Orwellian, even to Orwell

Imagine if you will the days leading up to the assault several years ago on Sadr City.

You are general Tommy Franks and Paul Bremer, the administrator of Iraq.

You are prepping President Bush for the assault but you are concerned that Moqtada al Sadr has hidden most of his arms in the mosque and his fighters in homes throughout the city.

You are imagining the world's headlines... "Americans slaughter thousands of innocent civilians..."

Even though you know that these civilians are really militants dressed in civilian garb, and using civilian shields.

So, you use the same type of civilian warning systems that you have in the past.

You leaflet the entire city warning residents to leave and/or take cover.

You broadcast this same message on radio and television.

You announce it over loud speakers.

Than you discover that you have the ability to reach most of the residents by phone.

So, you make more than 500,000 phone calls to residents of the city, warning them that an attack is imminent. That if there are militants hiding among them, to leave their homes, or not allow them to take cover.

During the offensive, you have managed to keep civilian casualties to a shockingly low number.

Oh, the Sadrites leak absurdly inflated numbers, but when the red cross gets into the city, they set the record straight. Civilian casualties have, in fact, been kept to a shocking minimum.

Even after you suffered through the criticism from military experts and your own defense department for revealing your plans to likely collaborators in the city, and anguished over the loss of any civilian lives, you are gratified that the extraordinary effort you engaged in saved thousands of lives.

Then, to your utter disbelief, Amnesty International releases a report declaring that your phone calls of warning, were, in fact, a terrorist act. Designed only to frighten civilians!!!!!

Incredible you say?

Well, it is. This would never happen to the US. But in fact, this is what the Israelis, and the IDF, already the world's most moral army, did to reduce civilian casualties.

And yes, Amnesty International released just such a report. How could they possibly construe things this way?
Anti semitism. Plain and simple. It's time to call it what it is.