On the one hand, the response some people have made to military and administrative complaints about Iraqis opening fire after trying to surrender, importing weapons, etc., is, "Well, god forbid they try to defend themselves!" And I dunno--I can kind of see the army's point of view on this, i.e. we'd really prefer to have as few of our people dying as possible, especially when we're going into some of these situations trying to kill as few of those other people as possible (at least in the suicide bomber / prisoners opening fire situations). On the other hand, perhaps people would respect that more if the response was to work to cut off imports and take further precautions in dangerous situations rather than have Rumsfeld get up and yell at Syria or the Iraqi soldiers or whatever. (Side note, though: scary as I do find the thought of us rolling on into Syria and Iran, I kind of want to slap Syria. Dude! What the fuck are you doing! It's like you're going up to the mean drunk in the bar who's already fucked up your friend and poked him with a stick!)

On the bright side, Blair has written an article for "the Arab press" admitting that we might kill a few of you guys there, sorry. In fairness, it is fairly well-written and certainly a better piece of diplomacy than Bush has attempted thus far.
posted by Mike B. at 5:14 PM 0 comments