Falluja & Fallacy

A Twitter friend posted this article by the BBC and to be honest, it ticked me off. "Birth defects 'have risen since US Falluja operation'" reads the title. In it, the BBC (or residents of Falluja - it's hard to tell who's who in the story) seem to insinuate intentionality on the part of the United States for the rise in birth defects in the area since the initial invasion back in 2004.

While the US could easily be responsible for the surge in birth defects in Falluja because of the weapons we used, we most certainly did not intentionally try to cause them. I posted on Twitter that it was the insinuated intentionality of the article that bothered me and, further, that it was making good use of the fallacy of negative proof. To imply that because something cannot be proven false it is automatically true is a terribly poor argument.

So much is left simply left untold. Who was keeping track of the birth defects in Falluja before we showed up? Where are those records now? Whose idea was it to bulldoze all the rubble into the river where people get their drinking water? Far too many variables to even be implying blame, let alone allude to correlation.

I'm willing to admit that I may be reading into this a little much. Also, I tend to get a little defensive of our military since so many people believe our military is primarily made up of Halo-and-porn addicted 22 year olds who would rather not be defending their nation. Sure war is gross and messy, but our troops are not a bunch of morons. And they certainly were not trying to make life more miserable for the children of Falluja or anyone else.