BBC believes criminals over military
That’s a headline on the BBC website. Note the scare quotes around the word criminals.
“The operation’s objective was an individual reported to be a long-time Special Groups member specialising in kidnapping operations,” it said.
Iraqi sources said women and children were among those killed, but the US said it was not aware of this.
Iraqi sources? What kind of sources? Is it the Iraqi government? Not exactly…
An official loyal to Moqtada Sadr said the attack was “simply barbaric”.
“Most of those killed and wounded were women, children and elderly men which shows the indiscriminate monstrosity of the attacks on this crowded area,” Abdul-Mehdi al-Muteyri told Reuters news agency.
The BBC feels the burden of proof should be on the American military to prove that those killed were indeed “criminals”, but has no trouble at all believing the henchmen of a known thug and terrorist. Disgusting.
Where exactly is the bias in reporting the versions of events given by both sides ? - the US military and its opponents? If you think unbiased reporting means reporting only one side’s versions of events and assume your government and military’s version is always the only good and true one then frankly you’re biased i’m afraid.
As for Al Sadr being a ‘known thug and terrorist’ that’s definitely bias - members of his militia have been involved in sectarian murders but he has frequently publicly called on them not to attack ordinary Sunnis. Whether he’s sincere or not neither of us can prove one way or the other.
There’s far stronger evidence that the Bush administration has ordered torture and approved orders to fire on anyone and everyone, armed or not, in assaults on iraqi cities.
Comment by Duncan McFarlane — June 15, 2008 @ 8:43 pm