Propaganda nightmare of chemical hypocrisy (shake & bake)

[kpete]

Foreign Editor's Briefing

Propaganda nightmare of chemical hypocrisy
By Bronwen Maddox

HOW damaged is the US by the row over its use of white phosphorus in Fallujah last year? On the facts available now, it is within the letter of the law, even though it has not signed the most relevant protocol on the use of the weapon.

But that assertion depends on the US claim that there were few civilians left in Fallujah by the time the assault began last November. There is strong evidence to support the US position. But conflicting reports, inevitable in the circumstances, leave room for debate, and even more for rumour.

Even if the US is right on the legality, there is no question that it has inflicted a serious propaganda blow on itself. No matter the technical explanations of how useful the chemical is in flushing out insurgents from cellars. In using a weapon notorious in Vietnam, with effects on the human body straight from a science fiction film, it has given a gift to its enemies. It is now loudly accused of hypocrisy: justifying the war partly by Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons, but then using particularly nasty ones itself.

Worse: the muddle of official denials, followed by an admission of use (in a limited sense), has fuelled those who disbelieve every American assertion.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-6047-1875730-6047,00.html

[wtmusic]

1. It was denied, then admitted

Now all we need them to admit is they are liars, and we're all set

[Crankie Avalon]

2. Now they're down to denying that it's really a chemical weapon...

...or that its use involves any violation of the chemical weapons protocol.

If its use is really as legal and right as they now say, why did they try denying its use it in the first place?

[JohnyCanuck]

3. Riverbend has a new post on the white phosphorous issue

Riverbend has a new post on the white phosphorous issue

Few Iraqis ever doubted the American use of chemical weapons in Falloojeh. We’ve been hearing the terrifying stories of people burnt to the bone for well over a year now. I just didn’t want it confirmed.

I didn’t want it confirmed because confirming the atrocities that occurred in Falloojeh means verifying how really lost we are as Iraqis under American occupation and how incredibly useless the world is in general- the UN, Kofi Annan, humanitarian organizations, clerics, the Pope, journalists… you name it- we’ve lost faith in it.

<snip>

I imagine what it must have been like for some of them. They were probably huddled in their houses- some of them- tens of thousands of them- couldn’t leave the city. They didn’t have transport or they simply didn’t have a place to go. They sat in their homes, hoping that what people said about Americans was actually true- that in spite of their huge machines and endless weapons, they were human too.

And then the rain of bombs would begin… the wooooosh of the missiles as they fell and the sound of the explosion as it hit its target… and no matter how prepared you think you are for that explosion- it always makes you flinch. I imagine their children covering their ears and some of them crying, trying to cover up the mechanical sounds of war with their more human wails. I imagine that as the tanks got closer, and the planes got lower- the fear increased- and parents searched each other’s faces for a solution, for a way out of the horror. Some of them probably decided to wait it out in their homes, and others must have been desperate to get out- fearing the rain of concrete and steel and thinking their chances were better in the open air, than confined in the homes that could at any moment turn into their tombs.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/