Remember this, for example:
Iraq must be a lot safer with Nouri's forcces attacking the people in Falluja.
It's from a May editorial we did entitled "Editorial: The silence cracks " . . .
-
iraq army open gun on kid from sunnis sect in
#falluja@un@hrw@compassiom @tntin1957@bparker001@TonyDuheaume pic.twitter.com/E7UMqXGkfl
شمرية العراق ☪
-
iraq army open gun on kid from sunnis sect in
#falluja@un@hrw@compassiom @tntin1957@bparker001@TonyDuheaume pic.twitter.com/E7UMqXGkfl
It's from a May editorial we did entitled "Editorial: The silence cracks " . . .
A may 2014 editorial.
See the coverage last week was filled with horrifics carried out by the Islamic State.
What the Shi'ite forces were doing?
Barely a murmur.
This despite the long, long history of persecution of the Sunnis.
From that May 2014 editorial:
Yeah, everyone must be sleeping easy now that the 'dangerous' child was taken care of.
Nouri's been killing Iraqi civilians every day and getting away with it for months now.
The US government is giving him even more weapons this despite the fact that he's using them on the Iraqi people.
Thursday, NINA reported his shelling of residential areas of Falluja left 13 civilians dead ("including a woman, three children") and twenty-one more were injured.
That same day, the silence in the US was finally broken.
Janine di Giovanni (Newsweek) reported:
Will others follow suit?
Already AP kind of has. Kind of.
But some western outlet will.
Especially now that Al Jazeera's reporting:
Shelling by the Iraqi army in the city of Fallujah has killed more civilians, hospital sources and witnesses have said, amid allegations that government forces were using barrel bombs in an attempt to drive out anti-government fighters from the area,
The use of barrel bombs in civilian areas is banned under international conventions given their indiscriminate nature.
But Mohammed al-Jumaili, a local journalist, told Al Jazeera that the army has dropped many barrel bombs "targeting mosques, houses and markets" in Fallujah.
And questions will arise.
Such as why did the US government refuse to call out this slaughter?
Nouri's been killing Iraqi civilians every day and getting away with it for months now.
The US government is giving him even more weapons this despite the fact that he's using them on the Iraqi people.
Thursday, NINA reported his shelling of residential areas of Falluja left 13 civilians dead ("including a woman, three children") and twenty-one more were injured.
That same day, the silence in the US was finally broken.
Janine di Giovanni (Newsweek) reported:
“First it was hospitals, then densely populated
civilian areas,” says Erin Evers from Human Rights Watch (HRW) in
Baghdad. “Now it’s neighborhoods where people are just trying to live.”
The
tragedy in Fallujah was barely noticed in the run-up to the Iraqi
parliamentary elections, which took place on April 30, the first
national elections since U.S. troops pulled out of the country in 2011.
No one much paid attention because violence has become a trademark in
this campaign.
Since January, when the Shia-backed
government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki began a campaign of
retaliation against the Sunni-backed Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shām,
it is estimated that 4,000 have been killed, or roughly 1,000 a month.
Researchers on the ground say 20 to 30 percent of the dead are children.
Meanwhile, government forces have killed 348, according to Iraq Body
Count.
Will others follow suit?
Already AP kind of has. Kind of.
But some western outlet will.
Especially now that Al Jazeera's reporting:
Shelling by the Iraqi army in the city of Fallujah has killed more civilians, hospital sources and witnesses have said, amid allegations that government forces were using barrel bombs in an attempt to drive out anti-government fighters from the area,
The use of barrel bombs in civilian areas is banned under international conventions given their indiscriminate nature.
But Mohammed al-Jumaili, a local journalist, told Al Jazeera that the army has dropped many barrel bombs "targeting mosques, houses and markets" in Fallujah.
And questions will arise.
Such as why did the US government refuse to call out this slaughter?
This persecution -- which is ongoing -- and which is well documented didn't fit last week's media narrative.
Hard to be rah-rah and honest at the same time.
No surprise, forced to choose, the press chose to ditch honesty -- as easily as they discard a dirty undergarment.
If we're supposed to understand what is going on, we need the facts.
The press is very good at acting as an attorney for the US government.
But in carrying out that role, it's become increasingly unable to tell the truth -- full or partial.
