TPM — The Blaze, the conservative news site affiliated with Glenn Beck, flagged the comments made Monday by Richard Mack, identified as a former Arizona sheriff who had joined more than 1,000 other protesters alongside Cliven Bundy, who has been feuding with BLM over his use of federal land to graze his cattle.
“We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front,” Mack said in a Fox News clip pulled by The Blaze. “If they are going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers.”
That sounds … familiar.
Wiki — After World War II, it was claimed by German SS general Gottlob Berger that there was a plan, proposed by the Luftwaffe and approved by Adolf Hitler, to set up special POW camps for captured airmen of the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces in large German cities, to act as human shields against their bombing raids.
One of the most famous uses of human shields occurred in Iraq in 1990, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that precipitated the Gulf War of 1990-1991. Saddam Hussein’s government detained hundreds of citizens of Western countries who were in Iraq for use as human shields in an attempt to deter nations from participating in military operations against the country. A number of these hostages were filmed meeting Hussein, and kept with him to deter any targeted attacks, whilst others were held in or near military and industrial targets.
According to various accounts—including that of the American ambassador to the U.N., the Taliban used women and children from their own population as human shields against coalition forces in 2006, and 2007, and when the British attacked during August 2008 during the war in Afghanistan
Important distinction: the examples you have are about using human shields to deter violence. The shields are people whom an attacker would presumably want to protect. In this situation, the teabaggers are only interested in swaying public opinion. The feds have no reason to prioritize the lives of women over men, but the point isn’t to deter violence but to make violence politically ugly.
Don’t be silly. He’s using women and girls as shields. We aren’t considered “human” by these guys.
Do the feds not have Tasers? I still don’t really understand why they backed down – cops were fine with using gas grenades, batons, and rubber bullets against Occupy protesters using public property without permits. What’s the difference? (he asked, pretending to be absurdly naive as a rhetorical strategy.)
Jackie @ 2 – you beat me to it!
Well, you could call it “freedom of conscience”…wait, make that “freedom from conscience”…
But using women as human shields to, essentially, protect cattle at least clearly demonstrates those guys’ priorities – you couldn’t really accuse them of treating women like property, they actually rate them lower than that.
“I still don’t really understand why they backed down “
Because the big guns are with the accountants. Going in to seize the cattle is “the easy way” by contrast to “the hard way.”
This guy’s going to be financially devastated, and it’s his own fault.
#3 Horstman: “I still don’t really understand why they backed down – cops were fine with using gas grenades, batons, and rubber bullets against Occupy protesters using public property without permits. What’s the difference?”
The occupy protesters weren’t heavily armed, and could be dispersed without a bloodbath.
The militias are not particularly well organized or disciplined, in part this has to do with their lone wolf tendencies and general rejection of authority and conformity. There is also the fact that many/most of them have jobs or other obligations that will limit their ability to stay in place.
The tactic for the government is to back off and stop pressing. Eventually the militia types will move off, get slack, decide they would really like a beer or go back to work and the kids. Then the government raids the place at 0430 and are in and out in three minutes with the rancher in handcuffs. Once in custody he is issued a cease and desist order and ordered to remove his cattle from federal land. After thirty days, plus a week as grace, the helicopters come in and his cattle are shot where they stand. With legal bills mounting and no way to pay without cattle to sell the family is bankrupted and forced to sell out. Game, set, match to the BLM.
These “milita” types will get bored and go home pretty soon. Once they do the Feds move on Bundy and take him. After that they can identify the rest and pick them up one at a time and they can all spend a few years in prison.