"The goal of the attack on the civilian society has been made reasonably clear. In plain words, it was to hold the civilian population hostage to achieve a political end: to induce some military officer to overthrow Saddam and wield the "iron fist" as Saddam himself had done with U.S. support before he stepped out of line; any vicious thug will do as long as he shows proper obedience, unlike Saddam, who violated this principle -- the only one that counts, as events once again demonstrate -- in August 1991." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "The operation of holding a civilian population hostage while tens of thousands die from starvation and disease raises only one problem: unreasonable soft-hearted folk may feel some discomfort at having "sat by and watched a country starve for political reasons" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Taken from Z magazine (see bottom), 10/91, _Aftermath: Voices from Below_ by Noam Chomsky] [Full text by email from harelb@math.cornell.edu] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "The distinction between war, on the one hand, and slaughter and state terrorism, on the other, is one that should be observed." 3. The "Gulf War" in Retrospect Two crucial events of the recent past are the accelerating breakup of the Soviet system and the Gulf conflict. With regard to the former, the U.S. is largely an observer. As a matter of course, the media must laud George Bush's consummate skill as a statesman and crisis manager, but the ritual exercise lacks spirit. It is plain enough that Washington has little impact on developments and no idea what to do as the Soviet system lurches from one crisis to another. The response to Saddam Hussein's aggression, in contrast, was a Washington operation throughout, with Britain loyally in tow, reflecting the U.S. insistence upon sole authority in the crucial energy-producing regions of the Middle East. Now that the U.S. has achieved its major aims and there is no longer any need to terrify the domestic public and whip up jingoist hysteria, government-media rhetoric has subsided and it is easier to survey just what happened in the misnamed "Gulf War" -- misnamed, because there never was a war at all, at least, if the concept "war" involves two sides in combat, say, shooting at each other. That didn't happen in the Gulf. The crisis began with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait a year ago. There was some fighting, leaving hundreds killed according to Human Rights groups. That hardly qualifies as war. Rather, in terms of crimes against peace and against humanity, it falls roughly into the category of the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus, Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1978, and the U.S. invasion of Panama. In these terms it falls well short of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and cannot remotely be compared with the near-genocidal Indonesian invasion and annexation of East Timor, to mention only two cases of aggression that are still in progress, with continuing atrocities and with the crucial support of those who most passionately professed their outrage over Iraq's aggression. During the subsequent months, Iraq was responsible for terrible crimes in Kuwait, with several thousand killed and many tortured. But that is not war; rather, state terrorism, of the kind familiar among U.S. clients. The second phase of the conflict began with the U.S.-U.K. attack of January 15 (with marginal participation of others). This was slaughter, not war. Tactics were carefully designed to ensure that there would be virtually no combat. The first component was an aerial attack on the civilian infrastructure, targeting power, sewage and water systems; that is, a form of biological warfare, designed to ensure long-term suffering and death among civilians so that the U.S would be in a good position to attain its political goals for the region. Since the casualties are victims of the United States, we will never have any real idea of the scale of these atrocities, any more than we have any serious idea of the civilian toll in the U.S. wars in Indochina. These are not proper topics for inquiry. This component of the attack does not qualify as war: rather it is state terrorism on a colossal scale. The second component of the U.S.-U.K. attack was the slaughter of Iraqi soldiers in the desert, largely unwilling Shi'ite and Kurdish conscripts it appears, hiding in holes in the sand or fleeing for their lives -- a picture quite remote from the Pentagon disinformation relayed by the press about colossal fortifications, artillery powerful beyond our imagining, vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons at the ready, and so on. Pentagon and other sources give estimates in the range of 100,000 defenseless victims killed, about half during the air attack, half during the air-ground attack that followed. Again, this exercise does not qualify as war. In the words of a British observer of the U.S. conquest of the Philippines at the turn of the century, "This is not war; it is simply massacre and murderous butchery." The desert slaughter was a "turkey shoot," as some U.S. forces described it, borrowing the term used by their forebears butchering Filipinos {note: Luzviminda Francisco and Jonathan Fast, _Conspiracy for Empire_ (Quezon City, 1985), 302, 191.} -- one of those deeply-rooted themes of the culture that surfaces at appropriate moments, as if by reflex. The goal of the attack on the civilian society has been made reasonably clear. In plain words, it was to hold the civilian population hostage to achieve a political end: to induce some military officer to overthrow Saddam and wield the "iron fist" as Saddam himself had done with U.S. support before he stepped out of line; any vicious thug will do as long as he shows proper obedience, unlike Saddam, who violated this principle -- the only one that counts, as events once again demonstrate -- in August 1991. State Department reasoning was outlined with admirable clarity by _New York Times_ chief diplomatic correspondent Thomas Friedman. If the society suffers sufficient pain, Friedman explained, Iraqi generals may topple Mr. Hussein, "and then Washington would have the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein." The technique of punishing Iraqi civilians may thus succeed in restoring the happy days when Saddam's "iron fist...held Iraq together, much to the satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia," not to speak of the boss in Washington, who had no problem with the means employed. {note: _NYT_, July 7, 1991.