Also in this Article:
Crimes Against Peace
War Crimes
Other High Crimes
The Price of Tyranny
The United Nations recently approved a deal that
would allow Iraq to sell oil in exchange for food and other basic
necessities. The deal was postponed by Iraq's invasion into the northern
part of its territory to put down a Kurdish uprising. In
the meantime, Iraqi children continued to starve by the thousands because
of economic sanctions, and foreign aid agencies
have been prohibited from entering Iraq to assist as they have done
in other parts of the world. Now that the "oil for food"
deal has finally been approved, Iraq may buy food for its hungry people,
as well as medicine and other basic necessities, but
only as long as they continue to toe the line to the implacable demands
of the New World Order.
Even though the Gulf War has disappeared from the
nightly news, the U.S. and Iraq are still in a state of war. The U.S.
maintains a stranglehold of sanctions, no-fly zones, and other restrictions
that seem to have no purpose as Iraq is no longer a
credible threat to any of its neighbors. U.S. administration officials
have not made public their conditions for peace so that Iraq
might rebuild and return, if possible, to a normal life. The military
and economic strangulation continues, inflicting death and
suffering on hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, and,
in spite of this "oil for food deal", no end to this suffering
is in sight. Is this the "kinder, gentler" world that President George
Bush promised after the cease-fire was declared?
In the months following the Gulf War "cease-fire",
a War Crimes Commission of Inquiry was convened to review the
actions of the combatants with the intent of determining if international
law had been violated. The Commission held hearings
in several key cities, gathering "direct and circumstantial evidence
from public and private documents; official statements and
admissions by the persons charged and others; eyewitness accounts;
Commission investigations and witness interviews in
Iraq, the Middle East and elsewhere during and after the bombing; photographs
and video tape; expert analyses; commentary
and interviews; media coverage, published reports and accounts gathered
between December, 1990 and May, 1991." (Intitial
Complaint Submitted by the Commission Of Inquiry May 9, 1991)
The Commission of Inquiry was headed by former U.S.
Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who submitted a complaint citing
19 violations of international law, not by Saddam Hussein, but President
Bush and others in his administration. The Initial
Complaint was submitted for review by the International War Crimes
Tribunal, who found Bush, Vice President Dan Quayle,
James Baker, Richard Cheney, William Webster, Colin Powell, Norman
Schwarzkopf and others to be named to be guilty of
the 19 charges listed in the complaint. Included in these charges are
the following:
CRIMES AGAINST PEACE
The complaint alleges that in 1989 General Colin
Powell and General Schwarzkopf revised U.S. military operations and
plans in the Persian Gulf to prepare for a regional conflict against
Iraq, beginning a pattern of behavior that indicated a strategy
to create a state of war in the Persian Gulf.
In early 1990, General Schwarzkopf testified
before the Senate Armed Services Committee that a new strategy was in
place that would enable U.S. forces to secure
access to and control of Persian Gulf oil resources.
In July, 1990, General Schwarzkopf and his
staff ran elaborate computerized war games simulating a battle between
100,000 U.S. troops and Iraqi armored divisions.
The U.S. created a situation of crisis in
Iraq with the intent of provoking it to invade Kuwait by cutting off all
loans for
deliveries of U.S. grain in the spring of
1990.
The U.S., through the C.I.A., induced Kuwait
to violate its O.P.E.C. agreements and glut the market with oil pumped
from the same underground pool shared with
Iraq, causing prices to drop, increasing economic pressure on Iraq.
Kuwait also demanded repayment of loans it
made to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, heightening tensions between the
countries.
When Iraq began making threats against Kuwait,
the U.S. concealed its interest in the matter. "When Saddam Hussein
requested U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie to
explain State Department testimony in Congress about Iraq's threats
against Kuwait, she assured him the U.S. considered
the dispute a regional concern, and it would not intervene. By
these acts, the U.S. intended to lead Iraq
into a provocation justifying war." (ibid).
