March 20, 2007
'Beware the ides of March', is said as a warning of impending and certain
danger. Since it is from Plutarch, referring to a warning to Julius Caesar,
it is unlikely to have influenced George W.Bush's 'shock and awe' decision
to invade Iraq in March, since literature is not his forte. (Unless you
count 'My Pet Goat'.)
For Iraq though, March brings not alone the fourth anniversary of the
illegal US led invasion, monumental destruction of life, all societal
structures, history, the National Museum, libraries of ancient manuscripts,
all records from educational qualifications to medical reports, births,
deaths and marriages and never ending death and trauma beyond imagination,
but the memory of the 1991 'turkey shoot' on the Basra Road and the US
encouraged uprisings in the south and north - then bloodily put down - with
US assistance. March marked the beginning of the forty day period of
mourning for the thousands of retreating conscripts and civilian families
incinerated in their vehicles, when B52's bombed the front and back of the
sixty mile convoy, then relentlessly bombed the rest 'like sitting ducks',
as one pilot explained.
At least 'fifteen hundred tanks, armoured vehicles, jeeps, water and fuel
tankers, ambulances, firetrucks, tractor trailors, buses and civilian
vehicles and passenger cars ... some flying white flags' were 'pounded for
hours' with anti-personel bombs 'and finally finished off with devastating
B52 bombing runs'. It is thought that thousands were crushed, or incinerated
in their vehicles. Windscreens and humanity melted. As the William Tell
overture and the Lone Ranger theme, blasted out on the USS Ranger, 'planes
reloaded and reloaded, returning to hit the convoy again and again, dropping
everything from cluster bombs to five hundred pound bombs 'like sharks in a
feeding frenzy'.
US Air Force planes from Saudia Arabia 'raced north to join in the fun'.
There was so much air traffic involved in the 'frenzy' that the 'killing
box' had to be divided up by air traffic controllers to prevent aircraft
colliding. 'I think we're past the point of letting (Hussein) get in his
tanks and drive them back to Iraq ....' a US pilot said, adding: 'I feel
fairly punitive about it.' Saddam Hussein, in whose name the United Nations
denied medicines, food, pencils and even blackboards since he would
personally misuse them, was now apparently capable of driving sixty miles of
vehicles, single handedly.
'It's a slaughter', Jordanian businessman Zaki Ayoubi said:'You are going to
slaughter one hundred thousand young men who belong to one hundred thousand
families. We're not talking abstract artillery and machinery.' President
Bush senior, cared, not about indescribable carnage, but semantics.
'Saddam's most recent speech' (saying Iraq was withdrawing from Kuwait,
which they did) 'is an outrage ... his forces are retreating.' Vice
President Dan Quayle (over who, stories abound regarding string pulling in
order to avoid service in Viet Nam abound) chimed in saying that a lasting
peace and Saddam were incompatable. Thus was bloodbath justified.
Admitting 'massive casualties', those not vapourised were buried in mass
graves in the desert. Soldiers cleaning up 'said they were satisfied justice
had been done.' Bush senior was asked in beautiful Martinique whether he had
any thoughts that the carnage had got out of hand and replied: 'No, none at
all'. Much was made of the fact that many of the vehicles contained 'looted'
items - toys, silverware, vaccum cleaners, soap, even underwear, as some
kind of justification for the massacre. Even in the casual world of US
justice, looting does not carry the death penalty (if it did, there would be
even more dead US and British soldiers in Iraq currently) and whilst there
was indeed looting, Iraqis and Kuwaitis intermarried and many were fleeing
with personal belongings from a home they had now had to leave. Then as now
there were also many fleeing Palestinians. (See: 'Desert Mirage', Martin
Yant, Prometheus Books.)
White House spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater had given a committment that US and
coalition forces would not attack Iraqi forces leaving Kuwait. Yet: 'Even in
Viet Nam, I didn't see anything like this.It's pathetic', stated Major Bob
Nugent of US Army Intelligence. (War Crimes. Ramsey Clark and others,
Maisonneuve Press.)
The Iraqi pull out from Kuwait began on 26th February 1991, the ceasefire
was signed on the 28th February. On 2nd March 1991, the US 24th Mechanised
Division slaughtered thousands more Iraqi soldiers, an action approved by
General Norman Schwatzkopf (who famously remarked: 'no one left to kill'.
His autobiography is 'It doesn't take a Hero'. Indeed.) 'We really waxed
them', said one Commander. Another American was recorded saying 'Say hello
to Allah', as his Hellfire missile obliterated a vehicle. 'Yee-hah', said
another voice. There was an attempt to cover up the carnage of another
vehicle strewn road, since: '..it didn't look good coming after the
ceasefire.' (Ramsey Clark, The Fire this Time, Thunder's Mouth Press.) The
then US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, had told Saddam Hussein that
America had 'no view on Arab-Arab conflicts.' Hussein had consulted her on
the possible invasion. Iraq accused Kuwait of slant-drilling into their
Rumaila oil field across Kuwait's border, destabilising Iraq's currency and
moving Kuwaiti settlements well into Iraqi territory.
One conscript who survived the horrors of the Basra Road, with the remnants
of his unit, told me how they had walked the five hundred and fifty
kilometres, through the destruction, by the body parts, home, to carpet
bombed Baghdad, none knowing whether family or house had survived: 'We
wanted to cry, but we had no tears left.' Eighty eight thousand five hundred
tonnes of bombs had fallen on ancient Mesapotamia, which brought the world
all we call civlized.
As the wickedness of George W.Bush and his war criminal Administration are
marked, four years on from the illegal invasion and destruction of the
'cradle of civilisation', another George Bush and other criminal acts should
also be remembered. He may have taken to crying publicly over his son, he
should also look in the mirror.
And on this March day another Minister in Iraq's legitimate government
('sovereignty and territorial integrity', guaranteed by the United Nations)
is hanged at dawn, taking civilisation back five hundred years, under the
blood-lust watch of America and Britain, in a further act of barbarism, we
all should. The unspeakable sins of the son and his Whitehall lackey, are
being perpetrated in our name.
Painting: Vincenzo Camuccini, Assassination of Caesar, 1798
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