An oldie but a popular one. Previously used by the English (again) about Irish rebels to support killiing them. Others we have used are that the Germans crucified people with bayonets, cut off the breasts of nuns, turned their dead into glue or pig food. During the Soviet-Afghan war (when we were trying to build up a plucky band of rebels called the Taliban), we circulated stories that the Russians were designing mines to look like toys so that Afghan children would kill themselves and US papers ran stories about the Russians deliberately crippling children. And more recently that Gaddhafi was supplying soldiers with viagra so that they could better rape civilians.
But let us not forget the most egregious in recent memory - the testimony before US congressmen of a young Kuwaiti girl detailing how Iraqi soldiers had tipped babies out of incubators. She was later revealed to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador and had seen no such thing. She had been promoted by a PR firm hired by the Kuwaiti government to increase support for them amongst the US public.
Everything old is new again.
