You may have read this story this week:
Car bomb kills 24 children as they mob US patrol offering candy
BAGHDAD (AFP) – Twenty-four Iraqi children were killed by a suicide car bomber targetting US soldiers as they handed out chocolates in a Baghdad neighbourhood they had entered to warn of a possible attack.
Some 20 more children were wounded in the blast, while a US soldier died and three were injured, hospital and US sources said.
“Children gathered round the Americans who were handing out sweets. Suddenly a suicide car bomber drove round from a side street and blew himself up,” Sergeant David Abrams told AFP.
A nearby house was set ablaze by the explosion.
Witness Mohammed Ali Hamza said US forces had gone to the southeastern district of Al-Jedidah to warn residents to stay indoors because of reports of a car bomb in the area.
At the nearby Kindi hospital, hundreds of distraught parents mingled in blood-soaked hallways shouting and screaming as they looked for their children, many of whom were badly mutilated.
“We have received the bodies of 24 children aged between 10 and 13,” said the official in charge of the morgue.
Here’s how the same story using the same sources is reported by Iraqi blogger Raed Jarrar:
Who is more to blame? The Iraqi resistance targeting occupation military soldiers or the coward US army hiding behind Iraqi kids?
[…]
Using kids as human shields is such a shameful US Army policy. It’s one of the worst policies in the illegal occupation that caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis till now.
Raed also links to a post from a milblogger in which the milblogger notes that if he befriends Iraqi children by handing out candy they might be disposed to direct him away from harm as damning evidence.
Note that not only is he alleging that terrorists took the opportunity of the crowd of kids to attack a few American soldiers but that distributing candy to draw a crowd of children is a specific U. S. policy intended to shield the soldiers.
I know the truth of it as I know my countrymen; as I know my neighbors. The fondness of our GI’s for children and their kindness to children is legendary and well-documented. Consider for example the Berlin Airlift Candy Bomber. Or Chief Wiggles’s Operation Give. If anyone can produce a single, documented instance of U. S. troops deliberately using children as shields in any conflict (World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, etc.), I would very much appreciate hearing about it. And claiming that using children as shields is official policy is demented conspiracy-theory clap-trap.
But, unfortunately, it’s more than that. I’m afraid that it also demonstrates the perversity of the society in which Iraqis have been forced to live for more than thirty years. Look at the two ideas expressed in Raed’s post. First, there is no such thing as a spontaneous, decent human impulse of kindness and affection. And, second, no one does anything unless it’s an official government policy. Can any attempt at winning hearts and minds break down that kind of conditioning?
How is directing a soldier away from harm to be equated using children as “human shields?” Raed is saying that soldiers deliberately entice kids to protect them from attack, which obviously isn’t working very well. He has always seemed nostalgic for some other guy who actually employed human shields, even if they didn’t do the shielding voluntarily.
Raed also leaves any similar contempt for the attackers somewhere on the side of the road.