The case for removing Saddam Hussein from power has been made clearer by a media organization known for its overwhelming bias. Fox News? NewsMax? No -- Al-Jazeera:

Hoping to unearth crucial evidence that could help in convicting deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, investigators said nine trenches in a dry riverbed at the Hatra site in northern Iraq contained at least 300 bodies, and possibly thousands.

Those buried included children still clutching toys [emph mine - CE].

"It is my personal opinion that this is a killing field," said Greg Kehoe, a US lawyer appointed by the White House to work with the Iraqi Special Tribunal.

"Someone used this field on significant occasions over time to take bodies up there and to take people up there and execute them".

"I have been doing grave sites for a long time, but I have never seen anything like this, women and children executed for no apparent reason," Kehoe said. "It's a perfect place for execution".

Only one reason exists to kill women and children on a massive scale such as this -- to eliminate entire populations. People want to claim forced relocation as genocide, and it certainly can be one method of it. The execution of children is the real thing. This is not just collateral damage from an attack on rebels in the north, not even a demonic rationalization of the indiscriminate deaths caused by the use of chemical weapons on Kurdish strongholds. It is the deliberate extermination of an ethnic group by a totalitarian sadist determined to make Iraq a homogeneous entity, loyal to him by blood.

Remarkable in this instance is that al-Jazeera has reported on these developments, giving them more visibility than the American media. What does it say about our mainstream media that these images come from the pages of an Islamist-sympathetic press corps while our supposedly freedom-loving, modernist media remain silent?

The victims are believed to be minority Kurds killed during 1987-88. One trench contains only women and children, apparently killed by small arms. Another contains only men, apparently killed by automatic gunfire.

Some of the mothers died still holding their children. One young boy still held a ball in his tiny arms. ...

During his reign, Saddam pushed hundreds of thousands of Arabs into Kurdish areas to force the locals out. He is accused of widespread abuses against the Kurds, including the "Anfal" (The Spoils) campaign in 1988, during which thousands died in a mustard gas attack.

Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 50,000 Kurds were killed during the campaign.

In a truth that even al-Jazeera recoils from covering up, Saddam is a maliciously evil dictator who presented the world with several very good reasons to get rid of him. He pursued WMDs, aggressively made war on his neighbors, tied himself to terrorists like Abu Nidal, Abu al-Zarqawi, Palestinian suicide bombers, and even trained terrorists at Salman Pak. He hid his nuclear-weapons research under a tree in Dr. Mahdi Obeidi's yard in order to jump-start that program as soon as the sanctions disappeared. And as the 40+ mass graves have shown us, he pursued policies of extinction against large populations within his own country.

The notion that such a man could ever be "contained" while left in power, especially as so-called "enlightened" countries knowingly stuffed billions into his pockets to keep him afloat, is ridiculous. Anyone who claims that the best policy was one in which Saddam continued his reign of terror and genocide even one single day longer than he did has a share in the moral guilt of the victims that would have come next. Even al-Jazeera balks at that price. It speaks volumes about our own media that they pay it willingly to push their political agendas onto the American electorate.

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» Genocide from TechnoChitlins
Captain Ed at the Captain's Quarters points to a news story from, of all people, Al-Jazeera- Hoping to unearth crucial... [Read More]

Tracked on October 13, 2004 10:55 AM

» Another Reason For the War On Iraq from House Of The Dog
Captain's Quarters comments on an Al Jazeera article about a new mass grave found in Iraq. The victims are believed to be minority Kurds killed during 1987-88. One trench contains only women and children, apparently killed by small arms. Another [Read More]

Tracked on October 13, 2004 8:24 PM