Serves them right!

[thanuk]

This is just too funny! Thanks little green footballs, you made mah day!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... shields_dc

[Kthxbye~]

this line is the best:
Some 50 other Swedish anti-war human shield activists who had traveled to Iraq began to leave on Monday, saying they had wanted to protect hospitals and schools but had been forced out to refineries, power plants and water works.

dem eye-rackies ain't stoopid!! they can drum up all SORTS of bad press against the United States and the allies if they bomb a school, they don't need human shields for that....even though, in the Gulf War, they were hiding weapons and soldier's in schools and hospitals and set up makeshift schools and hospitals in old munitions warehouses....isn't Saddam wonderful?

[rylan]

Yeah, I heard about this earlier today. Almost made me laugh out loud at work. Wish I could send them some money, but only let them use it to go back to Iraq and "defend" those strategic targets. I'm sure they can sell their bodies for a little cash to get out of the region. hahahahaha

[Corth]

"Basically, they said we are not going to feed you any longer," said John Ross, an American who has been active in radical causes since he tore up his draft card in 1964. He said that the Iraqi authorities ordered the activists to deploy at some 60 sites across the country: electricity plants, water treatment centres, communications facilities. None of the potential targets deemed worthy of protection were hospitals or schools - a decision activists said compromised their mission.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0, ... 68,00.html

I've said before that this was nothing more than subsidized tourism. In exchange for coming to iraq and giving saddam some propaganda material, they were given lucrative food vouchers and luxurious hotel accomodations. When the shields refused to actually deploy, the Iraqis stopped giving them stuff. This of course meant it was time to go home.

[moritheil]

wow.

[Gerad]

Uhm, pardon me if I am mistaken, but wouldnt those people be considered traitors? Defending the enemy during wartime? In the USA that kind of thing is a capitol offense, punishable by death... like the people who sold the newk-ul-lur bomb to russia.

Im pretty sure that at the least, its probably a policy that they are considered the enemy in a situation like that.

-gerad

[Corth]

I don't know if anyone is going to arrest them, but I don't think anyone is going to avoid bombing any buildings they have been deployed in. I would be a lot more sympathetic towards the involuntary human shields that saddam forced into military targets during the 1991 war. I wonder if these assholes that volunteered to be 'human shields' for Saddam realize that many people have had the same title forced on them in the past...

[Gurns]

Uhm, pardon me if I am mistaken, but wouldnt those people be considered traitors? Defending the enemy during wartime?

If they're not carrying weapons, they're not "defending the enemy". Even if they are carrying weapons but can prove they didn't fire them at US soldiers, they're not guilty. (Though if you can figure out how to prove that...)

Might get them on "aiding and abetting", but that would be hard to do, too. They aren't providing material aid or information. My bet would be with Corth: Ignore 'em now, ignore 'em if they're in Iraq when the bombs fall, ignore 'em afterwards. Some family member will bring a lawsuit about their deaths, which will be thrown out of court.

[kragt]

Here's some interesting reading on Iraq's use of human shields in the past.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/iraq_human_shields/index.html