February 23, 2003

Don't Worry, said the Iraqi

Don't Worry, said the Iraqi official

Fifteen volunteers from the first 200 shields are moving into a bunker at the South Baghdad Electricity Plant in an effort to deter attack by America and its allies. However some of the shields yesterday questioned Iraq's selection of the power plant, after discovering that it is situated next to an army base.

Since the shields' first visit to examine their new quarters, sandbags and unmanned check points had been erected around the plant. Asked about the neighbouring Rasheed military base, an Iraqi official said: "Don't worry, it is a small army camp."


Many of the "disgruntled volunteers" had been hoping for deployment at preferred sites like hospitals, schools, old folks' homes, etc. Their Iraqi commanders, of course, are more interested in placing them at strategic sites like power plants, army bases, and "communications centers." No prizes for guessing who will win that argument.

The sad thing is that, as it appears, a steady diet of Chomsky-ite "alternative history" really has conditioned these people to believe it's plausible that the invasion plan should call for the deliberate destruction of as many schools and hospitals as possible. There's no other way to make sense of their attitude: there's no "deterring" accidents. The sad thing... one of many sad things.

One of the "shields" who has been charged with defending the power plant cum army base (which had been bombed extensively in the first Gulf War) is one Godfrey Meynell, a 68-year-old "former high sheriff of Derbyshire and a veteran of the Colonial Office in Aden, south Yemen."

He has appealed to the RAF not to kill him. "I am an old man and they know I am here," he said. "If they bomb this site, they will be deliberately targeting me too."

...

Yesterday, the volunteers who will move into the plant - who include Algerians, South Africans, Finns, Turks and two Russians from Siberia - painted a large sign bearing the human shield emblem on its roof, to alert fighter pilots to their presence.


Sad.

(via LGF.)

Posted by Dr. Frank at February 23, 2003 01:22 PM | TrackBack