Be Wary of the "Beheaded Babies" Story in Israel

Before the Gulf War, Americans were told Iraqis were killing babies in incubators Kuwait. It was a lie.

As that wise statesman and profound intellect, George W. Bush, once said: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice — you can't get fooled again.”

If only that were true!

Stories this morning from Fox News and the Times of Israel report that an IDF commander claims 40 babies have been murdered, some “beheaded,” by Hamas. I have no doubt there are nasty things happening in Israel. But without additional evidence of atrocity, I am deeply skeptical of the stories I see coming out of the Middle East.

Being skeptical doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you smart.

Yes, there are words for this. Words like “did this actually happen?”

My skepticism is warranted. Americans were told the exact same thing about Iraqi troops killing babies in incubators in hospitals in Kuwait during the first Gulf War. There was even a witness, a girl known only as “Nayirah,” (to protect her identity) who testified before Congress about these acts of brutality. You can watch her testimony below:

There’s just one problem. This supposedly “random” girl from Kuwait was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States, Saud Nasser Al-Sabah. As a Canadian Broadcast Corporation documentary later showed, the entire allegation of war crimes had been a hoax concocted by the Kuwaiti government to drag America into the war.

The entire documentary is below. It is worth a watch.

From my piece on the matter:

The [Canadian Broadcast Corporation] discovered that her real name was Nariyah Al-Sabah—her father was Kuwait’s ambassador to the United States, Saud Nasser Al-Sabah. Both Nasser and Nariyah were members of the Kuwaiti royal family and were part of a coordinated media campaign by the Kuwaiti government to gin up American support for the liberation of Kuwait.

The Sabah family has ruled the small oil-producing kingdom since the late 19th century when Mubarak Al-Sabah murdered his brother and seized power—and brought the small Gulf nation into British orbit. Today, Kuwait is one of the poorest Gulf states and rife with corruption. 

Kuwait, far from being a beacon of democracy, was and is a repressive neo-feudal fiefdom in the hands of a single family. On their behalf, 149 American troops died in the First Gulf War, and U.S. taxpayers spent $116 billion to take this regime from the hands of Saddam Hussein and return it to the Al-Sabah oligarchs. 

This ploy to fool Americans into supporting the war was a slam dunk. More than 30 million Americans saw footage of Nayirah’s testimony and a number of Senators plus the President referenced these atrocities in public speeches defending the American decision to go to war.

Democrats in Congress, meanwhile, worked with the Kuwaitis to hide the real identity of Nayirah Al-Sabah from the Republicans in the Human Rights Caucus who heard her testimony.

The Human Rights Caucus was a prime target for Kuwaiti propaganda. The caucus’ headquarters were located in the office building that Hill and Knowlton owned. In fact, the caucus got a sweetheart deal on rent from the PR firm. U.S. Representative Tom Lantos, a Hungarian immigrant and Holocaust survivor who was the Democratic co-chairman of the caucus, knew Nariyah’s identity but concealed it from his Republican counterpart, Rep. John Porter of Illinois. Lantos and the caucus appeared to benefit financially from Nariyah’s testimony. They later received a $50,000 donation from Hill and Knowlton. 

The Kuwaiti royal family paid $10 million for a PR campaign to bring America into the war. The American taxpayer spent $115 billion to liberate their corrupt fiefdom from Saddam Hussein. That is a 1,000,000% return on investment, for those keeping track at home.

There are some valuable lessons here. The first and most important is that Americans should be incredibly wary of any claims of atrocities that come out of the Israel-Hamas war. There will be a coordinated campaign by both sides to drag America more deeply into this conflict, even though we do not have any national interests at stake. Even photos and video are not evidence of war crimes. Those things can be faked. Moreover, possession of a dead body is not evidence, in itself, that the story told about that body is correct.

Secondly, Americans need to remember just how stupid our leaders really are. These people do not learn from history, they don’t even know it has happened! You could convince a congressman that the sky is neon green if you gave him a big enough campaign donation.

Third, Americans should also keep in mind that the existence of real atrocities does not mean we need to intervene in a conflict. This is very hard to grasp in today’s world of insane liberal moralism but just because people are dying and getting raped on the other side of the world does not mean we need to do anything about it.

Sorry MLK, but injustice somewhere is not a threat to justice everywhere.

The reality is that life is filled with nastiness and violence. Injustice and brutality are an intrinsic part of human life. There is no utopia in this existence. The best we can do is try and minimize the vicious cruelty and rapacious violence in our own communities. The purpose of the American government is to deal with those problems within our own specific social contract. Hamas is infinitely less of a threat to the American people than Mexican drug cartels south of the border. Any politician who talks more about the former than the latter should be assumed to be on the payroll of a foreign entity.

Propaganda is a form of mind control. It is meant to strip the target population of the ability to pause and deliberate before they take action. Propaganda is everywhere in our time. The best strategy is to assume that virtually everyone in power is lying (or at least leaving out critical portions of the truth). When dealing with the media the best advice is to distrust and verify.

In a world of hysterics and liars, it is best to keep a cool head and skeptical spirit.