Curious News: Two Tortured Tales from Iraq

Curious News
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
April 20th, 2005

U.S. Forces Take Control of Mada'in
image: http://news.google.ca/news
?imgefp=MwrmHehxOScJ&imgurl=
www.chinadaily.com.cn/
english/doc/2005-04/19/xin_
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If there's still left anyone expecting to get a truthful picture of the situation in Iraq through the U.S. media, or their operating surrogate government there, I have an acre of beachfront property in Kansas to sell. {ape}


A tale of two atrocities in Iraq is currently unfolding across the newswires and should, true to form, play big on the networks tonight.

The first involves the discovery of dozens (numbers vary, but the media-agreed toll is 50) of bodies floating in the Tigris river. This year's Interim President, Jalal Talabani blamed the insurgency, saying: "We have the full names of those who were killed and those criminals who committed these crimes.'' As there have been no arrests, no reports of kidnappings from Mada'in itself, and accounts of the condition of the corpses found, ascertaining the "full names" of each of these unfortunates and the identities of their killers stretches credulity.

Stranger yet is the fact that, if Talabani is to be believed, this mass slaying of men, women, and children would mark a distinct departure for the Resistance. While civilian women and children are killed daily by stray bullets, car bombs, and criminal activity, up to now they haven't been targeted for execution in the gruesome manner ascribed by Talabani to the bodies found in the Tigris.

And then there's Falah al-Naqib. He's last year's Interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi's soon to depart Interior Minister. He's blamed the rumours of the mass kidnappings on Iranian intelligence. Note: His accusation concurs with the majority opinion in both Mada'in, and throughout Iraq that the kidnapping story was just that: A story! Likely, a further effort to create a sectarian fissure in Iraq. A day after al-Naqib's verbal pratfall voila, dozens of horribly mutilated bodies start hitting the shore downstream of the city.

But, even that's not clear. Bodies beaching themselves at the feet of those living down river of Iraq's cities has been a daily occurrence since at least February. But now it appears, someone cares and has all the answers (pending publication) about who these dead are, who killed them, and why. Curious!

Our second story is no less grim, and it too is a crime solved by the Interim administration almost before it occurred.

Today, the bodies of 19, (or perhaps 20, depending on your news source) Iraqi men were discovered in the soccer stadium at Hidath, a satellite city not far from Baghdad. They had apparently been lined up, St. Valentine's Day Massacre style and mowed down by machine guns. None of the unfortunates were in military uniform, according to Associated Press (AP) reports, being ripped and read by every news agency from Dallas to New Dehli, but they have been "identified" as being members to a man of the Iraqi National Guard.

What's immediately odd about this account is the location. Soccer stadium executions are usually identified with the ruling power. But in this instance, the AP asserts the insurgents have beaten the ruling power to the punch.

Haditha has been ruled continuously by pro-Occupation factions, with at least one Mayor of the town paying for the privilege with his life. So, what we have here is the kidnapping of a platoon of National Guard soldier/police in the heart of a pro-Occupation town, their subsequent transit to the local football stadium and execution. And all this in a town that saw multiple car-bomb attacks against U.S. forces exactly one month ago yesterday.

Sure, I'll hang, bated-breathed for the 6 O'Clock News and other fictions ready to erupt from the network pens!

Or, maybe I'll just watch a Simpsons rerun.



Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada and is a contributing editor at PEJ.org News.

Check out the Gorilla Radio Blog too!

Annotations

RiverBendBlog
http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com
/2005/04/truth-held-hostage-in-medain.html

Outgoing Interior Minister Warns on Iran, Badr Corps
http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/
outgoing-interior-minister-warns-on.html

Sunni guerrillas had taken over 100 Shiites hostage at Mada'in
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/
story/0,1280,-4944223,00.html

ALEXANDRA ZAVIS
Associated Press Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/
story/0,1280,-4951751,00.html