Ersatz Apocalypto: Slaughter and Spin in the Battle for Najaf
By Chris Floyd
t r u t h o u t | UK Correspondent
Tuesday 06 February 2007
I. Rashomon in Babylon
It has been cast as a ferocious battle against a mighty opponent: a fanatical "apocalyptic cult" storming the holy city of Najaf with hundreds of warriors led by a self-proclaimed Islamic Messiah, their frenzy quelled only at the last moment by a massive intervention of American firepower. But, as with so much else in the blood-soaked annals of the Bush administration's disastrous Babylonian Conquest, it appears this neat story masks a far grimmer, grubbier truth: a mass slaughter of civilians, caught in the toxic fog of hair-trigger tension, sectarian hatred and violent political ambition unleashed by the US invasion.
The January 28 clash in Najaf was, the New York Times proclaimed, the greatest one-day battle in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad in 2003. Some 200-400 "cultists" were killed by Iraqi troops and the American air and ground forces that came to their rescue when the apocalyptics - whose ranks included Baathists and al-Qaeda terrorists - nearly overran the Iraqi government troops, according to the NYT and other Western media.
The "bizarre" and "extraordinary" attack by the obscure but massively armed "Soldiers of Heaven" Shiite splinter group was an attempt to kill the leading clerics in the sacred city, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of millions of Iraqi Shiites, we were told. This massacre would supposedly usher in the reign of the Mahdi, the Islamic Messiah figure whom many Shiites believe is coming to redeem - and judge - the world. For hours on end, the outgunned and ill-trained Iraqi government soldiers held off the swarming zealots until American planes began bombing raids on the cult's entrenched positions in the groves outside Najaf and US troops marched in to bolster the flagging locals.
It was indeed a rousing tale of carnage, courage and fearsome zeal, fit for one of Mel Gibson's cinematic bloodbaths. Yet, in the days following the attack, it has became increasingly apparent that the story being presented in the Western media - based largely on accounts from Iraqi government officials and the Pentagon - has about as much historical accuracy as Gibson's ersatz epics. .....(more)
The rest of the piece is at:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020607R.shtml
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