Bravo Company
calls itself "The Nasty Boys."
"We like to get it done, get it done quickly, with
as
much viciousness as we can," Gonzales said.
Spec. 4 Daryl
Smallwood, 21, of Gainesville,
Ga., said his platoon is making up death cards-to
place on Iraqi soldiers they kill. His will read:
"Personal Debt Paid."
"I got
50. But I know I'll need
more,"
Smallwood said.
--S.F. EXAMINER, December, 1990
When the U.N. voted 75 to 20 to condemn the United
States' December 1989 invasion of Panama as "a
flagrant violation of international law," the NBC
Nightly News ignored
the vote entirely, while CBS
lavished a full ten seconds on it. But now that the
U.N. was suddenly churning out resolution
after resolution favored by American policy makers, it
was rewarded with decorous front page coverage and
tirelessly praised by. pundits and politicians alike
for its newfound strength and maturity.
--S.F. Examiner, January, 1991
According to a study done by FAIR, the New York based
media-monitoring organization, ABC, NBC and CBS
devoted 2,855
minutes to gulf coverage from Aug.
8,
when the United
States began its military
escalation, until Jan. 3.
Of all that air time, a
grand total of 29 minutes were about popular
opposition to the military solution.
--S.F. EXAMINER, 2-11-91
Percentage of U.S. oil supplied by Iraq and Kuwait
prior to the war:
5%.
U.S. oil use that would be saved by increasing
average car fuel efficiency by 2.8 mpg: 5%.
DISEASES PLAGUE IRAQ
By Keny Davidson,
EXAMINER Science Writer
The United States could be held accountable
for
the destruction of water purification and sewage
facilities . . . .
Such destruction has reportedly hastened
the
spread of cholera and other water-borne diseases,
contributing to thousands of deaths of Iraqis,
including children.
Fecal coliform tests of Iraqi water show
the
water system is so contaminated by diseases that they
could persist another two to three years, said Ross
Mirkarimi of San Francisco's Arms Control Re-search
Center who returned Friday-day from a survey of Iraq.
Iraq's food production has dropped to 13
percent
of normal, or less than one-fourth if one includes
humanitarian food aid from abroad, Mirkarimi told a
packed audience at Mission High School in San
Francisco Saturday.
A major cause: the bombing of
farms and facilities that had manufactured
fertilizers, pesticides and seeds.
Continued U.S. sanctions have prevented
many
Iraqis from getting badly needed drugs, such as
insulin for diabetics, said Berkeley physician Dr.
David Levinson, who recently toured Iraq's medical
facilities.
Children in some areas have begun eating
dirt
for its minimal nutritional content, said U.S.
journalist Larry Everest following his visit there.
Psychological damage is severe, "especially among
children-from bed-wetting to severe phobias,"
Everest
said.
Last week's report that U.S. forces
used
bulldozers and earth-movers to bury thousands of
Iraqi soldiers alive in their trenches was the worst
of ghastly American actions, panelists said. U.S.
planes attacked retreating soldiers more than 100
miles from Kuwait, "many (of whom) had thrown off
their helmets, tossed away their rifles and were just
trying to walk to safety," Everest said.
The Until States dropped 88,000 tons of
bombs,
"the equivalent of six Hiroshimas."
Pentagon officials have consistently
maintained
U.S. action abided by international law.
----SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER, 9-15-91
From The Nation, March 11, 1991
No city, town, or roadside stop had any running
water, electricity, telephone service, or adequate
gasoline for transportation. The effect of this on
the cities is a disaster.
Minister of Health
Mohammed Said called the pollution of public water
systems the greatest health problem in the country.
Tens of thousands are known to be sick. Hundreds of
thousands are assumed to be.
A study team from Harvard University
visited
Iraq in late April and early May to study the public
health situation after the war. The team reports:
"Contrary to statements of both the Iraq
government
and Western journalists that the health situation is
stable and will continue to improve, the study team
finds that the state of medical care is desperate and
unless conditions change substantially--will continue
to deteriorate in every region and at nearly every
provider level.
Despite the brief period of
recuperation following the end of the Gulf War, a
significant portion of Iraq's medical facilities--in
some case 50 percent--have closed. The medical
system will continue to break; down over the next
year due to acute shortages of medicines, equipment
and staff.
The crisis is hitting especially hard at
infants
and children. During
the war the U.S. claimed that
Iraq's only powdered milk factory was a "chemical
weapons facility" and bombed it. No there is a
severe shortage of infant milk. The price of one can
of powdered infant formula has gone from about $1 to
$50. Poor families
are allowed three cans per month
from government store Ls at lower prices, but the
minimum nutritional need for infants is ten cans per
month. Mothers are
diluting infant formula with
water to stretch out their supplies. The poor diet
and contaminated water leave children vulnerable to
diarrhea and dehydration.
And because of the
severely disrupted health-care system, many of these
children do not receive proper medical care and die.
The outlook for the coming months is grim.
The
team from Harvard reports: "This study documents a
public health catastrophe.
