Has the feel of 1983 Beirut barracks

Submitted by John in Michigan, USA (United States), Feb 5, 2015 at 02:43

...in which the Marines were essentially unarmed (those with ammo weren't allowed to load their weapons)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing

About ten minutes later, the French paras were also targeted. They were able to shoot the truck and stop it, sadly, it was already too close when it, too, exploded. I haven't been able to find out if they had loaded weapons as a matter of policy, or if the bombing moments earlier resulted in orders to load weapons.

Back to the present. Unarmed soldiers are provocative, but the enemy here is sophisticated, and as you note, the solders aren't trained to 'read the street;. If the soldiers were armed, the enemy could well have set up a situation in which they could accuse the soldiers of opening fire on 'civilians' or worse, on actual civilians...another angle to security theater.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".