a shock when the bombs fail to be targeted there. Oddly enough, the US forces are not planning on bombing hospitals, orphanages and the like.
However, if they are squatting on a SAM site, or a munitions storage bunker, then I hope they are wearing nice reflective clothing for the guiding laser to reflect off of.
If they are squatting on legitimate targets, then they are committing treason by aiding an enemy force. Period. The reason they are doing it is immaterial.
Regardless, this effort is about as stupid as the “get 10,000 signatures on this UN petition” I’ve been deleting out of my mail box of late.
Voluntary ‘human sheilds’ are enemy combatants, and are the enemies ‘unorginized militia’ and can be delt with by killing them. These people will die as traitors to the US. These people’s families should not receive any insurance, SS or pention payments.
Involuntary is another matter, This is best left in a case by case basis. But if killing them is needed the blood is on the enemy’s hands, not ours.
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However, if they are squatting on a SAM site, or a munitions storage bunker, then I hope they are wearing nice reflective clothing for the guiding laser to reflect off of.
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They’d better be sitting on one holy hell of an ECM suite, because many missles are GPS-guided these days.
Also, what happens when they choose to camp out at a hospital under which Saddam has stashed weapons?
I suppose you never heard of the expression ‘the pen is mighter then the sword’? I basically means (and extended to modern day) that having the press report what these people are doing is more harmful to our cause then if they were to carry AK-47’s.
If Saddam is stashing weapons and such at hospitals, we are in for a long war that is going to paint us as the badguy, no matter what.
Despite the fact that, IIR, doing that sort of thing is against the Geneva Convention.
I think it’s moot point. We do not target any non-combatant. But we don’t alter our battle plans or change our opinion about what military targets are important because of them either.
In short, we pretend they are not there. If they are killed or injured, chalk it up to ‘war is hell’.
I don’t think there should be war, I do not support the cause of war, but I think december was right when he labeled these people boobs.
No, this won’t do. If the definition of “combatant” is doing something which is “harmful to our cause” then the journalists who report what the human shields are doing (or indeed who report any of the unpleasant consequences of conflict) are also “combatants” and can be shot.
Combatants actually have to engage in combat. You may be very angry at what they are doing, but calling them “combatants” is about as correct as calling a policital protester who uses Gandhi-like techniques of passive resistance a “terrorist”.
They are not going to protect military targets, they are going to protect civilian areas only. The US was pretty damn sloppy and cavalier last time about collateral damage. We missed more tagets than we hit and we didn’t really give a shit about killing innocent people. The government did a good job of controlling the news and keeping the pictures as antiseptic and uninformative as possible. (how many time did we have to look at that stupid demo video of the missile being guided into a house?)
They’re mostly European, so how are they “traitors” to the US? They are clearly not “combatants.” What a load of shit.
I believe that it is immoral and illegal for the US to invade Iraq in the first place. It is just and it is righteous for these people to block, thwart and impede our military as much as possible. It’s ridiculous to say that they are “endangering” US troops, but even if that were the case, I say it’s better for a thousand American soldiers to die than one Iraqi child.
Originaly by: Diogenes the Cynic
I hate to break it to you , but U.S. warplanes are some of the most accurate weapons on the planet. When I was in the Navy , our squadron would go to Nevada every year to compete in a training excercise where pilots droped bombs into pickle barrels. I have seen the trophys that get handed out for getting the most bombs in a barrel. Chances are if they can drop a bomb into a barrel, they can hit a factory,a car, or even a certain person. So called “collateral damage” is usualy caused by poor target intelegence, i.e. telling them to drop bombs on the wrong thing, or the malfunction of the guidance system on the bomb itself. AFAIK there was no sloppyness from the pilots I worked for. They did what they had to , to the best of their ability.
As for the government contoling the news, well it isnt such a bad idea. War is war. There are going to be dead bodies,broken buildings,burning cars and general carnage and destruction. That is the nature of it. I dont need some asshole like Geraldo pointing out every single detail of it to me. If you show people visions of death often enough they stop useing their heads and start useing their emotions to make decisions. What good is it to go to war , only to be demonized by the media for doing your job. War isnt nice or polite. Unfortunately most Americans think you can fight a war without killing anyone and without any losses. They are all ready to give up at the first sighn fo trouble. These VAC’s have good intentions, but are misguided. If you want to help , jin the red cross, dont become a martyr because all you are doing is throwing your life away.
These people should be given the exact same consideration as Iraqi civilians, no more and no less. That is, assuming they are not shielding SAM sites or Anthrax labs. If they are camping out at an anthrax lab in the hopes of preventing the US from bombing, they should be given the same consideration as Iraqi military personel.
I believe that US military rules of engagement are more than sufficient to handle these boobs. We don’t even intentionally massacre Iraqi soldiers if we don’t have to, look at all the soldiers who were allowed to surrender during Gulf War I.
This is a very interesting line of argument. Are there constitutional lawyers out there who can comment on how ‘aid and comfort’ are usually defined?
I would think that the Red Cross is providing more actual aid and comfort, in that they could conceivably be healing opposition soliders so that they can fight again. The VHS are helping in a political sense only-- I think a pretty pusuasive argument could be made that their being there is simply an expression of free speech. Though as has been noted, they’re mostly Europeans.
So, what kinds of anti-war activities could NOT be construed as ‘trying to save the assets of the enemy’? If I organize a sit-in in front of the war room that causes a 5 minute delay in making a crucial decision, it could actually cost the lives of US soliders. If I sit on a target in the hopes that it make have some political effect, it has no actual effect, except politically. You would seem to think the latter is a treasonous act, while I assume you would defend my right to civil disobedience.
There’s big, big difference between holding a weapon against your own nation’s troops and standing there waiting to be shot.
Once again, this is an anti-democratic, anti-free speech position. What would protect me from being declared a combatant from my living room if I tell people I disapprove of bombing Baghdad?
There is definitely a definition of combatant in international law. I doubt it includes those who merely stand somewhere waiting to be killed.
The political success of a war is irrelevant. IMO a nation should only go to war when its security is threatened (or to prevent genocide). The success of the war is judged by whether security is achieved. This is why the presence or absence of HS is irrelevant. They do not increase the threat to a nation, even though they may affect the political perception of the war.
I agree with your analysis that the HS may decrease the chance of a politically successful war. I belive that is also why the VHS are there. Unless one wants more wars to be fought for political reasons (like, say, distracting voters from your poor management of fiscal policy, your inability to successfully capture threatening enemies, etc.) then one ought to respect those who are fighting against poltical wars.
Agreed! We have to wage war as effectively s possible, and if they make it easier, I’m all for whatever it is.
How does it aid the enemy to be sitting on the target, unless you assume your planners are stupidenough to care more about them than about someone else?
[Fixed quote tags. – MEB]
I suppose you’ve never heard of ‘freedom of speech’? It used to be so popular. It basically means that I can say whatever the hell I want and not get thrown in jail for it. Much less killed. Harming our cause is a legitimate politcal end of anyone who opposes the war. If they do it by making political statements, such as, say, burning the flag, saying the president is wrong, or that they’d rather die than let the president rely on the fact that it’s only Iraqis being killed to lessen public diapproval of the war, then they have a consitutional right to do so.
Agreed.
This seems inconsistent to me. If you do not support the war, why would someone who agrees with you, and is willing to put their mony where their mouth is, be a boob? I would think you ough to have a lot of respect for them. Especially when they wind up dead.