{"id":1636,"date":"2010-02-21T06:15:22","date_gmt":"2010-02-21T06:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=1636"},"modified":"2010-02-21T06:15:22","modified_gmt":"2010-02-21T06:15:22","slug":"an_upside_down_request","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=1636","title":{"rendered":"An Upside Down Request"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to today&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2010\/feb\/21\/fighting-rages-karzai-urges-restraint-nato\/\">Washington Times<\/a>, Afghan President&nbsp;Hamid Karzai has asked NATO to do more to protect civilians as their troops take Marjah from the Taliban.&nbsp; I understand the need to protect innocent people, but how do you do that when the Taliban is using the residents of the area as human shields?&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>According to the article:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<p><em>&#8220;Once the town is secure, NATO plans to rush in a civilian Afghan administration, restore public services and pour in aid to try to win the loyalty of the population and prevent the Taliban from returning. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;As the assault entered its second week, Marines and Afghan soldiers faced hours of sporadic but intense gunfights from insurgent snipers &#8212; often firing from compounds where families could be seen taking shelter. Troops crouched for cover in muddy ditches, firing rifles, machine guns, and grenades as Taliban bullets whizzed by.&#8221; <\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Again, I understand the need to protect innocent civilians, but not at the expense of losing NATO soldiers or the expense of losing the war.&nbsp; What we need are some really good snipers.&nbsp; If the Taliban soldiers know that they will be safe as long as they hide with civilians, I am not sure victory is possible.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The problem is not our disregard for civilians, it is the Taliban&#8217;s use of civilians as human shields.&nbsp; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to today&#8217;s Washington Times, Afghan President&nbsp;Hamid Karzai has asked NATO to do more to protect civilians as their troops take Marjah from the Taliban.&nbsp; I understand the need to protect innocent people, but how do you do that when &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=1636\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}