The tactics of obfuscation

Last week, I wrote a post about the mechanics that go into a suicide bomb. The purpose of the post was to delineate the evil of the bombers, who deliberately pack nails, screws, ball bearings, and pointed metal shards into a vest surrounding the explosives, in order to create as much death and destruction as possible. The conclusion of my post was picked up by Michele Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, and a few other bloggers. In my conclusion, I said:

But even this is not enough for the terrorists. They also soak the shrapnel in rat poison, because it causes hemorrhaging — victims may bleed to death before they can get to the hospital.

Those two words, “rat poison,” set off a firestorm in my comments thread. People rushed to say that there was no need to emphasize the rat poison part, and then came up with several arguments:

1. There is no proof there was rat poison in the bomb shrapnel
2. Even if there was rat poison, it doesn’t matter because the explosion would dissipate it and it would do no damage
3. You shouldn’t mention the rat poison because it hasn’t been proven and it takes focus away from the evil of the suicide bomb

Mind you, the very first comment on that post insisted that the use of rat poison wouldn’t matter because it must be taken for five days to cause hemorrhaging. As I am not a doctor, I chose not to argue the facts of that. I still choose not to argue those facts.

Because that wasn’t my point.

My point was that it wasn’t enough for palestinian terrorists to include nails, screws, nuts, and metal shrapnel in their bombs to do as much damage as possible. My point was that they even tried to include a chemical that, in their opinion, would cause more deaths by increasing the bleeding of the bomb victims.

My point was the vileness of the terrorists’ aims. My point was the horror of the suicide bomb. My point was the depths of moral depravitude these people have reached. My point was not whether or not rat poison would be effective. And yet, that was what dominated the comments, which were filled with people denying that rat poison was included. And so I have a follow-up post that ought to silence even Jack Shafer, who is not a doctor, nor even a very good reporter, since he didn’t supply any information in the articles that were so respectfully quoted in my comments.

Andy over at the Cozy Corner found the article that I remembered, but could not reference. It’s from the Physicians for Human Rights website. This is an organization that has investigated the deaths of palestinian prisoners in Israel. I think we can fairly call it an unbiased organization. And here is the caption of a picture from Shaare Zedek hospital:

Metal nuts removed from a patient after a homicide bombing by doctors at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. The hospital now has a collection of items such as screws, nails and rat poison residue, all added to the explosives presumably to increase the destructive power of the bombs. A PHR physician was present after the March 21st Jerusalem cafe bombing, and witnessed nickel-sized ball-bearings being removed from one injured man’s back by medical center staff.

There’s where your story came from, Jack. Physicians for Human Rights visited Shaare Zedek (the hospital for which we raised thousands of dollars during the Blogathon some years back). Can we move on, now, to the substance of my post? Because that PHR report from 2002 reminded me of something else that the palis used to do during terror attacks: They’d send in a bomber, who would blow himself up. Then, when the emergency services were there to treat the wounded, a second bomber would then detonate himself, murdering rescue workers and more civilians. Because there’s a picture of a young woman who was seriously burned in one of those second bombings, and this caption:

Dr. Sheri Fink posing with teenager Leah Saban, a suicide bombing survivor who passed out refreshments to hospital workers and relatives after the March 21st attack. Saban suffered severe burns in December when a rigged car exploded into flames as she was running to volunteer at the scene of an attack. Despite the fact that she is still undergoing treatment and wears a Jobst pressure garment to protect her skin, she comes to the hospital and volunteers to help others each time an attack occurs in Jerusalem.

Go ahead. Start the debate on how it’s not pertinent to point out how evil a secondary bombing targeting hospital and rescue workers is, that I should stick to the fact that the suicide bombing itself is evil enough and I’m diluting the point.

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

In the meantime, feel free to contribute to Shaare Zedek, a hospital that does a magnificent job saving the lives of suicide bombing victims.

And may I also point out to those of you who like to tell me my facts are wrong: Rarely. Extremely rarely.