“This place is going to look like Little Somalia”

Nice to know a Brigadier General in the National Guard is so gung ho about taking out the New Orleans "insurgency" as it's being called by Army Times. (Thanks to Boing Boing for pointing it out.)

There are good reasons why the law prohibits active duty soldiers from performing police duty in emergencies. The National Guard is supposed to be better suited for this sort of thing; policing in a domestic emergency is a very different thing from fighting wars overseas, requiring different training, experience, and perspective.

But that was before the War on Iraq made National Guardsmen de facto active duty troops, fighting for their lives and developing a survival attitude that denigrates the enemy so it's easier to kill him. They've been battle hardened, which is not a good thing when they are sent to police our own citizens.

Interesting, though, that Brig. Gen. Gary Jones drew the analogy to Somalia rather than Baghdad or Tikrit or Sadr City. Those New Orleans looters look a lot more like Somalis, don't they? I guess that means if you're black and still in New Orleans and you run into the National Guard, it would be a good idea to put your hands up or maybe even lay face down on the ground with your hands behind your head.