Syrian soldiers plant weapons on protestors they have killed.

From Hot Air:

Syria claims that a number of its security forces have been murdered by “terrorists” in the last few weeks, as uprisings in the country against the Bashar Assad regime may have claimed more than 1200 lives … New video from Syria calls into question the reliability of claims by Assad’s regime of “terrorism,” as CNN reports in this video …

Videos newly posted on YouTube show what Syrian opposition activists say is the gruesome slaughter of civilians in the besieged city of Daraa who had tried to feed people during a recent uprising. …

Throughout the uprising in Syria, the Syrian government has described protesters as “armed criminals” and “terrorists,” at times saying photos prove that the “criminals” were armed when security forces shot them.

[In the video] one gets [an] idea of the attempt to plant weapons on the corpses, which all appear to have been shot at close range on the rooftop. Note that no soldiers are among the dead, nor do any appear to be wounded; it looks as though the men were crowded together and then executed. This video contains extremely graphic and disturbing images…

This massacre happened in Daraa last month. In the clip, a number of civilians are shot to death while they were trying to get some food to the people Daraa, a city which has been besieged by the regime since the beginning of the revolution. Bashar al-Assad’s Forces cold-bloodedly killed them and then put weapons on the victims to fool the media by giving the impression that the victims were terrorists.

But of course they would never try to fool the media – and the media would never be fooled – by  staged scenes of “unprovoked” Israelis shooting Palestinian protestors trying to cross the border between Syria and Israel.*

The soldiers stop the videographer while they continue to place weapons on the corpses. After the video resumes, the same soldiers then encourage the videographer to film the weapons placed on the bodies. It’s obviously a crude attempt to transform an execution into a defensive engagement. …

So much for Assad the reformer [as Hillary Clinton says he is – JB].

* Go here to read a report that Assad had Palestinians paid to do this.

The scariest part comes in the last third.

The revolutions in the Arab states of North Africa have not been a success by any definition. Want is spreading: there could be mass starvation. Refugees are scattering eastward and northward by the hundreds of thousands.

As the disaster deepens, Italy has begun to feel the effect. Turkey is bracing for it.

Years of corruption are bringing their ineluctable results with the devastating force of an economic tornado.

Spengler writes at the Asian Times online:

I’ve been warning for months that Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and other Arab oil-importing countries face a total economic meltdown … Now the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has confirmed my warnings.

The IMF, remember, is a socialist institution whose prosperity-destroying work is to redistribute wealth globally.

The leaders of the industrial nations waited until last weekend’s Group of Eight (G-8) summit to respond, and … President Barack Obama proposed what sounds like a massive aid program but probably consists mainly of refurbishing old programs.

The egg has splattered, and all of Obumpty’s horses and men can’t mend it. Even the G-8’s announcement was fumbled; Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper refused to commit new money …

Stephen Harper is one of the very few principled leaders in the world at present.

The numbers thrown out by the IMF are stupefying. “In the current baseline scenario,” wrote the IMF on May 27, “the external financing needs of the region’s oil importers is projected to exceed $160 billion during 2011-13.” That’s almost three years’ worth of Egypt’s total annual imports as of 2010. As of 2010, the combined current account deficit (that is, external financing needs) of Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Morocco and Tunisia was about $15 billion a year.

What the IMF says, in effect, is that the oil-poor Arab economies – especially Egypt – are not only broke, but dysfunctional, incapable of earning more than a small fraction of their import bill. The disappearance of tourism is an important part of the problem, but shortages of fuel and other essentials have had cascading effects throughout these economies.

“In the next 18 months,” the IMF added, “a greater part of these financing needs will need to be met from the international community because of more cautious market sentiments during the uncertain transition.”

Translation: private investors aren’t stupid enough to throw money down a Middle Eastern rat-hole, and now that the revolutionary government has decided to make a horrible example of deposed president Hosni Mubarak, anyone who made any money under his regime is cutting and running. At its May 29 auction of treasury bills, Egypt paid about 12% for short-term money, to its own captive banking system. Its budget deficit in the next fiscal year, the government says, will exceed $30 billion.

