The lovely news from Iraq, always a joy to read esp after the administration cleans it all up for us, includes the story of two women shot to death by contractor security personnel.
The driver was a 59 year old woman who failed to heed the flares and warning shots. Well, for cryin’ out loud, all the 59 year old women I know get pretty steely-eyed when someone fires off flares and shoots at them. My wife’s aunt still works despite her age; I would be very upset with her if she got confused and kept driving after she had been given clear hand signals that any Boy Scout would recognize that she should slow down, esp if flares were shot at her. At her funeral, I would give her a stern talking to.
To be fair to the contractors, I’ve always said when I criticize the police that if I had to approach a car full of guys during the wee hours of the morning, I would fire my pistol into the car first and THEN ask for ID. It’s a tough, dangerous job.
But let’s be sensible about this, the average person, hearing and seeing flares and shots, would no doubt think there was an attack going on and might actually speed TOWARD the security personnel, thinking they would be safer there. My considerable experience with people, though never in a combat situation, is that they do not think, in a moment of crisis and panic, from the other person’s point of view. We think only of our own point of view; it’s survival time.
Highly trained military and police personnel DO think from someone else’s viewpoint and that’s why cops can approach a suspicious vehicle without shooting it up first, as I would do. BUT THE CITIZENS OF IRAQ DOn’t GET THAT TRAINING – THEY”RE JUST TRYING TO GET TO THE STORE.
Maybe the U.S. is in crisis because no one seems to be able to think how they might react if an invading force shot their aunt to death. Supporting the troops apparently means condemning Iraqis who are fed up with our occupation and not stopping to think about the effects of murders, chaos, unemployment, no water, no electricity, no gas…. Pointing these things out means you don’t care about our soldiers over there, like we wouldn’t want them to have the best armor. Our president has made it very clear what he thinks about people like me. The feeling is mutual, Mr. President.
But death and the destruction of families and livelihoods are a small price to pay for being liberated from Saddam. We could probably get grant money to bring in the same people who trained the Iraqi police to train civilians in how to act when a convoy of SUVs comes roaring through at high speed, guns blazing. Come to think of it…. there are Iraqis who already know how to act: the Insurgents.