Inspect Iraq, Don't Attack
We are watching an outrage.
The most powerful nation on the planet, a nation of 250 million people that has spent over $19 trillion on its military since 1945, a nation with thousands of nuclear weapons and chemical weapons is now threatening a small, impoverished nation of 20 million people with an outright invasion in the name of "self defense."
They don't want to call it an invasion or occupation. Instead, they couch their terms in Orwellian propaganda. Invasion becomes "self-defense" and occupation becomes "liberation."
Dropping tens of thousands of tons of bombs on a defenseless country is called "fighting terrorism" and "restoring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people."
The Bush Administration has tried to portray itself as the friend of the Iraqi people, "Our problem is with Saddam" Bush Sr. tells us. We only need to look back at the first Gulf War to see what's in store for the Iraqi people.
On January 15, 1991, the United States government unleashed the air war against Iraq. Using every conceivable weapon in their arsenal, including chemical munitions and weapons banned by the Geneva Convention, the U.S. began a methodical campaign to obliterate Iraq's entire civilian infrastructure.
While General Norman Schwarzkopf spoke of the need "to demonstrate to the world that this is not a war against the Iraqi people," coalition jets and bombers were attacking bridges and food warehouses.
They bombed grain silos and power stations. They destroyed every water treatment plant in the country. They attacked buses and refugee convoys.
Cluster bombs, spewing razor shrapnel, were dropped along congested highways. So wanton was the destruction that the victims included Red Cross workers, UN delegates, Egyptians, Jordanians, and U.S. troops among countless others. Thousands of Kuwaiti refugees still remain unaccounted for, most likely killed in the bombing.
Napalm was used extensively, burning thousands of Iraqis to death. At least a dozen fuel-air explosives were dropped -- mini-nukes as the Pentagon warhogs refer to them.
Using fuel-air explosives is a violation of international law because it is truly a weapon of mass destruction -- a weapon that sucks the lungs out of its victims and crushes their bodies under the intense pressure. The victims are often found with their eyes popped out. Many are incinerated to death
The damage to Iraq's infrastructure was as staggering as it was illegal. 676 schools were either damaged or destroyed in the bombing. At least six hospitals were completely demolished. 56 mosques were struck.
Moustanserya University was attacked. Seven textile factories were badly damaged, along with five engineering plants, five construction facilities, and eight dams. Evidently, no target was off limits.
On February 13, a Stealth bomber carried out a "pinpoint" attack on civilian bomb shelter, incinerating at least four hundred women and children. They joined the other tens of thousands of civilians who were killed, injured or maimed during the air war. But the worst was yet to come.
According to a UN inspection team, Iraq had been reduced to a "pre-industrial age" unsuitable for sustaining the needs of a modern society. Dennis Halliday, former UN coordinator of aid to Iraq, described the results of this bombing campaign: "Iraq's civilian infrastructure was completely destroyed. The devastation was total."
Thousands of people -- the majority of them women and children -- began to die because the water purification systems had been bombed
When the ground war started, U.S. commanders behaved in a bizarre and inhuman manner that made Hitler's SS units look like Mother Theresa. Despite the claims of the U.S. government and media, thousands of Iraqi soldiers and POWs were murdered in cold blood after they had surrendered.
In testimony before the European Parliament, Mike Erlich of the Military Counseling Network described one of these massacres: "Hundreds, possibly thousands of Iraqi soldiers began walking toward the U.S. position unarmed, with their arms raised in an attempt to surrender...at that point everybody in the unit began shooting. Quite simply, it was a slaughter."
In another example, a New York Times article described how U.S. armored vehicles used high-powered machine guns to massacre hundreds of captured and disarmed Iraqi POWs sitting lined up on the ground. Others reported similar incidents.
Even the U.S. Navy was included in these war crimes. The San Diego Union reported that a Commander Dennis Morral "despite his crews concern over a possible attempt to surrender...ordered the attack to proceed" against Iraqi soldiers waving a white flag on an oil platform.
Left on the battlefield were countless thousands of dead, many more maimed and injured, a ruined ecosystem, two utterly destroyed countries, lakes of oil, over seven hundred oil-well fires, chemical contamination and over three hundred tons of depleted uranium waste scattered across the desert sands.
In one of the greatest catastrophes to ever fall on the American soldier, the prevailing winds of Desert Storm covered hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in a thick blanket of soot, oily smoke and radiological contamination. 120,000 soldiers fell ill. 30,000 are filing lawsuits against the government.
Twelve years later, they are dying by the thousands. The U.S. department of Veterans Affairs reported in a state-wide survey of Gulf veterans in Mississippi, that "67 percent of their children conceived after the Gulf War were born with severe illnesses or birth defects."
The mainstream media threw a big celebration. The Gulf War was, "a party," as Colin Powell referred to it during the war. Time Magazine called the war's aftermath "a stunning military triumph that gives Americans something to cheer about."
The media showed us images of Americans filled with joy and young women throwing kisses as Abrams tanks. Tip Hale, a Chicago insurance salesman, summed up the mood perfectly "if there was a war you could be proud of, this is it."
They didn't realize that the events in the Gulf would lead directly to the World Trade Center disaster. They didn't realize that this war was really a setback for democracy -- like every other war.
It would lead to increased poverty and militarism, increased radicalism in the Middle East, a legacy of hatred and resentment, cutbacks in social spending at home and increased military spending.
Possibly the greatest victim has been America's political clout. As the Bush regime beats the war drums for another crack at Iraq, they have met stubborn opposition at every turn.
The U.S. has suddenly become one the most hated nations since Nazi Germany, and for an increasing number of people, the American flag has come to symbolize terror, violence and oppression, not freedom and democracy.
This is the legacy. This is what our leaders have brought us -- the U.S. -- a country in a state of political, social and economic decline. War in the Gulf will be a catastrophe, not only for the Iraqi people, but for the American people as well.
Michael Wolff (writewolff@hotmail.com) is a writer and activist from San Diego. In January, 2001, he traveled to Iraq with Ramsey Clarke's delegation to witness firsthand the effects of war and sanctions on the Iraqi people.
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