Taking aim at human shields

Chicago Tribune: There wasn't much to recommend the job of "human shield" in pre-war Iraq. Long hours, hot and filthy conditions, no pay and the very real potential to get killed by advancing American forces. Still, at its peak, 270 peace activists -- from the United States, Britain, France, Norway, Turkey and elsewhere -- volunteered to try to protect "strategic sites" such as power plants, oil refineries and water treatment plants in Iraq from U.S. attack.
The effort was quixotic at best, with most of the shields abandoning their posts after the U.S. disabused them of the notion that their presence would deter attack, and after Saddam tried to deploy the shields at sites that some suggested had more military than humanitarian value.
Thus discouraged, the shields returned home, probably to something less than a hero's welcome. American forces toppled the despotic Saddam and his government.
End of story? Not quite.
Over the last few weeks, the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has contacted some of the protesters, warning them that they face $10,000 fines for violating U.S. sanctions against travel and commerce with Saddam's regime. If they don't pay, those receiving the notices face up to 10 years in prison.
This isn't the first time the government has attempted to punish those who allegedly violated Treasury regulations. In a recent lawsuit, the government sought a civil penalty of $20,000 from Voices in the Wilderness, charging the Chicago group has delivered medicine to Iraq since 1996 in violation of rules.
Pocket change
The amounts spent by the human shields in Iraq amounted to pocket change -- one protester told The New York Times that he brought $1,500 and gave much of it away. Another admitted to importing "eight sets of coloring books and eight sets of color markers, which I left at the children's hospital in Baghdad," the newspaper reported.
The government, for its plodding part, insists that the shields had the right to protest but not to violate U.S. laws or international sanctions. A spokesman argued that "while free expression is a right enjoyed by all Americans, choosing which laws to abide by and which to ignore is not a privilege that is granted to anyone."
Agreed. But given the nature of these cases, and the small amounts involved, it's natural to wonder if the full weight of the U.S. government is really needed here.