Klaus, you haven?t understood a word.
Speaking to you from my new location, the Oval Office, I dare say:
The protestors shouldn?t be allowed to destroy military equipment. It wouldn?t make any difference, as they won?t have access to sensible equipment, I think - before of that they will be shot, Donald says - and how could you destroy a tank, lol? Apart from that, U.S. military has so much equipment in store, it wouldn?t make any difference. Plus, they shouldn?t be "allowed" (by who, by me, or Donald?).
I know about police force though - not about military force (thats Donalds business, after all). I know that the cops tried to provoke me when I was protesting against our government (it was a democratic one, now this happened a long time ago when I was a young and innocent leftist hippie - we all have our past). I know police forces in other countries act like that, too.
The concrete example: while I was walking through the protestors lines, a cop shouted to me to stop, I stopped, turned around and he asked to me if I had called him (insert rude word here). I answered "No, Sir, why, you?re just doing your job" (- thats my opinion, btw, I don?t blame the cops for using force, because they have every right to do so - and if anyone is allowed to allow them, its me from the Oval Office).
Later on (a few years later actually, when I was happening to be governor), I was talking to a good friend of mine, who happens to be a cop, and I asked him what he thought - still being confused about the situation. He told me, Mister, what Dubya think? This cop was just trying to provoke you - if you had answered rude, offered him a spliff or had drawn your gun or whatever, he would have had a reason to beat you up, right.
So, that was kind of unconventional...
Same unconventional is the announcement of force to scare protestors off, but soon this will be part of the Patriot Act (I like it, and I hope some hippies will be scared off and not go to protest; after all i was one of them).
The event in Genova is tragic. It has shown that Europeans, especially French, are not as far from Chinese methods of dealing with protests as some might think. We will see what happens in the United States