Tom Toles: The Iraq Model

... not to be confused with the slick psy-op pseudo-blog Iraq The Model, where the tenor of media coverage of bombings in Iraq is an issue because

when their crimes are being portrayed as successful breakthroughs against the efforts of Iraq and America it's likely motivating them to keep up the killing

because presumably the motivating factor behind the violence in Iraq is the stateside media coverage of the resistance, rather than the occupation itself. Orwell's Ministry Of Truth would be proud ...

... but eerily reminiscent of Dahr Jamail's horrifying piece of June 23, 2005:

Email today from Baquba: Near the city of Buhrez, 5 kilometers south of Baquba, two Humvees of American soldiers were destroyed recently. American and Iraqi soldiers came to the city afterwards and cut all the phones, cut the water, cut off medicine from arriving in the city.

The embargo has been in place for a week now, and he continued: The Americans still won’t let anyone or any medicines and supplies into Buhrez, nor will they allow any people in or out. Even the Al-Sadr followers who organized some help for the people are not being allowed into the city. Journalists cannot enter to publish the news, and the situation is so bad. The Americans keep asking the people to bring them the persons who destroyed the two Humvees on the other side of the city, but of course the people don’t know who carried out the attack.

From Haditha and Al-Qa’im, an Iraqi doctor sent me this yesterday: We witnessed what the bastards did in Haditha and Al-Qa’im. It was a really big crime. We have witnessed and filmed in those places and recently also in Fallujah. We need big help in the western area of the country. Our doctors need urgent help there. Please, this is an URGENT humanitarian request. We have proof American troops destroyed one of our hospitals, burned all the medication in the west of Iraq and killed a patient in the ward ... prevented us from helping the people in al-Qa’im. We are in a big humanitarian medical disaster.

The same tactics used by the US in Fallujah -- posting snipers to shoot anyone who moves, targeting ambulances, impeding medical care, detaining innocent civilians en masse.

Fallujah is the model.

Fallujah is our Guernica. And now, Haditha, Al-Qa’im, with Baquba and Buhrez under deconstruction.

I'll have more on the deconstruction of Iraq later, hopefully not too much later.

In the meantime, as usual, the Toles cartoon signifies an open thread.