Boy Scouts depict US Iraq vets as terrorists in bizarre paramilitary training for teenage Scouts

From the NYT:

Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.

The responding officers — eight teenage boys and girls, the youngest 14 — face tripwire, a thin cloud of poisonous gas and loud shots — BAM! BAM! — fired from behind a flimsy wall. They move quickly, pellet guns drawn and masks affixed....

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

Interesting that of all the potential terrorists in the world, the Boy Scouts chose a "disgruntled Iraq war veteran" as their bad guy for this very bizarre training session. But putting that aside, why are the Explorers, an affiliate of the Boy Scouts, apparently training young boys as some kind of glorified paramilitary force to take on terrorism, illegal immigration and "escalating border violence"?

That photo, above, is straight out of Somalia. Whose idea was this, Loud Dobbs and the NRA?:

Cathy Noriego, also 16, said she was attracted by the guns. The group uses compressed-air guns — known as airsoft guns, which fire tiny plastic pellets — in the training exercises, and sometimes they shoot real guns on a closed range.

“I like shooting them,” Cathy said. “I like the sound they make. It gets me excited.”

Nice. And oh, there's more:

The law enforcement posts are restricted to those ages 14 to 21 who have a C average, but there seems to be some wiggle room. “I will take them at 13 and a half,” Deputy Lowenthal said. “I would rather take a kid than possibly lose a kid.”

Wow, a C average. And 13 year olds? And this:

In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. “If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?”

That didn't take long.

Remember when the Boy Scouts were about being a good kid and helping others. Then they turned into religious right activists, and now they think they're Blackwater. Just look at that photo. Absolutely sickening.