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Red Cross horrified
IT was in the Canadian press that I found a Red
Cross report I have yet to see referenced on
American TV: “Red Cross doctors who visited
southern Iraq this week saw ‘incredible’ levels of
civilian casualties including a truckload of dismembered
women and children, a spokesman
said Thursday from Baghdad. Roland Huguenin,
one of six International Red Cross workers in the
Iraqi capital, said doctors were horrified by the
casualties they found in the hospital in Hilla,
about 160 kilometres south of Baghdad.
“‘There has been an incredible number of
casualties with very, very serious wounds in the
region of Hilla,’ Huguenin said in an interview by
satellite telephone. ‘We saw that a truck was
delivering dozens of totally dismembered dead
bodies of women and children. It was an awful
sight. It was really very difficult to believe this
was happening.’”
Also unbelievable was this quote in the US
Times re-quoted in The Guardian: “from a
Marine who had shot at an Iraqi soldier in a civilian
crowd and watched a woman fall instead. ‘I’m
sorry’, said the Marine, ‘but the chick got in the
way.’ Now, how does that make you feel?”
Questions about casualities
WHAT about military casualties? Wayne State
University professor David Fasenfast raises
questions about the coverage on this score, questions
you rarely see or hear being raised by the
anchors or correspondents:
“It strikes me as people discuss this war no
one mentions the strange nature of the reporting
on casualties. I saw a report the other night that
WAR KILLS JOURNALISTS
177
lists total deaths about 71 with about a third due
to friendly fire. On the same day I saw a report
that ‘enemy’ dead from one engagement was up
to 2,000 and the daily numbers are always real
large.
“Old enough to remember, I am skeptical.
First, during Vietnam the US regularly inflated
the numbers engaged and killed. Second, it turns
out that many of the dead “combatants” ended
up being civilians presumed to be combatants
for the simple reason that they were killed during
the battle (much later the reports of atrocities
tempered those estimates). Why is there no
commentary on what is now easily (by the
reports) tens of thousands dead. Even if they are
all soldiers, there is something obscene about
(alright, even more obscene than) this war.
Where is the sense of more than battle testing
weapons – but rather testing them in a kill zone
environment.”
Conflicting reports
HERE is an example of the problem. Following
are two reports from AP, the first on April 2, the
second three days later:
“U.S. Marines describe ambush outside
Nasiriyah that wounded 31 troops.
“ . . . The Marines are among 221 combat
wounded who have been treated at Landstuhl, in
southwestern Germany, since the war began
March 19. Ninety-four troops and a civilian
remain at the hospital, the American military’s
largest hospital outside the United States, Landstuhl
spokeswoman Marie Shaw said.”