Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Very Big Lies: Nayirah of Kuwait, Lewinsky, and Syphilis

Here I'll review quickly some of the biggest lies in our recent history,

After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the US Congress listened to a Kuwaiti girl, "Nurse" Naiyrah testifying in front of them. She claimed to have been a volunteer at a Kuwait hospital, and talked about the brutality of Iraqi soldiers and how they dumped Kuwaiti infants out of their incubators. That emotional testimony helped in building domestic support for a military action against Iraq.

Turns out.... she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the US. She was 15. Her name was Naiyrah al-Sabah.
Here's a clip








The Syphilis Study (Tuskegee)
In the 1920s, a group of scientists in Alabama decided to run a medical trial where they observed patients with syphilis and see how they did over a long period of time. A few years after the study started it was discovered that penicillin cured syphilis; however those scientists refused to give the participants in the study, who were all black, any treatment because they wanted to know how much damage will the disease cause them. They even did some additional studies on them (like inserting needles into their backs) telling them that was a treatment for the disease when in reality it was just another test. It took 40 years before all of this was leaked to newspapers in 1972. Twenty-eight people died directly from syphilis and many other suffered complications. Many women passed the infection to their children. In 1997 Bill Clinton formally apologized to whoever suffered from the consequences of this study in a speech attended by some survivors.
This is the New York Times reporting the story in 1972:


Just a few months back, Hillary Clinton mentioned that during her visit to former Yugoslavia in 1992, she was under sniper fire after she landed. A CBS video showed that she was just lying. Here's the short clip:





And of course, the biggest lies of all times, this is embarrassing!


I was hoping to talk about the lies Bush told but there wasn't enough space on this blog. Maybe I'll just have to release a book in six hundred volumes ...

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know Hareega, no one can argue about the brutality of the Iraqi Army before of after the invasion of Kuwait. It's proven over and over, and it was all true. Many atrocities have been committed but what do you expect!? It's an Army! And armies do that wherever they go from the Roman times till modern day Iraq, Army can not coexist with civilians!

As for what the Kuwaitis have done, that is even way worse because they took it all out on unarmed civilians. That is certainly something that can never be forgiven. They decided to show their manhood, against unarmed, defenceless civilians and they continue to think they're the best creatures on the face of this planet! When they're no better than anyone else! They're even worse because they have this condescending attitude towards everyone else which is utterly pathetic!

And yes Palestinians Built Kuwait, they came to it when it was made of mud shacks and look where it is now. Many have lived there ALL their lives and they were denied recognition as citizens.

As for the "lies" of Bill Clinton! I would take Bill's lies ANYDAY over ALL the TRUTHs of 99.9% of all the world leaders!

Anonymous said...

in politics people r lying till proven otherwise right?
and the fact that i am an arab and living in the middle east,makes it easy to believe that fact...we breathe the lies of leaders all our lives.a lie can be as big as an imaginery 'enemy' against whom we launch a war.i can add a few more 'good' lies to ur list but i don't think i should:)

Hareega said...

Qwaider I have no doubt that Iraqis were brutal and abusive when they invaded Kuwait, even if they were the invasion itself was an awful thing to do. However that testimony was a big big lie and it really changed the way many Americans felt about the war.
And I totally agree with you about Clinton, man I don't care if he sleeps with 50 women everyday, as long as my wife isn't one of them, as long as we don't have a clown like Bush in the white house. But just that clip was really classic!

Caroline.. yes e7na benkazzeb el kezeh o bensaddegha, we're used to lies so much that when a politician is honest that makes us puzzled. By the way, do you know the most common lie I've ever made ? PERL,EOMI, mmm on the eye/ENT exam, don't do it !

Tallouza said...

The Kuwaiti imposter was probably thinking that she was doing a heroic patriotic act for her country. I remember this screw up very well. I was truly amazed how little publicity this story got (given the frenzies of American media). I am sure there was a "mama" attempt to cover this up, especially that the PR agency that was handing the whole Kuwait image campaign was behind the whole testimony gaffe. By the way, Kuwait hired a PR agency immediately after the invasion for mega bucks to handle the image of Kuwait and the war media issue.

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Anonymous said...

Um... A big lie???!! My husband is a doctor. He himself witnessed what happened in the maternal hospital during the invasion!!!
Just because the girl who was put in front of the camera was of Alsabah doesn't make her a liar! Does it?
Obviously you are biased and misinformed about the whole Iraqi invasion story!
I wonder why are you so bitter about it?

Anonymous said...

Mud shacks? What do you know about traditional Kuwaiti architecture? It is the idiot Palestenian engineers "not even architects" who demolished our beautiful heritage, our perfect sustainable urban fabric and replaced it with JUNK. buildings that don't relate whatsoever to Kuwaiti culture, weather, etc
It is the idiot Palestinians and Egyptians who created the idiotic bureaucracy that still exists!
It is the Palestinians who aided the Iraqi army during the invasion! After Kuwait has spent billions of dinars to provide housing, free schools and free healthcare for all palestinians!
And you want citizenship?!!

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Quentin said...

Fantastic!