In its main news bulletin on the morning of 30th April, al-Jazeera TV, the most popular of the Arab ultra-nationalist channels, started the news bulletin with the headline that the Iraqi army has invaded al-Nu‘man hospital in the Sunni town of al-A‘damiyyah, has taken control of the hospital and evicted all the patients. In order to support its news item, it took tele-interview of a doctor at the hospital, who claimed that as this was the only hospital that treated the Sunni patients, the army officers told them that they are not entitled to treatment and that they were abducted by the Iraqi army and taken away. Within two minutes the doctor contradicted himself between eviction - driving out the patients - and abduction. Yet, the news-editors of al-Jazeera considered this item as a reliable news item, when no other TV channels bothered to report this cheap diatribe. If this was done in good faith, then somebody representing the Iraqi government should have been interviewed to present their case or make clarification. But only one-sided version was presented, which indicates that the news was nothing but propaganda.
In it main afternoon bulletin, al-Iraqia, the official TV of the Iraqi government, televised the interview of the army personnel in charge of Baghdad security plan, who completely denied that any incident of this type had taken place. He said that the Iraqi army had come under fire by the terrorists in the vicinity of the hospital and that they had to seal off the area. There was no invasion of the hospital or eviction or detention of patients. In fact some terrorists had taken refuge in the hospital.
This means that on the basis of a totally fictitious story, an opportunity for igniting sectarian hatred and provoking the sentiments of the Sunnis against the Shias was not to be missed out.
It was not a coincidence that this week the Washington Post published a report quoting the American army personnel that Maliki is very much biased towards the Shias and has dismissed the Sunni generals in the army and the police, just because they were doing their job of containing al-Mahdi militia. This report was denied on the same day in a joint press conference by the Minister of Interior and Minister of Defence. The Minister of Interior even challenged the accuracy of the report of the Washington Post.
The question arises: Why do the Arab or American papers resort to dirty tactics that are normally employed by the terrorist organisations?
The answer is simple. In the wake of several successive suicide bombings on the Sadr City, causing carnage to civilian life, with hundreds of dead and many hundreds injured, the terrorists of al-Qaeda had succeeded in penetrating the American security barriers, causing the Sadr party in the Iraqi Parliament to accuse the Americans for facilitating acts of terrorism on the innocent civilians. Like the Iranians, the Sadrians from day one opposed unequivocally the occupation of Iraq and have called for the withdrawal of the occupation forces. This demand collides with the interest and weird agenda of the neocons. Hence, the neocons who have done nothing in the interest of the U.S. since coming to power, and who have succeeded only in damaging the U.S. interests with the rest of the world, for the sake of Israel, started a malicious campaign, somehow or other connecting Iranophobia with the phobia of al-Mahdi militia and the Sadrians.
It has been an openly implemented policy of the Takfiri and Saddami gangsters to target civilians in the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf and in Sadr city. As a result, there have been bloodbaths of civilians including babies. But it was not in the political interest of al-Jazeera TV or Washington Post to condemn the massacre of the civilians in the Sadr city, simply because Shias were being killed. But if the Iraqi government took any measure, however little, to kill the terrorists or to suspend the army generals in charge of security in the Sadr City for gross negligence, al-Jazeera and Washington Post made a hue and cry that the Shi'ite government of Maliki was discriminating against the Sunni army personnel and was killing the Sunnis. This explains that there is a consensus of interest between some quarters in Washington and al-Jazeera TV in promoting Shiaphobia in the minds of the Sunnis.
Moreover, people have started to question openly that how was it possible for the heavy explosives to be transported and offloaded at the holy shrine of Askariyyain in Samarra, which according to the Iraqi government spokesmen needed at least twelve hours to implant. What were the Americans in charge of the security of the country doing? There have been many snags in security which have caused loss of thousands of innocent civilians. Recently, the Maliki government has started to say "no" to the American plans. This was a bitter pill to swallow for the neocon arrogants. Hence, they have started their smear campaign against the Maliki government, which perfectly fits in looking for scapegoats to take the blame for their doomed and failed policies in Iraq.
From the early days of the invasion, it was the policy of Donald Rumsfeld to keep the borders of Iraq open for all the penetrators. In one of his interviews he even said that America is going to attract all the terrorists into Iraq and fight them there. Now, as the Congress and Senate are in the control of the Democrats, perhaps they should take the initiative of impeaching the former Defence Secretary for causing the deaths of hundreds of American army personnel and thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians by leaving lax the security of the country, accessible to all criminal and terror gangsters.
It goes without saying that the largest brunt of the civilian atrocities has been borne by the Sadr City. But the monitors of al-Jazeera Arabic TV would have noticed that never would they mention that those killed are Shias. As soon as the terrorists and insurgents are killed in al-A'damiyyah or Ramadi or Falluja, al-Jazeera would not miss the chance of mentioning that Sunnis are killed by the Shia dominated Iraqi police or military or militia.
As far as the Zionist controlled media is concerned, anybody who shares any common grounds with Iran is a "terrorist". Hence, they concur with al-Qaeda in that both are united in promoting Iranophobia and they have all the support they could muster from the ultra-nationalist Arab media.
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