The Media Cover-up of the Najaf Massacre

Mike Whitney

In fact, many in the media celebrated the slaughter of the Iraqi pilgrims as though they were revisiting the "Battle of the Bulge". Here’s a typical account from the AP: "US and British jets bombed and strafed the militants, the US Air Force said Monday. US F-16s and A-10 jets dropped 500-pound bombs on insurgent positions, the Air Force said". Hoorah! More innocent people butchered! Say what you will about the corporate media; they still havn’t lost their appetite for carnage. Neither has the decider-in-chief who, when asked about the attack, answered, "My first reaction on this report from the battlefield is that the Iraqis are beginning to show me something." What the Iraqis "showed" Bush was how easy it is to dupe the US military into carrying out their genocidal reprisals against rival groups. Just as the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias are "laying low" while the US military ethnically cleanses Sunni neighborhoods throughout Baghdad, so too, the Shiite-led Iraqi government is now using American firepower to eliminate their potential Shiite enemies. Apparently, Bush is as happy with this new arrangement as the Shiite warlords who now run the country. A spokesman from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense said that "200 terrorists were killed and 60 wounded" lowering the original estimates. "Terrorists"? "Terrorist families" (including children) or just plain old terrorists? Whatever the precise details may be, the official version is utter nonsense. That’s why the survivors of the attack are being prevented from speaking to the press. Just like the bombed-out wedding party in Anbar Province, or the Jessica Lynch fiasco; the official version is "always right" as long as there is no competing narrative...

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