August 24, 2006

Pepsi Used to Murder Iraqi Troops? Propaganda Lessons From Iraq

The Iraqi "resistance" is claiming that they used poisoned Pepsi to kill 11 Iraqi "shock troops" near ad-Dulu‘iyah.

It would be very worrying if the report out of Islamist media sources with links to the "resistance" were true, but as far as I can tell, they aren't. I bring you the story only to make a point: the "insurgents" and their Arabic propaganda outlets simply make stuff up.

Here is what a Mafkarat al-Islam reporter claims happened. On Monday, four "resistance" fighters delivered poisoned Pepsi to an outpost of Iraqi troops near ad-Dulu‘iyah. Within five minutes of delivering the Pepsi, all 11 at the outpost were dead.

To make the "resistance" seem more humane, the reporter claims they resorted to the poison Pepsi ruse in order to avoid killing civillians who live close to the outpost. See how that works? The "resistance", which in reality intentionally and routinely murders civilians, are spun as trying to avoid civilian casualties. For instance, today alone, in only one of dozens of such incidents, a car bomb in Mashtal killed five civilians.

The way the reporter "knows" that the 11 Iraqi soldiers really are dead? He claims that ambulances were seen going to the outpost. Yup, must be true.

Other than Arabic Islamist news outlets and English language jihad sites translating them, there are no other reports of this "incident". In fact, the only news about Pepsi in Iraq is that, apparently, the company is doing brisk business--especially in the Shia south.

In addition to this, the "resistance" routinely inflates the number of Coalition casulaties. For instance, today's "resistance report" claims 9 US troops killed in Iraq today.

This kind of nonsense is actually believed in many quarters of the Arab world.

It's one of the reasons that we've found it so hard to pacify Iraq: they actually believe they are winning and that they are the good guys.

US military policymakers should learn this one lesson, if they learn nothing else: a committed enemy only surrenders the fight when they believe they have no chance of winning in the end.

Idealistic notions of not imposing press restrictions because it sends the wrong message are not only naive but dangerous. It is only after you have crushed your enemy that you can even begin to think about rebuilding a more liberal society.

You cannot have free speech in a war zone.