Briefly Breaking! Iraq Invades Kuwait, Unplugs Incubators For Premies!

Remember that one? It has its own Wikipedia page: Nayirah Testimony. The idea was this:

In her testimony, Nayirah claimed that after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital, remove the incubators and leave the babies to die.

Her story was initially corroborated by Amnesty International, a British-based global NGO, which published a report about the supposed killings^[3] and testimony from evacuees. Following the liberation of Kuwait, reporters were given access to the country. An ABC report found that "patients, including premature babies, did die, when many of Kuwait's nurses and doctors ... fled" but Iraqi troops "almost certainly had not stolen hospital incubators and left hundreds of Kuwaiti babies to die."^[4] Amnesty International USA reacted by issuing a correction, with executive director John Healey subsequently accusing the Bush administration of "opportunistic manipulation of the international human rights movement".

This is called Atrocity Porn. Atrocity Porn breeds in the fog of war. It’s the kind of story that justifies counter atrocities by the Good Guys—they deserved what we did to them, because. For example, it could be used to justify cutting off water and electricity from large urban populations—the type of action, by the way, that could make caring for premies impossible.

So, when this story went viral, some people started looking for confirmation. And they ran into problems:

Rybar Force

@rybar_force

On the mechanisms of the media using the "beheaded babies" story as an example Yesterday, reports spread across the web that the bodies of more than 200 murdered residents, including 40 children and infants with signs of decapitation, were found in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. The news was immediately picked up and spread by the Israeli media. However, a little later it turned out that the original source was journalist Nicole Zedek @Nicole_Zedek. She admitted that she had heard the story only from Israeli fighters who were in the village — she herself had not seen the bodies of the executed. And then the Turkish edition of Anadolu asked the IDF to explain the episode and received a reply that they had no information that Hamas had beheaded babies at all. While photos of burned bodies did emerge from the kibbutz, no evidence of mass executions of children in Kfar Aza has yet appeared in open sources. From all of this, we can assume that the story in that particular narrative turned out to be a fake.

It is possible that in this case the reason was not even a deliberate fabrication, but a Broken Telephone: the soldiers, influenced by their personal feelings, named a figure, the journalist voiced it, the media interpreted it in their own way, and social media users have already spread it all over the Internet. However, the effect has already been achieved: the news of babies beheaded by Palestinians will spread among Israelis, and against the background of other real atrocities, no one will find out the truth. The story will take on a life of its own and will further motivate IDF fighters to resort to brutality.

8:14 AM · Oct 11, 2023

Do I know that this story is a fake? No, I don’t. Can I vouch for the Turkish media outlet? No, I can’t. On the other hand, Atrocity Porn stories have their own lurid logic to them, and this one was suspiciously like the Nayirah Testimony. Dismembering babies? Oh my God, how awful! That should only be done by Planned Parenthood!

Daniel McAdams

@DanielLMcAdams

War propaganda never changes. Why? Because it always works.

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Lord Bebo

@MyLordBebo

Day 5: Preparation for a ground invasion of Gaza. 1/

7:40 AM · Oct 11, 2023

This type of Atrocity Porn typically comes from both sides, as they seek to demonize and dehumanize The Other. The motive is fairly simple—war is bad enough, atrocious enough on its own, but to get maximum effect you need to escalate the narrative, and that usually means inventing atrocities because the real atrocities aren’t considered to be shocking enough. If you want to listen to a lucid (but heavily accented) description of this process, Andrei Martyanov does a pretty good job. He’s absolutely clear in condemning hostage taking and all the rest:

As Was Expected...

So I waited. Specifically, I waited for confirmation of some sort from the Israeli government. As of right now, no such confirmation has been forthcoming, and that seems suspicious. If the story were true, I’m pretty sure the Israeli government would want to get it out in some official way, rather than keeping a distance from it.

Now …

The_Real_Fly

@The_Real_Fly

BLOOMBERG WALKS BACK BABY BEHEADING STORY OUT OF ISRAEL

From

Financelot

11:08 AM · Oct 11, 2023

It’s not definitive, but Bloomberg is saying that the story remains “unsubstantiated.” The delay in confirming this story is, to me, suspicious. But the story is out there in the MSM now, which is the real point. It’s the narrative that matters. It’s the kind of narrative that can fast track consequential legislation in the US, especially with a war monger like Steve Scalise, if he becomes Speaker:

The_Real_Fly

@The_Real_Fly

WHITE HOUSE PREPARING NEW FUNDING FOR UKRAINE, ISRAEL, AND TAIWAN ***

12:43 PM · Oct 11, 2023

Where is this all leading? Presumably to a very high death count, one way or another. Already the Neocons are counting their chickens, even before the Gaza invasion egg has been hatched. They’re calling for Iran to be “taken out”—whatever that means when speaking of a nation of 90 million people with a capable military and some important allies. Already the Middle East is uniting against Israel and the US. For now that unity is rhetorical—and Turkey’s rhetoric has been particularly virulent against the US. My sense, however, is that this time could be different, because the countries of the Middle East are more confident than in the past, more inclined to push back against US bullying. And this comes at a very bad time for the EU economy.

It will also be interesting to see how this plays out in US politics. The GOP appears confident that they can out Stand By Israel the Dems, and pay no price—because Israel is different than Ukraine among the Evangelical portion of the GOP base. The logic of anti-war Republicanism with regard to Ukraine doesn’t extend to Israel for the GOP base. Meanwhile, the Dem reliance on minority voters could prove problematic. The Arab vote in key states has become increasingly important for the Dems, and it is decisively anti-Israel. African American views on Israel are decidedly mixed, as are Hispanic views—Evangelical Hispanics are predictably positive in their view of Israel, but other Hispanics not nearly so much so. How these divisions play out for the parties if the war escalates is up for grabs. It may depend on how long the war goes on, how much it escalates—Hezbollah, Iran?—and how much blowback is felt not only in Europe but also in America.

A few days ago I discussed one of Alastair Crooke’s most recent articles, ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’: The surprise is that some are surprised. That article has now been supplemented by a fascinating Youtube discussion among Crooke, Glenn Diesen, and Alexander Mercouris—it’s 120 minutes long, but I highly recommend it:

Extremist Politics in Israel and Ukraine

Crooke is extremely knowledgeable about all aspects of Middle Eastern politics, including Israeli matters. His discussion of the political dynamics and deep social divisions at play within Israel and how they affect all life in Israel—and especially relations with Arabs—is excellent. The second topic, Ukraine, is based on Crooke’s most recent article: Sustained Peace With Russia? Is It Possible? You wouldn’t guess it from the title, but this article takes a deep dive into the central role of the Gehlen Organization in Western Intel agencies, as well as the racialist roots of Ukro-Nazi ideology.