Specifically, it projects
that at least 170,000 children under five years of
age will die in the coming year from the delayed
effects of the current crisis. This figure
represents a 100 percent increase, or a doubling, in
infant and child mortality since the start of the
Gulf Crisis last year."
The Harvard team emphasizes that the
estimate of
170,000 was CONSERVATIVE.
The team explains: "Before
the Gulf Crisis in 1990, about 50,000 children a year
m Iraq died from gastroenteritis, Current hospital
data show a twofold to tenfold increase in the number
of children afflicted with the disease. These data
also show more than a doubling of the rate of child
death in hospitals from all causes, including
gastroenteritis.
"In other words, at least twice as
many children
are admitted to hospitals with gastroenteritis, and
of those admitted, at least twice as many die as
before. Therefore, since there were 50,000 child
deaths each year from gastroenteritis before the Gulf
War, four times as many, or an additional 150,000
child deaths from this disease can be expected m the
coming year, unless conditions change.
"To repeat, this figure of 150,000
additional
deaths is for gastroenteritis alone. This figure
does not include deaths from malnutrition,
respiratory disease, or other common child illnesses.
Hence, the estimate of 170,000 additional child
deaths is probably low."
The Harvard study team focused on children
under
five. But they conclude: "A large increase in
deaths
among the rest of the population is also likely."
During the Gulf war Schwarzkopf, Powel and
other
U.S. military officials refused to give estimates
about the number of Iraqi casualties--they said they
were "not interested'' in the question. Two months
after the cease-fire the Pentagon finally came out
with an estimate of 100,000 Iraqi soldiers dead and
300,000 injured. But
the U.S. is still trying to
cover up the suffering of the Iraq people caused by
its war. When a UN
team which visited Iraq several
weeks after the war wrote that the bombing had
dragged the country back to "a pre-industrial age"
and
caused "near apocalyptic" damage, the U.S.
government
criticized the report.
A total of 268 U.S. troops
died during the war.
Compare this to how many Iraqis
the U S. and it's allies killed. William Arkin,
military research director for Greenpeace, writes:
"The most accurate estimates are that 100,000 to
120,000 Iraqi military personnel were killed in the
war. From 74.000 to 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died
since August--from disease, malnutrition, civil war,
and of course, the conflict. Five thousand to 15.000
civilians died in the air war. Significantly, it is
estimated that 80 percent to 90 percent of the
civilian death occurred AFTER the cease-fire."
Estimates are that at least 170,000 children and many
other Iraqis will die from the effects of the war in
the coming months.
--THE NATION, March 11, 1991
The following
article was written before the Persian Gulf War by
Professor Bob
Springborg, Professor Of Politics at Macquarie iversity.
It appeared in the
October/November PEACE ACTION, newsletter of
People For Nuclear
Disarmament, published in New South Wales.
BEFORE THE WAR
It is time to separate fact from fiction in
the Gulf
crisis. Saddam
Hussein, George Bush, Margaret
Thatcher, and even more marginal participants like
Prime Minister Bob Hawke, have each used their own
'spin artists' to provide self-serving
interpretations of the events. The media has added
velocity to the spin, further obfuscating the truth
and rendering the conflict yet more explosive.
In the first days of the crisis we were
warned
repeatedly by Washington that Iraq was on the brink
of invading Saudi Arabia, a warning that was echoed
by Canberra.
Evidence proffered in support of his
contention included reference to a conversation
Saddam Hussein was alleged to have had with a
visiting US Congressman.
Saddam was reported to have
told him that his army was going to invade Saudi
Arabia. Why he
should have announced his intention
to a US Congressman was never made clear. Iraq's
immediate denial of such a statement was given a
fraction of the media attention the initial report
received. The other
piece of evidence disseminated
from Washington was from 'intelligence sources,' by
which administration presumably meant satellite
photographs. Such
evidence was refuted by on-the-
ground observations, including those broadcast on our
own television screens, which revealed Iraqis as
using heavy earth-moving equipment to prepare
defensive fortifications on the Kuwait-Saudi border
once the conquest of Kuwait was completed.
Virtually all unbiased and informed
military
observers have scoffed at the idea that Iraq was
about to invade Saudi Arabia. That Iraq could have
subdued that country, which is about the size of
Western Australia, is a fanciful notion. The Saudi
Air Force, backed up by the 80 attack aircraft on the
US carrier men steaming just outside the Straits of
Hormuz, would have wreaked havoc with the Iraqi
armour and infantry spread out over several hundred
kilometers between the Kuwait border and the Saudi
oil fields.
It is understandable that the world gave little
credence to Iraqi protestations that it had no claims
on Saudi Arabia or any intention to invade it, simply
because the Iraqis have lied before. But it is
equally incomprehensible, in the face of first-hand
observations and expert military analysis, that the
myth of an impending invasion was retained. The only
plausible explanation is that it was part of a
campaign of disinformation orchestrated by the US to
justify its intervention.
The second myth that has been created is
that
the Iraqi military is truly a formidable force. Time
and time again the media has identified it as the
fourth or fifth largest military force in the world,
with a one-million-man army. This is misleading m
the extreme. The
Iraqi army consists of 240,000
soldiers whose training is in some way comparable to
that of First World armies.
