BABY NOOR

This child is driving me out of my mind. Hey, bless her little heart and malformed spine, and I wish her a speedy recovery, happy new year and all that. It's a sweet story. American soldiers find a baby Iraqi girl about to die from a rare form of spina bifida unless they cart her off to the good ol' US of A for the costly surgery which an Atlanta doctor is donating. Baby Noor's folks couldn't afford the operation even if it were available in their god-forsaken country. Our heroic soldiers went out of their way to help this girl, it's reported. And it's reported on very often on CNN with several minute long segments devoted to it every day, tugging away at our heartstrings.

It's tugging at a few of our gag reflexes, too. This is pure propaganda. US forces aren't in Iraq to save spina bifida victims! Or any other kind of victims! We are in Iraq to CREATE VICTIMS! We are killing Iraqi people without good reason. Baby Noor is the exception, yet SHE is heavily covered. If you spent 5 minutes profiling the victim of every baseless murder committed by our troops in Iraq we'd watch nothing else past 2007. Where's the background story on the members of that wedding party who were blown to bits by an air raid? Wouldn't that make a sweet enough story? "Speak now or forever hold your"--KERPLOWIE! In October I was in England where the news is a bit more balanced, and saw the mangled bodies of several teachers who'd been killed. Talk about tugging at your heartstrings. TEACHERS! People who devoted their lives to educating others--brutally struck down. In a war started by us, a country where it's becoming more and more difficult to find people willing to go into the caring teaching and nursing professions. Odd, that there's not many jobs available and yet people don't want to become teachers or nurses. Or soldiers, anymore.

So you saved one girl. Hoo-fucking-ray. I'm glad my tax $ is being spent to fly over and house troops for years to save Iraqi babies and fly them and their fathers and grandmothers over here for free surgeries. It's a blatant attempt to put a softer face on the less and less popular war. Don't you see it? It's brainwashing! Just like naming the attack and occupation of Iraq Operation Iraqi Freedom, the exact opposite of what you are seeing on the news is the truth. Soldiers aren't saving infants' lives, they are killing and being killed. That's what soldiers do. You have to read between the lines to get the truth--even on CNN, the supposedly "liberal" news channel.

The soldiers had not stopped by for a cup of tea and a neighborly chat, they were on a routine visit/raid/security check/"knock-and-search"/whatever you wanna call it.

from CNN.com

Pfc. Justin Donnelly, an Army medic in the unit that found the child, examined Noor and said it was apparent something was wrong with her. "I really wanted to help her as much as possible," Donnelly said Friday.

In the first place, why would a medic be making routine security checks--unless perhaps, this was all a photo op? ("Ask around. Find a cute kid that's hurt or needs some operation she can't get over here. Oh, and make sure her name is easy enough to pronounce--even for the president.") In the second place, if you really wanted to help as much as possible, you'd get the fuck out of her country and stop renting yourself out as a thug to a greedy moron named Bush.

"I feel like God put me here to help this little girl so, that pretty much makes my whole trip here worth it."

Oh, right, God put you there. God loves war, doesn't she? I guess God does work in mysterious ways. You go all the way over to Iraq to kill people--even though your "God Is Love"--and end up saving one! Hallelujah! It's a blessed miracle! And the regiment which found Noor--CNN reported over and over again-- was from Georgia--the red state where the child will be operated on for free. Halle-fuckin-lujah for the red states, too! See! They have even the little Iraqi babies' interests at heart!

While they're still little and cute enough to enable Bush to get some mileage out of their rare medical conditions, that is. Little Baby Noor wasn't old enough to be aware of relatives killed during the occupation or even miss the electricity and clean water which have been less plentiful in Iraq since the US invasion. Or old enough to vote in the election which is perhaps a more imortant symbol for us than for Iraqi's. Hell, she's too young to even have to wear one of those muslim head-scarves. And she's too small to strap a bomb to, but you'd better check her and her relatives out anyway before flying them over here anyway.

from CNN.com

Once Noor does arrive in the United States, Dr. Roger Hudgins, the chief of neurosurgery at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, has promised to perform the delicate operation for free.

HERE'S THE KICKER:

Hudgins said that while the surgery will probably help Noor, there's no guarantee that it will cure her of her condition.

It will PROBABLY help Noor, but there's no GUARANTEE. That's how desperate the government and their henchmen in the newsrooms are to make a mountain out of a molehill and whitewash our perception of this war. Yeah, we'll go out on a limb to save this baby girl--that's why we are in Iraq! The same day it was first reported, a very short news item was thrown in afterward. There was an "upward tick" in violence in Iraq that day. Oh! But analysts felt it was probably just the last wave of insurgency reacting against the great, historic elections we'd provided the Iraqi people.

Look. Before you award me "The Bitterest Thing of 2005" on New Year's Eve, I'm glad for Noor, but her possible triumph shouldn't overshadow the tragedy at the root of our mission in Iraq--even for 5 minutes 5 times a day. And though I'm hesitant to concede any victory to Bush, maybe the elections are a sign of hope in Iraq. Too bad the party the we DIDN'T want to win won. And election results are being disputed as fraudulent. So maybe we are beginning to transfer some of US-style "democracy" to the Middle East after all. Maybe Baby Noor can even enjoy McDonald's in her homeland by the time she grows up. If she does.