What Is There To Not Understand?

Imagine this situation with me. You’re driving through suburban Atlanta, Georgia at night. You are in the Stewart Avenue (now called Metropolitan Blvd.) area of south Atlanta near the airport that is known as a high crime district. Prostitution, drugs, petty crime, a shooting almost every day—you get the picture?

As you cruise along at about 45 MPH with your windows rolled up and your doors locked, you see a police roadblock up ahead.

What do you do?

Do you a) maintain your speed because of the bad neighborhood and attempt to blow though the roadblock, or do you b) slow down and obey the commands of the officers?

If you chose option a, wouldn’t you expect the police to react rather adversely to your behavior? If you actually drove your car too close to an officer, might you not expect the police to use deadly force in response to your threat? As a minimum you could expect an ensuing police chase and the opportunity to spend a free night with crappy accommodations courtesy of Clayton County Georgia.

Now move this situation to Iraq, a country that has been under the rule of a dictator for 30 plus years and been under military rule of coalition forces for going on three years. You watch CNN and Fox news and work for your government’s security agency.

HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE THAT YOU SOMEHOW THOUGHT THAT YOU COULD BLOW THROUGH A MILITARY ROADBLOCK IN A COUNTRY FULL OF SUICIDE CAR BOMBERS AND NOT GET YOUR BUTT SHOT OFF?

Yet after two plus years of coalition operations, someone actually is trying to say that people are still confused about what to do at roadside military checkpoints.

“The deadly shooting of an Italian intelligence officer by U.S. troops at a checkpoint near Baghdad on Friday was one of many incidents in which civilians have been killed by mistake at checkpoints in Iraq, including local police officers, women and children, according to military records, U.S. officials and human rights groups.

U.S. soldiers have fired on the occupants of many cars approaching their positions over the past year and a half, only to discover that the people they killed were not suicide bombers or attackers but Iraqi civilians. They did so while operating under rules of engagement that the military has classified and under a legal doctrine that grants U.S. troops immunity from civil liability for misjudgment.”

SO WHAT’S NOT TO UNDERSTAND?

JUST LIKE HERE IN THE UNITED STATES, YOU SEE A ROADBLOCK—YOU SLOW DOWN AND STOP.

Got It Now?????