The Skeptic الشكاك

478 Flogging a Dead Teddy Bear, Hiding Dead Iraqis

On this, I have nothing to add to the great post at ‘Aqoul, from a writer who attended the school in question:

I was hoping this would go away and that I therefore would not have to withdraw my head from the sand and confront the farce that is the Mohammed teddy bear story. Almost no aspect of this saga can be taken seriously in that I actually marvel at how newsreaders can keep a straight face when using the words ‘teddy bear’ and ‘flogging’ in the same breath. That said however, it is indeed gravely serious. I have no doubt the teacher in question will not be subjected to the full barbaric punishment (only because Sudan’s version of Sharia law is so cosmetic and floggings, amputations and stonings rarely, if ever take place) but what is worrying is how far the Sudanese local authorities are willing to go to flex some muscle.

Reactions have been typical, ranging from the ‘what do you expect from Muslim savages’, to the exaggeratedly tolerant ‘we have to respect their culture’ but there are a couple of issues of note which have not been sufficiently covered. Firstly, having had the dubious honour of attending the said institution (the choice of ‘well heeled’ Sudanese and expat children) for some time due to one of my father’s random diplomatic postings, I am aware that there has always existed an uneasy truce between the highly Westernised elite that chose to send their children to the school and local government authorities who resented the very existence of such an elite and their access to the admittedly exceptional education the school offered. Were it not for the ironic fact that high ranking government officials mostly sent their children to the school, the co-existence would have been much more challenging. [Read on…]

On a more serious note, Salon.com has an interesting article on the differences between the body-counts the U.S. military and Iraqis put forward after operations in Iraq. Here’s a taste:

From the beginning of the American occupation in Iraq, airstrikes and attacks by the U.S. military have only killed “militants,” “criminals,” “suspected insurgents,” “IED [Improvised Explosive Device] emplacers,” “anti-American fighters,” “terrorists,” “military age males,” “armed men,” “extremists” or “al-Qaida.”

The pattern for reporting on such attacks has remained the same from the early years of the occupation to today. Take a helicopter attack on Oct. 23 of this year near the village of Djila, north of Samarra. The U.S. military claimed it had killed 11 among “a group of men planting a roadside bomb.” Only later did a military spokesperson acknowledge that at least six of the dead were civilians. Local residents claimed that those killed were farmers, that there were children among them, and that the number of dead was greater than 11.

Here is part of the statement released by U.S. military spokeswoman in northern Iraq, Maj. Peggy Kageleiry:

“A suspected insurgent and improvised explosive device cell member was identified among the killed in an engagement between Coalition Forces and suspected IED emplacers just north of Samarra … During the engagement, insurgents used a nearby house as a safe haven to re-engage coalition aircraft. A known member of an IED cell was among the 11 killed during the multiple engagements. We send condolences to the families of those victims and we regret any loss of life.”

As usual, the version offered by locals was vastly different. Abdul al-Rahman Iyadeh, a relative of some of the victims, revealed that the “group of men” attacked were actually three farmers who had left their homes at 4:30 a.m. to irrigate their fields. Two were killed in the initial helicopter attack and the survivor ran back to his home where other residents gathered. The second airstrike, he claimed, destroyed the house killing 14 people. Another witness told reporters that four separate houses were hit by the helicopter. A local Iraqi policeman, Capt. Abdullah al-Isawi, put the death toll at 16 — seven men, six women and three children, with another 14 wounded. [Full story]

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   Comment by The Skeptic — November 30, 2007 #

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