And the IMF’s $160 billion number is only “external financing”; that is, maintaining imports into a busted economy. It doesn’t do a thing to repair busted economies that import half their caloric intake, as do the oil-poor Arab nations.

Egypt’s economy is in free fall. …

Of course, the IMF’s admission that Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and Yemen can’t meet the majority of their import bill without foreign aid does not increase the probability that these countries will obtain financing on that scale. On May 30, the IMF announced that it would lend $3 billion to Egypt – a tenth of its budget deficit – sometime in June. The G-8 offered the grandiose pledge of $20 billion in their own money along with $20 billion from the IMF, World Bank, and so forth, to support the “Arab Spring”, with the dissension of the Canadian prime minister. But it is unclear whether that represents new money, or a shuffling of existing aid commitments, or nothing whatever.

Whatever the Group of Eight actually had in mind, the proposed aid package for the misnomered Arab Spring has already become a punching bag for opposition budget-cutters.

As it must and should.

One American politician asking the right questions is Sarah Palin:

“Should we be borrowing money from China to turn around and give it to the Muslim Brotherhood?” Sarah Palin asked on May 27. “Now, given that Egypt has a history of corruption when it comes to utilizing American aid, it is doubtful that the money will really help needy Egyptian people. Couple that with the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is organized to have a real shot at taking control of Egypt’s government, and one has to ask why we would send money (that we don’t have) into unknown Egyptian hands.” …

Last month, rice disappeared from public storehouses amid press reports that official food distribution organizations were selling the grain by the container on the overseas market. Last week, diesel fuel was the scarce commodity, with 24-hour queues forming around gasoline stations. Foreign tankers were waiting at Port Said on the Suez Canal to pump diesel oil from storage facilities, as government officials sold the scarce commodity for cash. …

Syria is also vulnerable to hunger, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned May 23. “Continuing unrest in Syria will not only affect economic growth but could disrupt food distribution channels leading to severe localized shortages in main markets,” according to the FAO. ”Syria hosts one of the largest urban refugee populations in the world, including nearly one million Iraqis who have become more vulnerable because of rising food and fuel prices.”

Nearly 700,000 Libyan refugees have reached Egypt, fleeing their country’s civil war. At least 30,000 Tunisian refugees (and likely many more) have overwhelmed camps in Italy, and perhaps a tenth of that number have drowned in the attempt to reach Europe. A large but unknown number of Syrian refugees have fled to Lebanon and Turkey. …

Turkey fears a mass influx of Syrian Kurdish refugees, so that “Turkish generals have thus prepared an operation that would send several battalions of Turkish troops into Syria itself to carve out a ‘safe area’ for Syrian refugees inside Assad’s caliphate.” The borders of the affected nations have begun to dissolve along with their economies.

It will get worse fast.

An attempt to assassinate the Iranian president Ahmadinejad today unfortunately failed.

A large explosion set fire to an oil refinery unit in Abadan, Iran’s biggest oil city, during a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Tuesday, May 24. He came to inaugurate a unit for expanding production capacity by 4.2 million liters a day. Two people were killed and 12 injured. … The explosion was triggered by his pushing the button to activate that same unit, which must have been tested and run in before the inauguration ceremony to avoid any technical hitches.

A news conference was quickly staged live on state TV showing him answering questions about the Abadan refinery – apparently to put a stop to spreading rumors that he had been assassinated. He did not refer to the explosion.

No one knows who was behind the plot. Whoever it was deserves congratulations for trying and encouragement to try again.

A foreign clandestine agency may be responsible, possibly the same unnamed hand which for two years has bedeviled Iran’s nuclear program by liquidating its leading scientists and planting the Stuxnet virus in its computer control systems.

For those who have a taste for satire, here are extracts from a good one by Daniel Greenfield. It needs to be read in full. For all its bitter slant, it tells the truth clear as a trumpet blast.