An additional 400,000
troops are in uniform, but have had little training
and are considered unreliable. The remainder of the
one-million-man army consists of mobilized reservists
with no significant battlefield skills.
Iraqi armour has also been identified as
being
overwhelming, the figure most commonly cited being
5,500 tanks. Of that
number, however, only the T-
72s, of which there are 500, are modern pieces of
equipment. About
4,000 Iraqi tanks are venerable
Soviet or Chinese supplied T-54s or T-55s, which were
already dated in the 1960s.
The hulk of the
remainder are T-62s, a more modern tank but one the
Israelis devastated during the 1982 invasion of
Lebanon.
The capability of the Iraqi air force,
claimed
to have more than 500 front-line aircraft, has also
been inflated to virtual super-power status. In fact
Iraq has only 18 [somewhat modern] Mig-29s and 64
Mirage F-1Es....The balance of the air force consists
of dated Soviet and Chinese equipment which is no
match for any of the planes deployed against Iraq.
The vaunted Iraqi missile capability is also a hollow
threat. The payload
of its Scud-Bs and the modified
Scud-Bs is 500 kilograms.
By comparison, a single US
F-16 aircraft can deliver the ordinance of 20 Iraqi
missiles. At present
over 200 F-16s are arrayed
against Iraq by the air forces of the US and Saudi
Arabia, to say nothing of the B-52s, F117As, and a
host of other ground attack aircraft and
interceptors.
The Iraqi military has no access to
satellite
reconnaissance. The
US has in orbit over the
potential battlefield several HD-11 satellites.
Their accuracy is astonishing. Were three oranges
lined up on a runway and one removed, its removal
could be detected.
The
notion that the Iraqi army is 'hardened' and
'battle tested' is grossly misleading. During the
eight-year war with Iran it conducted exactly two
mobile offensives requiring reasonable command and
control capabilities.
The first was at the time of
the original invasion in September 1980, and the last
was the battle to regain Fao Peninsula at the end of
the war. Both were
essentially walkovers.
In sum, if there is a war, Iraq will
he
decisively defeated.
That some western leaders and
elements of the media have vastly overestimated the
capability of the Iraqi military raises questions
about their motives.
It smacks of justification for
a military strike against what is in reality a
typical Third World country with a relatively low per
capita income ($1600), high dependency on the West,
and a military that is simply no match for a modern,
well-equipped fighting force.
S.F. Examiner, April 25, 1991
Defending his decision to go to war, President Bush
invoked the just war theory of St. Augustine. But
one of the requirements for a the just war is
proportionality. One
cannot kill the family of a
thief to retrieve a stolen wallet. One cannot kill a
thousand innocent people to liberate a hundred from a
despot.
In Kuwait today, our beloved emir is
polishing
his chandeliers, as the uniformed heroes of the
Kuwaiti resistance wait outside Catholic churches to
grab Filipino girls after mass to rape them. A "rape
epidemic is under way," says the Washington Times.
The president was rightly sickened by
reports of
what Iraqi troops did to Kuwaitis. But why, when we
put the emir back in power, are we not protesting
what his bully boys are doing to Asians and
Palestinians? Would
that perhaps risk all those
lucrative contracts the United States expects to get
from Kuwait?
Excuse me, but these Kuwaiti plutocrats owe
us.
Why doesn't Bush send his ambassador to the palace,
and tell the emir to get his heroes under control or
get the hell out?
Once again, after a "good war," a
terrible
aftermath. This war,
the president said, will bring
"stability and security" to the Gulf; it will
usher
in a brave New World Order that our critics simply
lack the vision to see.
WELL, WHERE is the security and
stability? Where is
the order? Kuwait is
a blazing pyre of ruined oil
wells, its worst elements raping at will in Kuwait
City. Iraq, a modern
nation of 18 million, is a
wasteland of civil war, terror, famine, disease and
death. Jordan is now
a slum. The Palestinians have
lost everything, even hope.
Messrs. Shamir and Sharon
are turning the West Bank into a trailer park for the
crazies of Gush Emunim. And thousands of U.S. troops
are moving into Kurdish regions of Northern Iraq,
temporarily, you under-stand, until "something can
be. worked out."
And we are only six weeks into the
postwar.
I will never believe the Christian redeemer until
Christians show me that they themselves have been
redeemed.
--Fredrich Nietszche
The only people on earth who do not see Christ and
his teachings as nonviolent are Christians.
--Gandhi
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every
rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft
from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are
cold and are not clothed
This world in arms is not
spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of
its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes
of its children.
This is not a way of life at all.
It is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower
What the world expects of Christians is that
Christians should speak out, loud and clear; that
they should voice their condemnation in such a way
that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could
arise in the heart of the simplest person; that they
should get away from abstraction and confront the
blood-stained face history has taken on today.
--Albert Camus
"We SHELL not EXXONerate Saddam Hussein for his
actions. We will
MOBILize to meet this threat to
vital interests in the Persian GULF until an AMOCOble
solution is reached.
Our best strategy is to
BPrepared. Failing
that, we ARCOming to kick his
ass."
--George Bush