As news broke that Qasem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s nefarious Quds Force, was killed in a U.S. airstrike on Friday morning, The Washington Post sent out a news alert and a tweet hailing the brutal terrorist thug as “Iran’s most revered military leader.”
“Breaking news: Airstrike at Baghdad airport kills Iran’s most revered military leader, Qasem Soleimani, Iraqi state television reports,” the Post tweeted.
Breaking news: Airstrike at Baghdad airport kills Iran’s most revered military leader, Qasem Soleimani, Iraqi state television reports https://t.co/NbZW4DaWvD
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 3, 2020
The Post used the same language in the story.
Washington Post screenshot.
Soleimani led Iran’s Quds Force, the branch of the Islamic Republic’s military responsible for foreign interventions. The Quds Force shored up support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad when he seemed close to defeat in the Syrian Civil War. The force also helped militiamen defeat the Islamic State in Iraq.
The Pentagon confirmed that President Donald Trump gave the order, noting Soleimani’s efforts against the U.S. in particular.
“At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization,” the Pentagon statement read.
“General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more,” the statement continued. “He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months – including the attack on December 27th – culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel.”
That rocket attack, which the U.S. blamed on Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iraqi state-sanctioned militia backed by Iran, killed a U.S. contractor. America responded with airstrikes on Sunday that killed 25 members of the militia.
The Pentagon’s statement also alleged that Soleimani “approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week.” Iran-backed Iraqi militias stormed the embassy on Tuesday before U.S. Marines sent them packing on Wednesday.
“This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world,” the Pentagon statement concluded.
“This is very simple: General Soleimani is dead because he was an evil bastard who murdered Americans,” Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said in a statement.
The Washington Post‘s editorial decision to cast Soleimani as “Iran’s most revered military leader” echoes its notorious article dubbing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State (ISIS), an “austere religious scholar.”
These horrendous attempts to paint radical Islamic terrorists as somehow misunderstood religious leaders — or “revered” political figures — raise the question of what side The Washington Post is on.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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