We need a terrorist state. Where the politicians are terrorists, the police are terrorists and even the men sitting at the desk when you come in to drop off a form are terrorists. There are states that support terrorists, and give safe harbor to them, but that’s not good enough. We don’t want another Pakistan or Iran. We’re not half-assing it this time. What we want is the genuine article. Terrorists from the top down. Terrorists everywhere. A state where every branch of government and the entire country is nothing but terrorists.

Terroristine has been an ancient dream since 1973 or was it 1967. A generation of keffiyah draped thugs, KGB operatives and human rights activists have looked out into the darkness and called it into being. It is a vision of a country where everyone is a murderer and children are taught from a very young age that their purpose in life is to die killing people who don’t share their religion and way of life.

And now after 20 years of negotiations, treaties, suicide bombings, mutilations, billions of dollars in vanishing into Swiss bank accounts and the death of its Egyptian born leader [Yasser Arafat] of AIDS — Terroristine is closer than ever to coming into being. …

The question is can we make it happen? Yes, we can. Oh sweet Allah, yes we can.

I am proud of Obama for finally standing up to the Israelis and telling them that they must ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of Jews, from their ancient towns, villages and cities, to make way for Terroristine. Someone had to say it. And it was either going to be Carter or Obama.

By endorsing the 1967 borders, he endorsed the outcome of the Arab invasion of Israel in 1948. Every time his administration condemns a Jewish house in Jerusalem, he endorses the Jordanian conquest of the city. Why are the borders of the 1948 war so much better than the borders of the Six Day War? Because the Terroristinians came closer to winning that war. Came closer to driving the Yahood [Jews] into the sea and ululating over mile after mile of their corpses.

But the dream failed. Farmers armed with outdated rifles. Volunteer pilots from America and Canada. Refitted cargo ships filled with half-dead men, women and children straight from the camps. Used Czech artillery. They held off the armies of seven Terroristinian nations. Farm by farm, they stood off tanks and infantry. In Jerusalem, they fought for every house. And so the Zionist entity survived. Allah curse them. They survived.

But now it’s back to 1948 again. Every war undone. Every defeat turned to victory. Cut Jerusalem in two. Drive out the farmers. Burn their land. Dig up their graves. March the borders back to 1948. And fly the Terroristinian flag over dust and rubble.

Had they won in 1948 or 1967 or 1973, there would be no Israel and no Terroristine. The land would have become part of Syria, Egypt and Jordan. … But now there is hope for a two state solution. A state of civilization on one side and a state of terrorists on the other. Hospitals here, launching pads there. Schools here, bomb factories there. Life here, death here. …

Why do we need Terroristine? Peace. There can be no peace without a terrorist state. Not a chance of it. The only way we’ll ever have peace is to give the terrorists a country of their own. A country dedicated to terrorism. Only then will the Terroristinians finally give up on all the killing, and dedicate themselves to medical research, quantum physics and the arts. It hasn’t happened yet to. But it’s bound to. …

Would Kaddafi or Assad be killing protesters in the streets if there was a Terroristinian state? Would there be turmoil in Tunisia or Egypt? Would Saudi tanks be rolling over Shiites and Coptic churches burning if there was a Terroristine? Assuredly not. The moment the flag of Terroristine rises above the wounded hills, and its peaceful anthem, “Palestine is My Revenge” is heard in the land, then a great echoing sigh will rise up from the mouths of one billion Muslims. And the violence will cease.

The international community is impatient. Damn impatient. They want Terroristine and they want it now. The negotiations must lead to immediate productive results. Whatever Israel has offered in the past, it isn’t enough. It must offer more and more. Whatever it takes. …

Have any people suffered the way the Terroristinians have? … Have any other people been wholly subsidized by a UN agency dedicated only to them? Have any other people inspired such a stylish fashion statement?

