Human Shields - So this
Human Shields - So this Canadian news story starts with this lede:
Opposition to a war on Iraq has a long way to go before it rivals the draft-card burnings and demonstrations against the war in Vietnam in the 1960s, but a new anti-war movement is growing muscle. Some Canadians already have left for Iraq to serve as human shields against bomb attacks on Baghdad. More will follow before Christmas.
Wow. The anti-war movement is growing!
By how much?
You have to look down to the middle of the story to note that:
Irene Vandas and Jennifer Ziemann of Vancouver are heading to Iraq on Friday. Vandas, a 32-year-old registered nurse, and Ziemann, a 30-year-old home-care worker, will fly to Amsterdam, board a plane to Amman, Jordan, then drive into Iraq all the way to Baghdad where they will live with Iraqi civilians. There, they will join friends Linda Morgan and Irene MacInnes, two Canadians who travelled to Iraq in mid-November.
The four Canadians,
Whoah! Four people!
Yes, I guess you could say they have a way to go before it's on par with the anti-Vietnam movement!
One of the Canadians said:
“I’m not too scared,” Vandas told CBC News Online the day before she left. “I think it will be a powerful experience.”
Four people! Or, given current exchange rates, 2.5 people...
Worse, the CBS injects what is either moral incompetence or bias into the discussion with this bit here:
The last time human shields were in the news was during the 1999 war in Kosovo, when NATO accused Yugoslavia President President Slobodan Milosevic of using civilians as human shields at strategic targets, such as bridges and power plants.
Did you catch that? The CBC is drawing a parallel between hostages, people herded at gunpoint to the neighborhood of important targets, and a bunch (four!) dottsy Canadians who, blinded by moral equivalence, are putting
themselves in some semblance of harm's way.
The article goes on to make some other breathtakingly editorial comments. Check it out.
Posted by Mitch at
December 7, 2002 05:56 PM
