CrimLaw

---------------
OFF POINT
---------------

InstaPundit is discussing a story coming out of Iraq via this blog.

I'm fairly certain that this story is apocryphal. There are some indicators including the typed Arabic letter and the "drunk" American soldiers. I guarantee you that American forces are being kept dry for the duration. However, while these raise suspicions they are not enough to be dispositive. After all the letter could have been typed because it is formal and the soldiers could have tripped over a cache of ouzo.

What seals it for me is that I have heard this story - in multiple variations - before. Back when I was less hefty and a little younger I was an Arabic translator for the U.S. army. As such I was deployed to the Gulf during the first war. Kuwaitis were telling the exact same stories about Iraqi soldiers. While the details would vary the core was always something like this:

(1) Relative was taken by enemy soldiers.

(2) Relative was badly treated by enemy soldiers.

(3) Relative was killed by enemy soldiers.

At first the stories were much like this one. The longer we were there the more they were accepted and the more outrageous they became. Closer to the counter-invasion of Kuwait the story had grown to the point that Iraqi soldiers were raiding a neighborhood, arresting a couple young men, taking them away and torturing them, an officer calling the parents and telling them to gather the family together on Tuesday because they are getting the sons back, the family getting together and throwing a party, and the Iraqis showing up and dumping dead bodies in the middle of the party.

The problem was that not a single one of these stories was verified. None. But every Kuwaiti knew some variation of the story and would swear it to be true. They would find anyone who would listen and tell them this story and another story about Iraqis throwing babies out of incubators (that story got progressively worse as time went along as well). As far as anybody could tell it was pure propaganda.

Not that means this shouldn't be investigated. It must be. As demonstrated above, this has a good possibility of growing into some nasty propaganda and must be countered if at all possible.