Urban Legends

It's another day in Iraq and a bunch of people are dead again. It never ends in this glorious battle to keep the world free. According to the New York Times, An Iraqi commander states that the combined American and Iraqi forces killed 470 in a battle with a militia group Soldiers of Heaven--either partly or wholly consisting of Shiite members--outside of Najaf this past weekend. He said people, but hopefully, he meant combatants.

But I find spurious the statement from the Iraqi commander that "some of the dead Soldiers of Heaven fighters were found bound together at the ankles and suggested that the chains had probably been used to keep people from fleeing and to keep them moving as one unified group." Well, that's what he said, but it would be very nice to see proof of this statement.

This portrayal suggests a group unmotivated to fight; however, Abdul Hussein Abtan, deputy governor of Hajaf Province, suggested "This group had more capabilities than the government."

It is an old canard: In WWI, Germans were reported as being found chained to machine guns; ditto for the Japanese in WWII; in Korea, it was Chinese, in RVN it was NVA. But never once has there been a photo to verify these allegations.

Urban legends have a half-life longer than that of Iranian uranium.