Stop Frame

Fools abound Is it me, but do the people in this story exceptionally dim: Despite a recent "shoot-to-kill" warning from the military, anti-war protesters are planning to infiltrate the coastal property of Vandenberg Air Force Base near Santa Barbara soon. [...] "The only time a law-enforcement official should shoot is when his life is in danger," [Elden "Bud"] Boothe said. "We are in the peace movement. We are not going to endanger anyone. . . . I suppose they could shoot you, but they would be doing it illegally. But that doesn't help you if you're dead." Vandenberg security officials recently warned protesters about its policy of using "deadly force" to take out trespassers who may endanger equipment or personnel. The base, which does not have a fence around it, covers 99,000 acres along the California coast near Santa Barbara. Lt. Kelly Gabel, a spokeswoman for the base, said the deadly force policy is standard for all U.S. ...

How special! Now this is colorful: In a unique form of opposition, some protesters at the Federal Building staged a "vomit in,'' by heaving on the sidewalks and plaza areas in the back and front of the building to show that the war in Iraq made them sick, according to a spokesman. Obviously some children attempting to be creative. Fun.

"We are not dealing with peaceful men." And so it comes to this . Well really, what did you expect? Oh, you in the corner, the carping little ninnie who occasionally does an infomercial, STFU. For the rest.... Once upon a time, I was a cop. Among other things, I was a crisis (hostage) negotiator. Not that I really had to sit and perform The Real Deal, but lots of training, lots of practise, lots of scenarios. One of the training sessions was with the FBI, an agency that has learned a thing or two from failed negotiations (see Waco and/or Ruby Ridge). One of the things they learned was to resist the action imperative. That is, don't do something just because you feel that you must do something. For many, that would appear to be the case with Iraq. We don't have to do anything, the reasoning goes, so why are we? Well, the FBI was also careful to point out that sometimes matters require more than mere talk. You can't always talk that bank robber into giving up peace...

Oriana Fallaci This is great. A brief clip: [C]ontrary to the pacifists who never yell against Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden and only yell against George W. Bush and Tony Blair...I know war very well. I know what it means to live in terror, to run under air strikes and cannonades, to see people killed and houses destroyed, to starve and dream of a piece of bread, to miss even a glass of drinking water. And (which is worse) to be or to feel responsible for someone else's death. I know it because I belong to the Second World War generation and because, as a member of the Resistance, I was myself a soldier. .... As a consequence, I hate [war] as the pacifists in bad or good faith never will. I loathe it. Every book I have written overflows with that loathing, and I cannot bear the sight of guns. At the same time, however, I don't accept the principle, or should I say the slogan, that "All wars are unjust, illegitimate." The war against Hitler and Mussolini and Hiroh...