No more excuses. The world demands Terroristine. Middle East peace demands Terroristine. How much longer can Israel expect to draw out negotiations with weak justifications about terrorism. We know they’re terrorists. That’s why we’re giving them a state. …

Yallah. One day the borders of Terroristine will stretch from Spain to Pakistan. Or beyond Why settle for Jerusalem, when we can have London, Paris and Hamburg too. Why settle for anything at all? Allah is generous to the believers. Our people are in Africa. Even China. The Great Satan himself bows toward Mecca. The old governments are falling. The Arab Spring is here. The pawns of the Kufir are fleeing before our eyes. We are all Terroristinians now. There is no other book on our shelves than the Koran. No law but Sharia in our hearts. And no nation but Terroristine. …

Reforming, Syrian-style: on the orders of the Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad – whom Hillary Clinton calls a “reformer” – a tank squashes a citizen (or two).

An apparent appetite among Arab peoples, especially the young, for cell phones, iPods, lap-top computers, and all that Facebook and Google could do for them – including organizing a revolution – encouraged the hope in the West (we were tempted by it ourselves) that they wanted to enter the 21st century and leave the 7th century, which gave birth to Islam, behind them forever. This was the way the thinking went: If  they understand the political conditions that produce the technological marvels – democracy, freedom, secularism, tolerance, universal literacy and the emancipation of women – they will strive to make them the conditions of their own countries; form parties that stand for them as principles; vote those parties into power; and so transform their backward polities to match the American model. Perhaps in the very long term that might happen, but it is not happening now. The “revolutions” in the North African Muslim states are likely to bring puritan Islamic parties into power. There will be no democracy, no freedom, no secularism, no tolerance, women will remain subjugated and predominantly illliterate. The 7th century is where the revolutionaries feel comfortable. They are still keenly pursuing the old Islamic mission, “kill the infidel”, kill every Christian, every Jew, with even greater passion and ever swelling clamor.

What then of the marvelous electronic gadgets and their apps that come from America? What of Facebook and Google?

Well, they’re using Facebook to organize massive demonstrations at which they’re renewing their commitment to the old barbaric 7th century aims, first and foremost to kill the infidel, every Christian, every Jew.

Barry Rubin writes:

Repeatedly we were told about the alleged absence of anti-Israel rhetoric and signs in Tahrir square during the revolution. I don’t think it was true then. I certainly don’t think it is true now.

So check out the massive anti-Israel demonstrations in Cairo today. …

Supposedly the rally was to protest sectarian violence within Egypt but it turned into one favoring more sectarian violence next door. The main focus became supporting the Hamas-Fatah coalition agreement and calling for Israel’s extinction…

Remember all of those articles and statements about how the revolution was good for Israel if only those silly Israelis woke up and understand reality as understood in Berkeley and the Upper West Side of Manhattan?

Oh, and guess how the demonstration was largely organized. Ready? On Facebook! Hahaha. Those youthful hip twittering moderate young people!

Also notice how this is all happening before elections install a radical, nationalist, anti-Israel, anti-American president and a parliament dominated by revolutionary Islamist anti-American antisemites.

If the 21st century – aka the United States – would seriously engage 7th century Islam with all the intellectual, economic, and military strength it has, the menace could easily be defeated. But the US will not do it. Not now, anyway, because the present US government, shockingly led by Barack Obama, likes Islam and wants to it to triumph. The pretense is that Islam is a force for good. Muslims that are too obviously indefensible – such as Osama bin Laden – can be sacrificed to American public opinion since they’re “not truly representative of Islam”.

So when Obama is replaced by a leader who is pro-America, will the necessary action be taken?

The alarming reply must be “probably not”.

Post Script: On the theme of 7th century barbarians using 21st century technology, see this article titled Taliban Uses Social Media to Usher In a New Era of Jihad.

How bleak and sad life is for the religious, especially for Muslims, and most miserably for their women and children.

Osama bin Laden was a rich man. Phyllis Chesler tells how he kept his wives and children in want, hunger, discomfort, and deliberate joylessness.

