Will The 'Insurgents' Have To Use Their Fingers Too?

by pessimist

Back when I was a kid (back before dinosaurs roamed the Earth), we would often play soldier, using fingers as pistols and baseball bats as rifles. 'Bullets' were 'fired' by the use of the magic word 'BANG!', where upon the inevitable argument of 'You missed me!' 'No, I hit you!' would rage, and the play war would take on a more sinister aspect. There were sometimes casualties.

In yet another demonstration that the Bu$h (mis)Administration is staffed with overgrown children masquerading as gross incompetents and neocons, the Army is almost out of bullets.

The United States is planning to buy hundreds of millions of bullets from Taiwan in the first such deal as its supplies are running low after wars in Afghanistan and Iraq , a report said. Citing Taiwanese military sources, the United Evening News said Washington had made the request to acquire some 300 million 5.56-millimeter bullets for rifles for an estimated two billion Taiwan dollars (62.5 million US).

The deal was yet to be finalized pending price negotiations, it said. Taiwan produces some 400 million such bullets annually, according to the paper. It added most rifle bullets were manufactured by an arsenal in southern Kaohsiung which has storage problems due to declining demand in the absence of any military conflict across the Taiwan Strait.

What if the 'absense' of military conflict across the Taiwan Strait - something most military analysts I've recently read expect within the next several years as China's need for high-tech industries grows - becomes a very real presense, and the Taiwan arsenals can't supply our soldiers in a timely manner. Are we to ask our Reservists and National Guardsmen to put down their M4s and point their fingers at the Iraqis arrayed against them with AK-47s and shout 'BANG!'?

We should ask Alberto Gonzales - he who thinks that the Geneva Conventions are 'quaint' - if the rules of war require one side ['Them'] to lay down their real weapons when the other side ['Us'] runs out of ammunition. This will - of course - not apply if the one side ['Them'] runs out first.

Then let's see him enforce that decision.

How quaint!

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