} The operation of holding a civilian population hostage while tens of thousands die from starvation and disease raises only one problem: unreasonable soft-hearted folk may feel some discomfort at having "sat by and watched a country starve for political reasons," just what will happen, UNICEF director of public affairs Richard Reid predicted, unless Iraq is permitted to purchase "massive quantities of food" -- though it is already far too late for the children under two, who have stopped growing for six or seven months because of severe malnutrition, we learn from his report in the Canadian press. But Bush's ex-pal may help us out of this dilemma. The _Wall Street Journal_ observes that Iraq's "clumsy attempt to hide nuclear-bomb-making equipment from the U.N. may be a blessing in disguise, U.S. officials say. It assures that the allies [read: U.S. and U.K.] can keep economic sanctions in place to squeeze Saddam Hussein without mounting calls to end the penalties for humanitarian reasons." {note: Kathy Blair, _Toronto Globe and Mail_, June 17, 1991; _WSJ_, July 5, 1991.} With luck, then, this huge exercise in state terrorism may proceed unhampered by the bleeding hearts and PC left-fascists. In keeping with its fabled dedication to international law and morality, the U.S. is naturally demanding that compensation to the victims of Iraq's crimes must have higher priority than any purchase of food that might be allowed -- under U.N. (meaning U.S.) control, of course; a country that commits the crime of disobeying Washington has plainly lost any claim to sovereignty. While proclaiming this stern doctrine with suitable majesty, the Bush Administration was keeping the pressure on Nicaragua to force these miscreants, who committed the same unspeakable crime, to abandon their claims to reparations for a decade of U.S. terror and illegal economic warfare as mandated by the International Court of Justice. Nicaragua finally succumbed, a capitulation scarcely noticed by the media, mesmerized by Washington's lofty rhetoric about Iraq's responsibilities to compensate its victims. As Third World observers have no difficulty in perceiving, the "ominous halo of hypocrisy" can rise beyond any imaginable level without posing a serious challenge for the cultural commissars of the West. The third phase of the conflict began immediately after the cease-fire, as Iraqi elite units, who had been largely spared by the U.S. attack, proceeded to slaughter first the Shi'ites of the South and then the Kurds of the North, with the tacit support of the Commander-in-Chief, who had called upon Iraqis to rebel when that suited U.S. purposes, then went fishing when the "iron fist" struck. Returning from a March 1991 fact-finding mission, Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff member Peter Galbraith reported that the Administration did not even respond to Saudi proposals to assist both Shi'ite and Kurdish rebels, and that the Iraqi military refrained from attacking the rebels until it had "a clear indication that the United States did not want the popular rebellion to succeed." A BBC investigation found that "several Iraqi generals made contact with the United States to sound out the likely American response if they took the highly dangerous step of planning a coup against Saddam," but received no support, concluding that "Washington had no interest in supporting revolution; that it would prefer Saddam Hussein to continue in office, rather than see groups of unknown insurgents take power." An Iraqi general who escaped to Saudi Arabia told the BBC that "he and his men had repeatedly asked the American forces for weapons, ammunition and food to help them carry on the fight against Saddam's forces." Each request was refused. As his forces fell back towards U.S.-U.K. positions, the Americans blew up an Iraqi arms dump to prevent them from obtaining arms, and then "disarmed the rebels" (John Simpson). Reporting from northern Iraq, ABC correspondent Charles Glass described how "Republican Guards, supported by regular army brigades, mercilessly shelled Kurdish-held areas with Katyusha multiple rocket launchers, helicopter gunships and heavy artillery," while journalists observing the slaughter listened to Gen. Schwartzkopf boasting to his radio audience that "We had destroyed the Republican Guard as a militarily effective force" and eliminated the military use of helicopters. {note: _Spectator_ (London), Aug. 10, April 13, 1991.} This is not quite the stuff of which heroes are fashioned, so the story was finessed at home, though it could not be totally ignored, particularly the attack on the Kurds, with their Aryan features and origins; the Shi'ites, who appear to have suffered even worse atrocities right under the gaze of Stormin' Norman, raised fewer problems, being mere Arabs. Again, this slaughter hardly qualifies as war. In the most careful analysis currently available, the Greenpeace International Military Research Group estimates total Kuwaiti casualties at 2-5,000; and Iraqi civilian casualties at 5-15,000 during the air attack, unknown during the ground attack, 20-40,000 during the civil conflict, perhaps another 50,000 civilian deaths from April through July along with another 125,000 deaths among Shi'ite and Kurdish refugees. {note: Greenpeace press release, July 23, 1991; Environet.} In brief, from August 1990 through July 1991, there was little that could qualify as "war." Rather, there was a brutal Iraqi takeover of Kuwait followed by various forms of slaughter and state terrorism, the scale corresponding roughly to the means of violence in the hands of the perpetrators, and their impunity. The distinction between war, on the one hand, and slaughter and state terrorism, on the other, is one that should be observed. ################################################################## - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Z is an independent, progressive monthly magazine of critical thinking on political, cultural, social, and economic life in the United States. 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