While he still lived in Saudi Arabia, before he had to flee to Sudan and thereafter to Afghanistan, [Osama bin Laden] condemned his wives and children to lives of physical, medical, and psychological hardship. …

He insisted on an increasingly spartan existence as a matter of ideology …

Here is what Omar bin Laden has written about his life with his father Osama:

“There were absurd rules regarding our conduct. ..  We were told that we must not become excited at any situation. We should be serious about everything. We were not allowed to tell jokes. We were ordered not to express joy over anything. He did say that he would allow us to smile so long as we did not laugh. If we were to lose control of our emotions and bark a laugh, we must be careful not to expose our eyeteeth. I have been in situations where my father actually counted the exposed teeth, reprimanding his sons on the number their merriment had revealed.”

According to Omar, his father … “caned” him and his brothers “for the slightest infraction.” Osama… deprived his sons of their much needed asthma medication … He force marched them without water for hours and in the desert. In addition, he allowed his sons to be brutalized by sadistic teachers. He refused to give his sons “pocket money” for “school snacks.” He told them, Omar writes:

“‘No. You need to suffer. Hunger pangs will not hurt you.’ … Our father appeared to relish seeing us suffer, reminding us that it was good for us to know what it felt like to be hungry or thirsty, to do without while others had plenty. Why? He said that we would end up being the stronger. Those with plenty would grow up weak men, unable to defend themselves.” …

Omar and his brothers all learned that they would have to endure paternal cruelty and humiliation and that their tender and sympathetic mothers would not and could not intercede on their behalf. Osama bin Laden’s wives, especially Najwa, Omar’s mother, are portrayed as … submissive, uncomplaining, very religious, quite passive. Najwa gave up her desire to decorate her home, which was, essentially, her prison. … She never uttered a single complaint—not even when she was deprived of most conveniences and normal amenities. Omar writes:

“Although we lived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which is one of the hottest and most humid cities in a country that is known for its hot climate, my father would not allow my mother to turn on the air-conditioning that the contractor had built into the apartment building. Neither would he allow her to use the refrigerator that was standing in the kitchen. My father announced, ‘Islamic beliefs are corrupted by modernization.’”

Yet “he himself had fast cars, fast planes … weaponry too.”

Although he has every reason to hate his father, Omar bin Laden is complaining that the cruel old man did not receive justice.

What would be justice for a man who has killed thousands of people? He has only two eyes to give for thousands of eyes, only one mouthful of teeth for thousands of teeth. He cannot be made to choose between death by fire or leaping from a height, or to choke in smoke, or to crash to the ground in a plane, thousands of times over.

Besides, justice has no place in war. War happens when law and all civil norms have broken down. Osama bin Laden made war on the United States, so American warriors hunted him down and shot him dead. He deserved worse.

It is human nature to be selfish. If we weren’t selfish we wouldn’t survive. If we didn’t eat when we were hungry, warm ourselves when we were cold, seek cures for our illnesses, defend ourselves (and our children and our life-sustaining property), we’d die out pretty damn quick. Or rather, we would never have come into existence as a species at all.

We are most of us capable of sympathy with others, and we often willingly give away a thing we own to another person. Some are altruistic. A few will even give up their lives to save the lives of others. Nevertheless, we are all naturally and necessarily selfish.

Christianity and Communism require human nature to change. As it can’t, Christianity’s commandments to love our enemies and forgive those who do us harm turn many a person of good will and high aspiration into a hypocrite if not a corpse. Communist theorists have never settled the question of whether human nature must change so that the Revolution can take place, or whether the Revolution must take place in order for human nature to change. Of course it will never change, but there’s no stopping the collectivist dolts arguing about it.

Capitalism works well because it is in tune with our nature. Adam Smith called it “the natural order of liberty”. Everyone selfishly desires to provide for his needs. To pay for what he wants from others – services and goods – he has to provide something that others will pay him for. Millions do it, and the result is prosperity. Capitalism is an abstract machine most beautiful to behold in the wonder of its workings. When individuals have the incentive to achieve, acquire, and enjoy something for themselves, they’ll go to great lengths to afford it. They’ll compete with each other to provide what others want, toil to make it the better product, and set the price of it lower. The best is made available at the least cost. Everyone is both a taker and a giver, and everyone benefits. True, not everyone’s effort always succeeds, but nothing stops anyone from trying again.

