The war grinds through its final stages and as it goes along into the post phase many of those who were looking forward to it all going to hell have had to turn to other things to complain about. This time it’s pottery.

Now, I’m bummed about the potential loss of history too…but I don’t think it makes us bad guys that a consequence of getting rid of a murdering [[wp:Saddam|thug]] might be some looting.

posted by soulhuntre at 2:48 AM PST on April 13

You can’t please everyone – and this is a good example of it.

Troops make very bad policemen. Let’s just pretend that we decided to stop the looting… and some starving Iraqi rushes the door too the museum to steal a vase. What exactly shall you have us do?

Scenario 1: The soldier ignores him – gets bad press from the left for being lazy or stupid

Scenario 2: The soldier goes to physically restrain him, the guy has a suicide vest on and kills a few marines and damages the museum. The left gets all bitched that the marines were there – obviously making the museum a target.

Scenario 3: The soldier physically restrains the man – and there is a billion images on posters at anti war rallies of a Marine “thug” beating up some poor starving Iraqi who only wanted to sell something to get food.

Scenario 4: The marine tries to restrain the man, but the man brings friends… the Marine is left powerless because he cannot physically stop them, and the left gets a field day about how ineffective the marines are.

Scenario 5: The marine tries to restraint he man, but the man brings friends… the marine has no option but to shoot the rushing crowd of looters. The left has some serious field day good times with the cries of “Murder!” and “War Crime!”

It’s a serious no win… the only thing you can assure yourself of is that a lot of people will go way out of their way to blame the US for anything bad and yearn wistfully for the good old days of Saddam when the girls got raped but the f*&#ing pottery was safe.