- Two acts of carnage, one in Iraq and one in Gaza, competed
for the world's horrified attention yesterday: more than 40 people were
killed by American fire in a village close to the Syrian border in western
Iraq, and at least eight Palestinians had died as a result of Israeli gunfire
during a peaceful demonstration at Rafah. There is no need here to be reminded
that violent and indiscriminate death is not confined to one side.
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- When Iraqis are blown apart in Baghdad by a car bomb,
or Israelis in Haifa by a suicide bomber, these are instantly and correctly
labelled as terrorist attacks. However when American helicopters or Israeli
tanks cause death to innocent civilians on a similar scale, there is always
an alternative version on offer. The Pentagon's explanation of the attack
on the village of Mukaradeeb is that the people killed were not taking
part in a wedding party or firing their guns in the air in celebration,
as the survivors have insisted. They were occupying a "foreign fighter
safe house" and had fired on the coalition forces first. The Israeli
army's explanation for the deaths in Gaza is that its fire had been directed
against an "abandoned structure" as a warning, and that this
may have led to casualties when a tank shell went through a hole in the
wall created by a previous shell.
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- Of course, no one has the monopoly of truth, yet on the
facts so far reported in these two cases, as on too many recent occasions,
the "official" version is simply not credible. The US military
admits that it probably killed 40 people at Mukaradeeb but says that none
of them were civilians. So did the "foreign fighters" include
the young girl, one of several children whose bodies were shown being buried
on television? Or the Iraqi wedding singer and his musician brother, whose
funeral in Baghdad was reported yesterday by Reuters? In Rafah, it is not
believable that casualties on such a large scale - including some 50 injured
as well as the dead - were caused by "warning shots" directed
towards an unoccupied area (and since when are tanks used to fire such
shots anyhow?). As it happens, we carried yesterday evidence of another
earlier evasion - or lie - in Rafah: our correspondent was shown the bodies
of four dead children, all with bullet wounds, whom the Israeli army claimed
had been killed on Tuesday not by its snipers but by Palestinian bombs.
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- There may be some argument whether these tragedies merely
display a reckless disregard for civilian casualties (perhaps some "foreign
fighters" were thought to be in the neighbourhood of the wedding party)
or a deliberate design to intimidate unarmed opposition, as often seems
more likely when civilians are killed by the Israeli forces. What both
incidents share is the view that the war on terror justifies extreme behaviour
- a view long urged by Ariel Sharon that has now been endorsed by George
Bush. Wednesday's slaughter came one day after Mr Bush had drawn a direct
parallel, in a speech to the pro-Israeli AIPAC lobby, between the two countries'
"struggles against terrorism", while failing to repeat early
criticism of the Rafah onslaught by secretary of state Colin Powell. After
the shelling, the White House was again more reluctant than the state department
to condemn Israel.
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- When the US military spokesman claims that its force
took "obligatory action" and Israel says it was acting in Rafah
"in self-defence", words lose all credibility. Another set of
images of dead civilians and grieving relatives is transmitted across the
Middle East, and the casual viewer is not even sure whether they are coming
from Baghdad or Gaza. On grounds of expediency alone, Mr Bush should ask
what is gained by this - or rather how much is lost. And if the president
is not asking, then Tony Blair should be telling him - and telling the
rest of us that he is doing so.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1221511,00.html
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