Human Shields-profiles in stupidity.

Profiles in Stupidity
By Michael Reagan
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 10, 2003


The so-called human shields who offered to make themselves targets of U.S. bombs, artillery or rifles have been described as useful idiots – they are not – they are stupid idiots.

And cowardly ones at that, as some showed when they promptly scurried off after finding that good old Mr. Misdunderstood, Saddam Hussein, meant to use them as … that’s right … human shields … to protect strategically important sites where the bombs are sure to fall..

Realizing that this might get them killed was enough to dim their passion to defy the U.S. by placing their bodies between Iraqi sites and the gun sights of American soldiers and Marines.

Besides, they discovered, much to their surprise that a lot of Saddam’s armed retainers are, like their dictator, a bunch of thugs who pointed guns at them. They were forced to shield strategic sites such as power plants, instead of the orphanages and hospitals they wanted to cover with their bodies, providing of course that no one would be targeting them.

One 22-year-old college student from Pennsylvania complained to the Chicago Tribune about his shield site and all those Iraqi guards with itchy trigger fingers pointing automatic rifles at them.

"The people staying there sleep 50 yards from stacks billowing black smoke," he whined. "And it's sinister. Twenty minders are there for eight shields."

The shields were taken to a Baghdad hotel for a meeting and were given a choice of what they wanted to shield: oil refineries or power plants, not hospitals and old folks’ homes.

Just how stupid these people are was amply demonstrated by one of the organizers of the movement, a Californian named Liev Aleo who has a website, becomethechange.com which instructed would-be human shields on the art of being human shields.

"We'll be everywhere," she proclaims on her website. "The news media will, in all cases, be our biggest protection. . . . We're talking about 5,000 people deciding whether tens or hundreds of thousands of people will die. We can be assured that the cameras will turn most, if not all, would-be aggressors away from their violence."

One has a vision of United States Marines fleeing in panic at the sight of the news media’s deadly cameras.

According to the Chicago Tribune, in the FAQ section of her website, she denied that Bush would ignore the intimidation of the news media cameras and heartlessly bomb the sites being shielded.

"He won't," she insists. "The public relations problems of such a massive attack, by the United States government on its own citizens, are insurmountable."

Unfortunately, the 5,000 useful idiots she expected to answer the call to martyrdom dwindled to a few hundred, many of whom decided that cameras would not provide sufficient shielding. So they scrambled off.

According to Nathan Chapman, one of the shields who took off, few of his comrades seemed to understand the gravity of what they were doing. Many seemed to view it as an excellent adventure, rather than the ultimate sacrifice.

"OK, honestly, I was terrified the whole time I was there. There could be civil war, getting killed, being taken hostage by the government, being mentally destroyed, all kinds of things," he told the Washington Times from the safety of Amman, Jordan. "I don't think they did have that understanding."

Obviously. They couldn’t. They’re stupid.
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Mike Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Premiere Radio Network.