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Common Nightmares

I just found me my own well of Idiotarian Fisking that no one, inexplicably, have yet claimed for themselves.

Of course, it's equally inexplicable why I haven't yet pounded my claim into the ground there, considering that I've known about the site's existence for quite some time...

Anyhoo, let's get down to business, shall we? The site, of course, is the dungheap of Idiotarianism known as Common Dreams, a sewer so chock-full of Unabashed Idiocy™ that it'd take an army of Anti-Idiotarians to just browse through the emissions that issue forth from there.

The article in question is about an issue near and dear to my heart: The drive to let Idiotarians go waste their useless lives protecting one of the most notorious mass murderers of our times, Saddam Hussein.

American Pacifists Descend on Baghdad

They Hope Presence Will Forestall War
by Greg Barrett

WASHINGTON -- For $2,000, you can risk your life in Baghdad.

Of course, if you sign up for Dr. Weevil's drive to pour Clorox™ into the gene pool, you can do it for free.

If you want additional perks, and if you want to be on the winning side and not end up as putrid remains on tank treads, you can go here instead. Not only will you gain the admiration and the gratitude of all Americans with more than two synapses to fire, you'll also be (Wait! There's MORE!) the last word on whether or not to use military force, at least according to Philip Snotshire and his al-Aqsa "Kick Us" Brigades, seeing as you're no longer a "chickenhawk".

Included in that price: round-trip airfare from the United States, ground transportation from Jordan to Iraq, and lodging in a $10-a-night hotel where rats gnaw on the floorboards and a cluttered basement doubles as a bomb shelter.

Not only that, you'll also be granted the right to be interred in a far off and forgotten piece of Iraq!

While the Middle East braces for war, about three dozen self-described peaceniks will rotate into Iraq on renewable 10-day visas for as long as a threat exists.

Three dozen??? That's the number of peaceniks actually willing to put their mouths where their welfare checks are?

The pacifists range in age from 25 to 77 and will put themselves in harm's way if the United States attacks Iraq.

"It is important for people serious about peace to take it as seriously as the people who engage in warfare," said Claire Evans, a delegation coordinator for Christian Peacemaker Teams, one of at least two peace groups sending volunteers to Baghdad. "We should be as willing as the soldiers to risk our lives."

I hate to say this but, misguided as they are, every one of these folks have more guts than the entire Peacenik Crowd at, say, WBW, put together.

The pacifists hope their presence in Iraq as international witnesses to record the damage -- and possibly be counted among the injured -- will persuade military planners not to bomb civilian infrastructure, a target in the rush to disable Iraq's military during the Persian Gulf War.

Of course, this is assuming that one of the foremost goals of the US Army is to pound innocent civilians into dust, which is blatantly absurd. If it was true, the entire Middle East would be radioactive glass by now. Another flawed assumption is that Saddam will use these useful idiots to protect civilian targets only, whereas we all know that he'll be placing them outside "baby milk factories" devoted to the production of Ebola or worse.

Retirees have been particularly recruited and about a dozen have agreed to go.

"It has some moral weight to have a group of people there like grandmothers and grandfathers," Evans said.

It does? I suppose it's less money we need to worry about vis-a-vis the "Social Security Lock Box".

The volunteers will work in Iraq with humanitarian agencies such as UNICEF and the Red Crescent Society. In the event of a U.S. bombing, they will try to be near likely targets such as electric plants, roads and bridges, said Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, a nonprofit organization sending three peacekeeping groups to Baghdad.

Kelly, who has made 16 trips to Iraq, sounds unflinching. She is driven by the tremendous collateral damage inflicted by today's weapons.

...collateral damage at a minimal level. Indeed at a level that was unheard of a mere 10 years ago. I suppose she'd much prefer if we'd go back to fire bombing.

"You can't be a vegetarian only between meals," said Kelly, 49. "And you can't be a pacifist only between wars."

She has been blunt when recruiting volunteers for this trip: "We are asking people to be able to say they have had a good life and this could be their last year."

More likely: It will be.

Retired U.S. Air Force Col. John A. Warden III, architect of the Desert Storm air campaign in 1991, calls the peace effort noble but extraordinarily naive.

"It represents a gross misunderstanding of modern war," he said.

Of course, he's a "chickenhawk"... Wait, no he's not... Erm... Wait a minnit, what's the peacenik comeback to this one?

If U.S. military officials decide that demolishing Iraqi transportation, electricity and communication is the best way to limit combat casualties, pacifists are not likely to thwart that strategy.

Which, surprise surprise, is one of the cornerstones in any strategy designed with actually winning in mind.

Still, Warden sounded awed by their effort. The closet thing to it he could recall was actress and activist Jane Fonda visiting prisoner-of-war camps in Hanoi during the Vietnam War and "making common cause with North Vietnamese communists."

This is ArmySpeak for "they're bitches that we'll give not one tiny little shit about wiping off of the face of the planet", in case you're in doubts.

But like Fonda, Warden said, Kelly and her entourages are "intruding in something they don't understand."

"It strikes me as pretty bizarre," Warden said, "that you would have Americans going to protect one of the evilest guys in the world from getting his just desserts."

...and it strikes me as pretty appropriate that we get those morons weeded out of the gene pool, even though it seems that the Saddam-felching peaceniks are doing their damndest to ensure that only non-fertile individuals are recruited.

Pacifist Tom Nagy, a professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., does not doubt Saddam's menace. He is not choosing sides. He only wants to stanch the suffering of innocent Iraqis who were caught in Desert Storm's crossfire, he said.

Nagy, 58, a Quaker-turned-Buddhist and father of one, leaves for Baghdad on Friday. His usual lighthearted manner is brooding today, and he admits he is afraid. He is preparing his will and has bought emergency medical evacuation insurance that could help expedite his rescue from Iraq.

Hey! I thought you were prepared to die for The Cause™? And I hate to be the one to piss on your parade, moron, but I somehow doubt it that your insurance company is going to parachute in a bunch of paramedics to rescue you from the glowing ruins of Baghdad.

After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Americans and other foreigners in Iraq and Kuwait were held hostage by Saddam and used as shields against an attack threatened by U.S.-led allied forces.

Nowadays, they sign up themselves. Another proof that Homo Sapiens is devolving.

Under international pressure, Saddam freed the civilians one month before the gulf war.

This time, the human shields are volunteers who know the dangers that lie ahead.

"The only thing that stands in the way of evil prevailing are good-hearted people that refuse to remain quiet and indifferent," said Bill Rose, 69, a retired postal worker from Tampa, Fla., and a father of two.

He leaves for Baghdad on Oct. 23.

"I am a Christian," he said. "I am a Quaker. I have had a good life."

And you're gonna end it a traitor to your people, your children and your grandchildren.

Bravo, Fuckwit.

UPDATE: Reader Michael Burris suggests, in the comments, that I lay off the poor Quakers, because "As you said, each one has more guts than the entire WBW peacenik crowd."

Well, Michael. I agree and I don't. I most certainly agree that the people in question has the courage of their opinions and you won't ever find me accusing them of cowardice.

That being said, I also have to say that having the courage of your opinions is not a "get out of jail free"-card, especially not when dealing with traitors. And there's no way that anybody can argue that they're not wilfully aiding and abetting an enemy of the United States by their actions, no matter how ineffective and deluded these actions may be. And that used to be called "treason" in this country and is something that I have no intentions of letting go unnoticed, even though it seems that everybody in the Administration couldn't care less about it (see the John Walker Lindh case for an example of the limp-wristed handling of bona fide traitors by our current Admin.)
posted by Misha at 9/26/2002 09:22:00 PM