Of course capitalism isn’t a remedy for every ill and discontent. But a capitalist society offers the best chance to an individual to make the best of his condition – being alive – which presents him with a tough challenge – to stay alive for a few score years, and make those years as good as his energy, cunning, and adaptability to conditions outside of his control (plus his statistically likely share of luck), can help them to be.

In a capitalist society no one has a fixed place, whether below, in the middle, or on top. A person can rise, sink, or stay. A truly capitalist society is necessarily a free society in which no one is prevented, by some ruler or ruling clique, from bettering his lot, striving, succeeding, or failing.

Capitalism is the enemy of that God of whom all the children in the British Empire used to sing at morning prayers in school assemblies before the Second World War:

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small;

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,

Each little bird that sings,

He made their glowing colors,

He made their tiny wings.

The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

He made them high and lowly,

He ordered their estate.

The children were being taught to be content with everything as it was, trusting that God the ruler up there, all wise, permanent and unchallengeable had ordained how everyone had his fixed place and should stay in it, and because He had ordained it, it must be perfect. The recognition that such a God was an indefensible authoritarian, a whim-driven cosmic dictator, an unjust and arrogant tyrant, came – perhaps unconsciously – to the choosers of Anglican hymns only after a few of the earth’s dictators had been trounced in a prolonged and terrible blood-letting.

But then Socialists took over from God. They decided what was best for humanity. They established the Welfare State. No rich men in castles, no poor men at gates. The State would provide every citizen with depressing accommodation, dull food, health care if he were judged worthy of being kept alive, indoctrination in schools. Though the Socialist State is a slave society, the citizens are not called slaves but Social Security Recipients, National Health Patients, Students, Workers. The belief of their rulers is that they’ll be content because the State provides them with “everything”; they’ll be grateful for the food however poor, the unit in the tower block however depressing, the bed in the hospital however filthy, the indoctrination however boring. The great thing about it, to the collectivist mind, is they won’t have to strive to keep alive. And no one will have cause to pity or envy anyone else, since no one will have less or worse, or more or better – except of course the rulers up there, all wise, permanent and unchallengeable who ordain that everyone else has his fixed place. They reserve plenty, choice, comfort, luxury, information, and power to themselves.

The recognition that such a State is counter to the human instinct for freedom – call it “selfishness “ if you will – should have come to every sane adult the world over when the Soviet Empire crashed. The idea of Socialism should have died then. But if it did, it was only for a short time. Like the Christian God, it rose again, and lives now in the White House, an administration indefensibly authoritarian, whim-driven, unjust, and arrogant.

Selfish human nature with its instinct for liberty, its impelling desire to possess what is good for it materially and mentally, is the force that can and must defeat it.

Jillian Becker   April 29, 2011

Did Iran order a massacre in Iraq, and did America let it happen?

Earlier this month, on April 8, Iraqi forces raided an Iranian refugee camp. Thirty-four Iranians were killed and some 325 were wounded.

It was done under orders from Prime Minister Maliki.

Prime Minister Maliki was acting under orders from the Iranian regime.

And it looks as if the US government was complicit in the atrocity.

But surely not! Let’s recall what Obama said at a joint press conference with Maliki in the Rose Garden on July 22, 2009:

Prime Minister Maliki and I have no doubt that there will be some tough days ahead. There will be attacks on Iraqi security forces and the American troops supporting them. There are still those in Iraq who would murder innocent men, women and children…. But make no mistake: Those efforts will fail. …

American troops have the capability, the support and flexibility they need to stand with our Iraqi partners on behalf of a sovereign, secure, and self-reliant Iraq. Because we believe that the future does not belong to those who would destroy — it belongs to those who would build.

What happened at Camp Ashraf?

