Posted on 03/27/2003 8:17:20 PM PST by webber
By Reed Irvine
March 27, 2003
At the Army's daily briefing in Qatar on March 26, a reporter asked Gen. Vincent Brooks what he had to say to the human shields who have gone to Iraq to risk their lives to stop the war. The general missed a great opportunity to tell what two of these "human shields" had recently said about what they learned in Baghdad that caused them to abandon their plans to risk their lives trying to protect innocent Iraqi civilians.
In a dispatch from Amman, Jordan distributed by UPI and published in the Washington Times on March 23, veteran foreign correspondent Arnaud de Borchgrave reported that a group of Americans who had joined a delegation of Japanese "human shields" in Iraq had changed their minds and fled the country with 14 hours of videotaped interviews with Iraqis who hoped the Coalition forces would be their liberators. The spokesman for the group, the Rev. Kenneth Joseph, a pastor of the Assyrian Church of the East, an ancient Christian church which has a substantial membership in the United States, told de Borchgrave that his trip to Iraq "had shocked me back to reality."
He said that his talks with Iraqis convinced him that Saddam is "a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so (the torture masters) could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head." He told de Borchgrave that some of the Iraqis he had interviewed on camera told him they would commit suicide if the American bombing didn't start and that they were willing to see their homes destroyed if it would free them from Saddam's bloody tyranny.
The Rev. Joseph and his group were not the only would-be human shields who changed their minds after hearing what Iraqi civilians had to say about Saddam. Daniel Pepper, a 23-year-old Jewish-American living in London who had traveled in the Middle East as a student and a photographer for Newsweek, went to Iraq on January 25 with a group that intended to serve as human shields to call attention to the anti-war movement. He wrote about his experience in the London Telegraph on March 23.
He said, "The human shields appealed to my anti-war stance, but by the time I had left Baghdad five weeks later my views had changed drastically. I wouldn't say that I was exactly pro-war. No, I am ambivalent, but I have a strong desire to see Saddam removed. I was shocked when I first met a pro-war Iraqi in Baghdad—a taxi driver taking me back to my hotel late at night. I explained that I was American and said, as we shields always did, 'Bush bad, war bad, Iraq good.' He looked at me with an expression of incredulity.
He slowed down and started to speak in broken English about the evils of Saddam's regime. Until then I had only heard the president spoken of with respect, but now this guy was telling me how all of Iraq's oil money went into Saddam's pocket and that if you opposed him politically he would kill your whole family. It scared the hell out of me....I had read reports that Iraqis hated Saddam Hussein, but this was the real thing. Someone had explained it to me face to face....I became increasingly concerned about the way the Iraqi regime was restricting the movement of the shields, so a few days later I left Baghdad for Jordan by taxi with five others."
Safely over the border, they asked the driver what he felt about the regime and the threat of an aerial bombardment. He surprised them, saying,
Pepper concluded his article saying, "Anyone with half a brain must see that Saddam has to be taken out.
"It is extraordinarily ironic that the anti-war protesters are marching to defend a government which stops people from exercising that freedom." Extraordinary indeed.
Next, they'll go to North Korea and be human shields there, until somebody tells them Kim Jong Il is a psychopath.
This is as sure an evil as Saddam in its own way.
Frightening that people are so Willing to be deluded.
Where is this video footage!!!!!
This is the single most important part of the article. The video would back up everything reported by Mr. Pepper. Why hasn't it been copied and shown on the news?
This video would be the perfect bit of factual information to squelch all the pro-Saddam protesters but there has been NO sign of it. This video has to get out. If Mr. Pepper really wants to help the Iraqis, this is the first thing he should do.
What you are saying is that you will believe the Iraq propoganda using videos, making it look like American Forces were killing Iraqi serfs because it's "Video", but will not take the word of a person who once was a "Peacenik" and was shocked to find out the truth and reported this change of opinion. Hmmmm. I wonder if you're really for the war or not.Hmmmm. I wonder if you're really reading my response or not.
Not once did indicate that I believe the Iraq propaganda more than the words of others. In fact I gave no indication of what was driving my perception of this war. For your edification I will do so now.
I believe nothing that is being reported by the Iraq information ministry. I believe the reports from our President and the commanders of the military. Furthermore, I have absolutely no doubt that the Iraqi military is willing, able, and is currently involved in the massacring of its people. And finally I am entirely confident that our military is conducting this war as humanely and honorably as could be possible. As a result I do believe what Mr. Pepper has said. I was aware of the cruelty of the Iraqi regime and the righteousness of our military before Mr. Pepper ever came to that conclusion.And you know what? My opinion is totally irrelevant. I'm just some shmoe typing on a computer. I have also had opinions about the criminality of Clinton, the Horror of Waco, and tyranny of ripping Elian away from his family to confine him to a communist hell-hole. All still irrelevant in comparison to what one, ONE!, verifiable video record of Clinton and Gore betraying us to the Chinese, or Reno's Gestapo murdering innocent children.
Information is a weapon. A weapon that could be used to squelch the Saddam sympathizers in this country and bring a quicker end to this war. Like it or not, film is a very powerful type of information. The anti-Americans in our country that wish to prolong this war and create their own fantasy of an endless quagmire must be defeated. This battle of information must be won and if this video exists it would aid our side immeasurably. To not put this video on display, to not use it to refute the lies in the media, would be a tragic mistake.
If your post was directed at me because you thought I was belittling your article, I wasn’t. I’m simply very eager to see the pleading words of unrestrained Iraqi’s annihilate the lies of our media. As I know they would.
I humbly apologize. I thought you were being cynical, trying to make like this incident never took place because there was no video footage shown on the "major news networks".
webber.
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