posted 08-22-2002 12:17 PM            

Babies, Incubators and
Gassed, Wagged Dogs
By Fintan Dunne
Editor, GuluFuture.com August 21, 2002
PAGE URL http://www.gulufuture.com/future/gaswag.htm
 Osama bin Laden gasses poor little doggies. It's true! Get ready for another season of heartrending propaganda --courtesy of War PR Inc. and CNN.

The people who brought you Osama bin Laden's entirely unconvincing "confession" tape are at it again. One out of three Americans disbelieved the authenticity of that propaganda exercise.

But now we are "reliably informed" by CNN that al Queda has been testing deadly biological warfare on dogs. And they've even got a tape to prove it. Let's just skip over the fact that the dog in the "CNN EXCLUSIVE" is a well-fed golden retriever, not the scrawny cur you might expect to find in a poverty-stricken Third World country.

And let's just ignore the fact that this type of dog is as out of place in Afghanistan as a camel at the Kentucky Derby! But then, a golden retriever meets the requirements of the folks at fake-tape central casting. US dog lovers can empathize with a retriever.

Let's also gloss over the cut-away shots in between the gassed dog clips. They showed white ungloved hands near bubbling vats of supposed biowarfare ingredients. If we think too hard about that we might only end up wondering just how inept these people can be when they churn this crude propaganda out.

All of which is reminiscent of the propaganda splurge ahead of the previous Gulf War. Back then it was Iraqi troops ripping babies from incubators and tossing them on the floor.

Remember something called Citizens for a Free Kuwait, formed a week after Saddam invaded Kuwait? They hired Hill & Knowlton, the public relations firm, and paid millions of dollars for a brilliant campaign.

The unquestionable (and unquestioned!) highlight of which was the baby-incubator story. In August 1990, the world began to hear that Iraqi soldiers were pulling babies out of incubators and killing them in Kuwaiti hospitals.

The Hill & Knowlton staff on the Kuwait deal included Craig Fuller, Bush's former chief of staff when Vice President. They set up a Congressional Human Rights hearing to expose Iraqi atrocities to the American people. The Congressional Human Rights Foundation had rent-free offices in the Hill & Knowlton headquarters. Conflict of interest? Never!

The star of the hearing was a 15 year-old girl named Nayirah who said that she was a volunteer at Kuwaiti hospitals and had seen the babies pulled from incubators and left to die on the floor. Video of her performance was seen on NBC Nightly News and around the world by millions. Nayirah was an exceptional propaganda victory. She was also a liar, and the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. Then at the United Nations a Dr. Behbehani testified that he was a surgeon who had personally seen the burial of 40 of the incubator babies. He was also a liar and turned out to be a dentist --not a surgeon.

It's August again now: exactly twelve years later. It must be open season on credulous Americans once more.
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