The April 8 raid targeted the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, which seeks to overthrow Iran’s clerical leaders. The group won refuge at Camp Ashraf years ago during the regime of Saddam Hussein, who saw them as a convenient ally against Iran. But since then, the exiles have become an irritant to Iraq’s new Shiite-led government, which is trying to bolster ties with Iran. …

A team of U.N. observers saw 28 bodies still at the camp during a Wednesday visit to the compound in eastern Diyala province. Most of the bodies appeared to have been shot and some were women, he said. Three of the bodies appeared to have been crushed to death, a Western diplomat in Baghdad said — likely from being run over by a car. …

After Saddam fell, U.S. troops took control of Camp Ashraf, disarmed its fighters and confined the resident to their 30-square-mile camp. In return, the military signed an agreement with the camp’s 3,400 residents giving them protected status under the Geneva Conventions. …

Where was the US military while the massacre was being perpetrated?

The U.S. military says Ashraf residents’ protected status expired in late 2008 when Baghdad and Washington signed a security agreement that limited U.S. authority in Iraq.

The Ashraf residents and their lawyers in Washington dispute that, and demand that the American military continue to protect them and intervene on their behalf with the Iraqi government.

What about other protections for refugees under the Geneva Conventions? Has the Red Cross anything to say about the massacre?

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, which oversees whether nations are complying with the Geneva treaties, has declined to make a public pronouncement on the issue.

Melanie Phillips writes at the Spectator:

According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the Iraqi Army used 2,500 troops equipped with armoured vehicles to attack Ashraf in tandem with the feared al Qods force of Iran.  … The terrorist Qods Force … was involved at its highest level in the planning and the execution of this assault. In particular, Brigadier General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Qods Force, personally supervised the planning of this attack on Ashraf…. Some of the officers of the Qods Force were present at the scene of the attack in Ashraf and took part in the killing of Ashraf residents. …

There are strong fears that the Iraqis are preparing to inflict further violence on the residents of Ashraf — and no less disturbing, claims that both the Iraqis and the Americans have been either actively preventing or doing nothing to provide medical aid for those injured in the attack. …

The actions of Nouri Al-Maliki, who has long made clear his allegiances to Iran’s theocratic leadership, should have surprised few. What is so shocking is the relative silence of the US government. It is hard to believe that they did not know what was about to happen at Ashraf. They did nothing to try to stop it happening. Worst of all, their silence and inaction has made it almost certain that it will happen again. It can be no coincidence that US forces stationed within the Camp withdrew just hours before the Iraqi onslaught began.

Furthermore, top US government official Robert Gates was in Baghdad and met Al-Maliki hours before the attack began, just as he was in Iraq in July 2009 when the other major offensive was conducted against Ashraf by the Iraqi forces. Mr Gates should be brought to account, and tell us what his knowledge was of the recent outrage, and how he proposes to deal with what occurred.

In addition, he should give a truthful account of why US medical aid, which was readily available, was not in Ashraf within minutes of the Iraqi attack, despite requests.

Simply put, the US forces if they so wished and were so ordered to do from their command in Washington and Baghdad could at the flick of a switch airlift all the wounded to the US military hospital situated in the vicinity of the Camp. This now is the minimum that the US authorities must do. However, such assistance will not suffice in circumstances where the Iraqi authorities have made clear their intention to destroy the Camp and if necessary kill all the residents. …

There has been no official condemnation of the raid from either the British or American Governments. Melanie Phillips asks:

Could this be because the last thing the British and Americans want to acknowledge is that the Iraqi government of Nuri al Maliki – the country in which so much British and American blood and treasure has been so painfully spent in the cause of making it safe for the West — has merely become a puppet of the Iranians, the West’s most lethal foe?

We were for the war on Iraq, though we never thought that Iraq or any Arab state could be transformed into a true democracy.

But who could have foretold such an outcome of the intervention as an Iraq subservient to the evil Iranian regime?

If that is how it is, it means that Americans fought and died only to extend the power of their worst enemy.