Pugnacious propaganda paltering
Friday March 28, 2003 at 6:31 am
You've no doubt heard it many times since the beginning of the war in Iraq — the first casualty of war is the truth. It's true regardless of which side you're on, due in part to intentional equivocating as well as the nature of war (fighting does not stop so facts can be documented and truths uncovered). How your news is filtered depends on which side of the fight you're on, however, as recent events clearly demonstrate.
During a massive bombing campaign on Baghdad, so-called "bunker buster" bombs were used to destroy telecommunications facilities within the city. The attack gutted a seven-story telephone exchange complex on the east bank of the Tigris River in downtown Baghdad.
The telecommunications director of Baghdad, Husein Moeini, immediately announced that people were buried beneath the rubble of the building (civilians, of course). One would think that some type of search and rescue operation would take place if that were true.
As we've come to expect from the Iraqi régime, journalists who arrived at the scene less than three hours later found no such rescue operation under way. No sign of any rescue operation could be found, and there were no indications of any mass casualties due to the bombing. Since it's highly unlikely that even a telephone exchange complex would be full of people during the wee hours of the morning, the claims of buried civilians is suspect at best — if not simply a blatant falsehood.
To add insult to injury, the Iraqi régime has continually claimed mass civilian casualties from coalition bombings. In fact, they've gone so far as to say that we are specifically targeting civilians.
Any civilized person would know that's not true, although an errant bomb or missile could hit civilians. This would be an unintentional tragedy, of course, and coalition forces are trying desperately to minimize the chances of such events.
What the Iraqi government is not admitting is that they themselves are targeting their own civilians.
Outside of Basra, thousands of civilians were trying to leave the besieged city. In response, Iraqi militia and paramilitary forces opened fire on the crowds with mortars and machine guns in an apparent attempt to force them back into the city.
It would not surprise me if Iraq claims any casualties from this attack were the result of coalition attacks despite evidence to the contrary.
Both situations come on the heels of reports that the Iraqi military is forcing men to fight by taking family members (mostly children) and threatening them with death if the men of the family do not take up arms and fight the coalition forces. Other reports indicate that the Iraqi military is using women and children (or civilians in general) as human shields as they advance on coalition forces. Yet other reports show Iraqi irregulars forcing civilians to fight at gunpoint rather than allowing them to surrender or melt back into the civilian population.
Saddam Hussein and all those responsible for these heinous acts must be held accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The blatant abuse of his own people must not go unpunished — for anyone involved in such atrocities.
Yet I doubt our French or peacenik friends will be mentioning this in their next public appearance. Sad little people, they are, and terribly misguided.
jason
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