What's with the outbreak of injured and orphaned Iraqi children?
This past Tuesday, the NYT prominently offered no less than two, including the front page shot of an Iraqi policeman carrying an injured young boy through a hospital, and a slide show photo of a U.S. Green Zone emergency room medic holding a distraught Iraqi woman's injured son.
The week before, the image above accompanied the front page article: "Troops Shelter an Unlikely Survivor in Baghdad." The photo shows an infant, nine month old Fatima, who was recovered by U.S. troops after a death squad killed her mother and uncle in Baghdad. We are told the child would likely have died if left where she was -- hidden under a piece of sheet metal in 120 degree heat.
It's curious how, in these "persuasion-charged" days, counting down to the White House Iraq status report, this Times article is mindlessly free of political context. Rather, it's a do-gooder story casting American forces in the humanitarian role of saving those darn Iraqis from themselves. (Notice how the infant's little finger line up perfectly with the stars-and-stripes.)
In an uncomplicated appeal to the emotions, the image-and-text reinforces a "stay the course" strategy through a visceral application of the "Pottery Barn" principle. In other words, if we broke the place, now own it.
The best evidence of this assumption is the way the article takes for granted how this child best belongs in the hands of the United States military. It states:
Such is the unconstrained sectarian hatred here that even a baby is assumed to be a target. Accordingly, Maj. Andy Yerkes, an American police adviser who happened upon Fatima in an Iraqi police station the next morning, decided that the girl also needed yet one more piece of luck: not to be sent to an Iraqi hospital.
...
Painful experience had already taught Major Yerkes that Sunnis would not be safe in the health care system because it is under the control of Shiites loyal to the Mahdi Army militia.... In the two months before Fatima's discovery, the major had handed over three Sunni insurgents to Iraqi policemen for medical treatment, only for them to be killed on arrival at the hospital.
So, rather than consider her placement in the arms of extended family, an admittedly weakened Iraqi health, welfare or medical establishment, or else a non-governmental care entity (one of those option being what's going to happen anyway), Fatima -- currently living at the U.S. 28th Combat Support Hospital in the Green Zone -- is "posterized" as a "lucky" ward of the American government. (What, did someone say "exit visa?")
If a strategic exit and a turnover of this country is out of the question mostly because it would spell a loss for "W," the propaganda value here is for us -- just before the "Surge Report" is issued -- to stay to "save the children." Beyond the framing, however, the facial expressions here (of the grown ups) in this awkward-seeming portrait suggests a more accurate telling. Accordingly, the more reality-based caption might read: "What have we gotten ourselves into?"
For more of the visual, visit BAGnewsNotes.com.
(image: Johan Spanner for The New York Times. published: August 13, 2007. nyt.com. caption: Staff Sgt. David D. Highsmith took his turn with little Fatima, who was found under a metal sheet after her mother was killed.)
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and all the kings horses and all the kings men(and yes, Halliburton), just don't have what it takes to unscrew their collossal screwup, for which doubtless the democrats will now be blamed, somehow...'pass the buck and catch the red-eye' should be the new slogan...
Stop looking for a conspiracy under every simple news story. It's too late. The big news conspiracy was already successful in getting us into this war. And what's keeping us in it is the cowardice of the Democratic leaders in Congress. They need to follow their mandate -- stop the war NOW and impeach Bush and Cheney.
From BBC 8/24/07:
...Maria was paralysed from the neck down by an Israeli rocket attack in May 2006.
The missile was aimed at a leader of the armed Islamic Jihad movement, who was killed outright.
So were Maria's mother, her grandmother and seven-year-old brother, who were driving past at the time. Maria was blown through the car window, suffering severe injuries.
Israeli law denies compensation to victims of what it calls its "acts of war", but Maria's story was taken up by local as well as foreign press.
Under pressure, Israel's Defence Ministry has been paying for her rehabilitation treatment at the specialist hospital in Jerusalem.
But now it wants to deport Maria to a Palestinian clinic in the West Bank.
...the ministry said Maria would fare better in her "natural environment".
Her father Hamdi is fighting to keep her in Jerusalem.
"It's a matter of life and death for Maria. She can only survive 50 seconds without the ventilator and there are often complications. Here they are experts. In Ramallah they are not," he says.
"Israel's air strike killed my son and my wife. All I ask is that they look after my daughter."
Maria's lawyer, Adi Lustigman, has several objections to the Defence Ministry's plan: Maria is Gazan and has no family in Ramallah; Abu Raya has not got the experience or equipment to deal with complications such as hers; far less severe cases are sent to the Alyn Hospital in Jerusalem.
Frequent hold-ups at checkpoints between Ramallah and Jerusalem could cost Maria her life. She would not be the first Palestinian to die that way.
Israel's Defence Ministry has offered to send staff from Abu Raya to Jerusalem for training. It says it will pay for some of Maria's medical equipment and for her father's rent in Ramallah for a year.
"But then what?" asks her lawyer. Maria's paralysis, her frequent infections and fevers, her need for new medical equipment as she gets bigger, are all ongoing.
And for those that counter with, "it was worse under Saddam" - you're wrong, it was NOT... since the invasion and occupation, there has been more death, disease and displacement than under the previous 15 years of Saddam's rule.
AND DON'T FORGET, it was with the US and CIA's blessing and assistance that Saddam came into power in the first place... so keep searching for the moral high ground on your pile of misinformed BS?
This war is Bush's fault.
This instability is Bush's fault.
This occupation is Bush's fault.
TRY BUSH FOR WAR CRIMES! (And Cheney, and Rummy, and Rove, and...)
Iraqi Children Now Outnumber Foreign Fighters At U.S. Detention Camps
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/08/27/iraqi-children-now-outnum_n_61956.html
Evil Empire. As Pogo said, "We have seen the enemy, and He is US."
I can't wait for this nightmare to end.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18871405/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tyne/wear/2944163.stm
...and so on...This rash of "man hugs dog" stories is even more disgraceful - if that's possible - than the tales of G.I. Joe saving the Iraqi babies (selflessly, though the invaded peoples weren't considerate enough to throw even a few flowers & love letters in his direction)...