Rhinocrisy

1988:

A witness in the trial of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has said her family was “buried alive” by government forces who attacked her village.

She gave evidence as the trial for alleged war crimes and genocide resumed in Baghdad after a two-week break.

1991:

Thousands of Iraqi soldiers, some of them alive and firing their weapons from World War I-style trenches, were buried by plows mounted on Abrams battle tanks. The Abrams flanked the trench lines so that tons of sand from the plows funneled into the trenches. Just behind the tanks, actually straddling the trench line, came Bradleys pumping 7.62mm machine gun bullets into the Iraqi troops.

“I came through right after the lead company,” said Army Col. Anthony Moreno, who commanded the lead brigade during the 1st Mech’s assault. “What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with people’s arms and land things sticking out of them. For all I know, we could have killed thousands.”

A thinner line of trenches on Moreno’s left flank was attacked by the 1st Brigade commanded by Col. Lon Maggart. He estimated his troops buried about 650 Iraqi soldiers. Darkness halted the attack on the Iraqi trench line. By the next day, the 3rd Brigade joined in the grisly innovation. “A lot of people were killed,” said Col. Davhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifid Weisman, the unit commander.

One reason there was no trace of what happened in the Neutral Zone on those two days was that Armored Combat Earth Movers came behind the armored burial brigade, leveling the ground and smoothing away projecting Iraqi arms, legs and equipment.

Fortunately for Messrs. Powell and Schwartzkopf, memory was banned in the Patriot Act. Or was it the 1996 Counterterrorism Bill. Or maybe the Constitution. I don’t remember.

Update: I forgot to mention that my bothering to compose this post is largely the result of my ongoing amusement with Mr. Schwarz’s liveblogging of the memory hole. He was still gracious enough to give us some hot link action. Hi TinyRevolutionaries!

bang.^*

Late update: N. Korea appears to have flunked its test. Maybe less Song of Experience, more the last lines of The Hollow Men. Or, as the news networks delighted in reminding us today, like this.

^*I remember when George Bush was elected and I thought, `well, if we can just drift through the next four years without any major crises, how much harm can he do?’