4/8/2003: Protest gets painful

[Elspode]

I suppose it would be silly and racist of me to point out that, were these people staging a protest in interference with any sort of military operation in, say, Iraq, that they would probably have been beaten, shot, burned, kidnapped, raped and tortured for their punishments?

Protest is legitimate, interference with a military support operation is not. In fact, I feel that it more closely borders on treason than anything that Peter Arnett said, and I think *he's* an idiot.

Scream, yell, wave signs, perform acts of passive civil disobedience, but stay the hell out of the way of the military when it is actively operating, otherwise, expect to get your ass kicked for your trouble.

I'm not saying it is right to injure protesters, I'm saying (much as I said about the bulldozed protester in Gaza) that if you interfere with something that is not going to be interfered with, expect to get hurt.