Saturday, March 18, 2006

A Long Way To Go To Steal Bread

So Operation Swarmer was maybe a training exercise in a series of training exercises, or a photo op. But what got me in the Time Magazine online coverage was this bit:
Four Black Hawk helicopters landed in a wheat field and dropped off a television crew, three photographers, three print reporters and three Iraqi government officials right into the middle of Operation Swarmer. Iraqi soldiers in newly painted humvees, green and red Iraqi flags stenciled on the tailgates, had just finished searching the farm populated by a half-dozen skinny cows and a woman kneading freshly risen dough and slapping it to the walls of a mud oven.
Ok so far, they swoop (swarm?) into a farm. But when they leave:
Before loading up into the helicopters for a return trip to Baghdad, Iraqi and American soldiers and some reporters helped themselves to the woman's freshly baked bread, tearing bits off and chewing it as they wandered among the cows.
Did they compensate the woman for her bread? Or was just another little sign of disrespect, a reason for her to hate us some more?

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