Girl of 8 used as 'suicide' bomber - and other tales the corporate media wishes were true.

Girl of 8 used as 'suicide' bomber.

To the average consumer of the corporate-media's wares, headlines such as this serve to assure them of the evil nature of the forces that we are currently confronting. In spite of all our blunders, and in spite of the seemingly complicated issues that surround the War on Terror, here is a clear example of the evil that the Western forces of good are clumsily attempting to counter.

On the other hand, for those of us who have retained the lessons that the Western corporate media have so painfully bestowed on us, particularly the advanced level courses we have been forced to endure over the last seven years, the nature of the above noted headline served to alert us that it was time to carefully inspect the bottom of our shoes.

Unfortunately, the pass rate for the above noted curriculum appears to be dreadfully low, and nowhere does the failure rate seem more abysmal than among those who make up the ranks of the global media system.

The story attached to the above noted headline consists of the following: an eight year old girl was strapped with explosives, she approached an Iraqi army captain at a checkpoint, the explosives were detonated by remote control. The editors ensure that the word suicide appears in quotes, as if to sneeringly confirm to it's consumers that, "yes - you are well acquainted with the type of Islamic scum we're talking about here".

A quick glance of the article in question assures us that the stench emanating from the headline is likely an accurate indicator of the articles content - the first warning sign arises as a result of the timing between the incident and the publication of the story.

While the news is attributed to the Guardian in some articles, the first mention of an eight year old bomber appears in the Metro UK, a free UK daily. The story was captured by Google news around four o'clock in the afternoon London time, or six o'clock in the evening Baghdad time. While there is no mention of what time the incident took place in Baghdad, it is clear that it took place on Wednesday - hours ahead of the publication.

While we can be sure that the crime scene investigators of the coalition forces are getting lots of practice when it comes to bombings - it's difficult to believe that they were really able to determine that the bomb was detonated via remote control from the small pieces of bomb, human flesh, bone, debris, etc., in time for the evening editions.

Of course, the biggest indicator that we are being offered a spoonful of the substance the corporate media has served us so often before is the sources. The sources, in no particular order, consist of the following: an Iraqi Army spokesman, US soldiers, the military, and Iraqi Army Lieutenant Ahmed Ali.

These are the same entities that provide the lions share of information on the day to day occurrences in Iraq and the greater war on terror that is reported by the ever vigilant employees of the corporate media bosses. In much the same way that these employees will drift between stints as journalists, to government PR and corporate PR - their bosses will drift between stints as VP, CEO, or Member of the board, and elected official or political advisor. You see, the employees are very aware of the types of sources that their bosses would approve of -they share an ideology that lends to this perspective - if they didn't, then they would likely never have risen to the positions they hold within the corporate media establishment.

The biggest problem that would have been noted by far too few readers of this story, is its similarity with a story that emerged from the same sources at the beginning of February. In that particular version of the how low can the Islamic scum we're fighting go genre, the media quickly informed us that the terrorists had strapped explosives to two women with Down Syndrome. While it's too early to tell exactly how far this particular tale of Islamic evil will travel, the Down Syndrome suicide bomber version had legs. ABC, MSNBC, the London Times, and thousands of other arms of the media system covered the event. In fact, a Google search of the term will still get you a whole page of accounts describing how the forces of darkness strapped bombs to the women, and persuaded them to blow themselves and 91 to 99 other people up.

There was one small problem with the story, and the problem was apparently so small that it didn't seem to warrant much in the way of retractions - it wasn't true. The credible information that was deemed reliable by the system's editors originally came from one Lt. Gen. Abboud Qanbar, the chief Iraqi military commander in Baghdad, who had determined that "photos of the women's heads showed they had Down syndrome".

It would appear that today's 8 year old suicide bomber story suffers from the same deficiency as its Down Syndrome kin. The details of the story have been quietly morphing as the day has progressed: the 8 year old girl turned into a 16 year old girl whose bomb was detonated by remote control. Now it would appear that the girl is aging quickly, now between 16 and 18, and it would also appear that there was no remote control, and the stories are beginning to drop the info on the original error altogether - so just another crazy suicide bomber blowing herself up to hook up with the 72 virgins and..... hmm, that doesn't seem to work - oh well.

While a little digging at the muck that has once again been deposited at our feet reveals the truth, you can rest assured that the headlines will not scream out Suicide bomber NOT 8 year old girl - millions of corporate media consumers will never see a retraction, or make the connection when they see the revised story. They will simply go through life believing that those individuals in Iraq who resist foreign occupation, and sometimes are willing to sacrifice there own lives to that end, strap remote controlled bombs to 8 year old girls.

In ending, a response to those who would excuse stories such as those above as being understandable errors based on information from reliable sources. If the Iraqi army and government officials constitute reliable sources, then I would ask you to examine the events that occurred in the village of Ishaqi in March 2006. These events did not scream across the pages of the corporate press, in this case the words of Iraqi police and government officials were never enough for the corporate media's consumers to hear of it - but unlike this case, questions remain, and silence persists.