[Happy2BMe]

"Perhaps we should look at these troops less as enemy warriors and more as hostages awaiting rescue."

You may be more accurate than you are aware of.

During Desert Storm, our B52 bombers pounded Iraqi positions with brutal devastation prior to our land forces cleaning house.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers surrendered en masse with some surrendering groups in the thousands.

The same bunch is back again - and will crumble like a cracker being stepped on the kitchen floor.

My stepdad was U.S. Army inside Iraq for six months and had the honors of babysitting these camel humpers almost a month until repatriation.

He told me hundreds would approach small groups of 10 or 20 U.S. forces to surrender with their hands trembling so violently from the BUFF bombings they couldn't even hold a cup of water to drink it.

Sha-boom, sha-boom - da da da da da da da, Sha-boom, sha-boom - life would be a dream sweetheart...

[Green Kayak]

Right on.

So high, so quiet.
To quote a hapless V.C.:

"One second you are sitting in the forest eating a meal, the next you are sitting on the edge of a crater."

[mitchbert]

Ho Chi Minh said the only thing that really scared him were the B52's.

If there's any way to give these and any other Iraqi troops an opportunity to save themselves before the shooting starts (without signing a death warrant for their familes...man this crap makes me want to wring Saddam's neck) it would be truly a mitzvah. Hard to do, I know, and maybe not at all practical. But if it were possible it would be a beautiful way to figuratively scream SHUT UP at the whole "Americans just want to kill Iraqi's" crowd.