
Kurt Nimmo
In order to send in the bombers and introduce the sort of carnage in
Syria the US and NATO inflicted on Libya, the propaganda war needs to be
dialed up. Allegations of child abuse usually do the trick. Journalists
call it “the hook.”
Prior to the first invasion of Iraq in 1991, the Congressional Human
Rights Caucus held a hearing on Capitol Hill showcasing Iraqi human
rights abuses. The media event allowed a 15-year old Kuwaiti girl known as Nayirah to claim Saddam’s invaders threw babies out of incubators at the al-Addan hospital in Kuwait City.
It turns out the girl was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her
father was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United
States. The testimony was a lie cooked up by Hill & Knowlton, a
public relations group. Despite this, the lie was repeated over and over
again. Bush Senior told the story. It was recited as fact in
congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN
Security Council.
On Friday, a United Nations human rights panel “expressed alarm” at
reports claiming Syrian security forces are torturing children.
The Committee Against Torture said it had received “numerous,
consistent and substantiated reports” of widespread abuse in the
country, MSNBC
reports today. The chair of the panel, Claudio Grossman, told reporters
in Geneva that the reports referring to the abuse of children were of
“particular concern.”
It was less of a concern when George W. Bush’s legal adviser, John Yoo, argued there is no law that could prevent the president from ordering the torture of a child.
Syria’s neighbor, Israel, has detained and tortured Palestinian children at the infamous al-Jalame Interrogation and Detention Center
near Haifa, but the United Nations is not talking about sanctions
against the country. The Arab League is not issuing ultimatums and
neocons and presidential candidates are not talking about attacking
Israel.
The United Nations report is a prized piece of propaganda released at
precisely the right time. It will be mentioned repeatedly by the
establishment media in the weeks ahead as the stage is set for an attack
on Syria. Like the Nayirah and baby incubator lie, there will be little
effort to find out if Syrian security forces are indeed torturing
children.