The Silence Of The Wingnuts

NEW YORK The Washington Post's veteran Baghdad correspondent Ellen Knickmeyer reveals Monday that the woman allegedly raped, killed and then burned by U.S. troops in Iraq in March was only 15 years old, and her name was Abeer Qasim Hamza.

Soldiers had apparently made advances toward the attractive teen in the days before she was killed in Mahmudiyah. Her mother felt the soldiers might come to seize her during the night, and she planned to let her sleep at a neighbor's house.

But attackers came to the girl's house the next day. After the rape, the attackers allegedly shot four family members -- Knickmeyer identifies one of them as Abeer's sister, age 7 -- and tried to set Abeer's body on fire, according to, among others, the mayor of Mahmudiyah and a hospital administrator.

Not a dicky-bird from Johnson or his partner Simon on this. Or anywhere on Pajamas Media. See, if a Muslim didn't do it, it really isn't that bad. Well, it's kind of bad, but Freedom Is On The March and Abeer probably was kinda slutty.

UPDATE: Via Digby, a link to this article, on topic:

• Americans who get their propaganda from Fox "News" or are told what to think by right-wing talk radio hosts are outraged at news reports that U.S. troops planned and carried out the rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman. They are not outraged that the troops committed the deed; they are outraged that the media reported it. These "conservatives," who proudly wear their patriotism on their sleeves, dismiss the reports of the incident as a Big Lie floated by "the anti-American liberal media" in order to demoralize Americans and reduce public support for the war.
• Playing to this audience, Col. Jeffrey Snow, a U.S. brigade commander in Baghdad, told AFP News that news coverage could cause the U.S. to lose the war. In other words, what we are doing in Iraq cannot stand the light of day, so reporters must not report or the word will get out.
  

Read the rest here.