WAR CRIMES
Attacks on Civilians - When the U.S. commenced its
air attacks against Iraq, it targeted civilian infrastructure such as
drinking water and sewage treatment plants, power generating facilities,
dams and reservoirs, telephone exchanges, buses,
trucks and private automobiles on the highway. Bedouin herds- men were
also bombed by allied aircraft. "The purpose of this
bombing was to terrorize the entire country, kill people, destroy property,
prevent movement, demoralize the people and
force the overthrow of the government." (ibid). The Jordanian Red Crescent
Society estimated the civilian death toll in Iraq to
be about 113,000 one week before the war ended, 60 percent of these
children. When Air Force Chief of Staff General
Michael J. Dugan alluded to U.S. plans to destroy the Iraqi civilian
economy on September 16, 1990, he was summarily fired
from his job, even though that is exactly what the Bush administration
planned and actually carried out. The bombing of Iraqi
civilians and and peaceful infrastructure was in violation of the UN
Charter, the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the
Nuremberg Charter, and the laws of armed conflict.
Wholesale slaughter of defenseless Iraqi Troops -
In the first hours of the allied air assault, most of Iraq's military
communications were wiped out. In the subsequent forty-two days, "U.S
bombing killed tens of thousands of defenseless
soldiers, cut off most of their food, water and other supplies and
left them in desperate and helpless disarray. Without
significant risk to its own personnel, the U.S. led in the killing
of at least 100,000 Iraqi soldiers at a cost of 148 U.S. combat
casualties, according to the U.S. government." (ibid).
One of the most graphic and heinous crimes of the
Gulf War occurred on the highway between Mutlaa, Kuwait and Basra,
Iraq, also known as "The Highway of Death." As the U.S. began its land
assault, Iraq announced that it would comply with
U.N. resolution 660 and withdraw from Kuwait. Iraqi soldiers as well
as Iraqi, Palestinian, Jordanian and other civilians piled
into whatever vehicles they could commandeer, including a fire truck,
and fled north towards Iraq. U.S. planes disabled
vehicles at both ends of the convoy, creating a 7-mile long traffic
jam. U.S. planes then began to bomb and strafe the entire
line of some 2,000 vehicles for hours, killing tens of thousands of
helpless soldiers and civilians while encountering no
resistance and receiving no losses to themselves. "Another 60-mile
stretch of road to the east was strewn with the remnants of
tanks, armored cars, trucks, ambulances and thousands of bodies following
an attack on convoys on the night of February 25,
1991. The press reported that no survivors are known or likely. One
flatbed truck contained nine bodies, their hair and
clothes were burned off, skin incinerated by heat so intense it melted
the windshield onto the dashboard." (ibid). These
atrocities were in direct violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949,
common article 3, which outlaws the killing of soldiers
who are "out of combat", not to mention civilians.
Among the illegal weapons used by the U.S. during
the Gulf War was a fuel air device known as the BLU-82, a
15,000-pound device capable of incinerating everything within hundreds
of yards. Napalm and other phosphorus bombs were
also used in violation of international law. One illegal fuel air device
that was used is designed to consume all oxygen in a
designated area, causing all personnel on the ground and within range
to suffocate.
Other High Crimes
The Initial Complaint submitted to the War Crimes
Tribunal also made mention of "Operation Just Cause", President Bush's
invasion of Panama. The U.S. violated the same laws invading Panama
that Iraq did invading Kuwait. The U.S. did a far
dirtier job of it, however, as one to four thousand Panamanian civilians
died during "Just Cause" as opposed to three to six
hundred Kuwaitis during Iraq's occupation of that country. When the
U.S. reinstalled the royal Sabah family as the
government of Kuwait, the Sabahs proceeded to execute 628 Palestinians,
even while U.S. troops were present.
Bush Administration Commits Genocide - General Thomas
Kelly commented on February 23, 1991, that by the time
the ground war begins "there won't be many of them [Iraqi soldiers]
left." After the cease-fire General Colin Powell was
asked during a press briefing for an Iraqi casualty figure. He replied,
"It's really not a number I'm terribly interested in." During
an assault on a highway traffic jam, one Apache helicopter pilot was
heard yelling "Say hello to Allah" as he launched a
Hellfire missile. One U.S. commander said of the highway assault, "We
really waxed them." Another said, "It's a turkey shoot.
They're trying to push ten pounds of mud into a one pound sack [speaking
of the stampede back to Iraq]". The U.S.
administration's attitude during the war was one that is more characteristic
of the Nazi S.S. in their entire disregard for law,
human decency and compassion. The moral implications of the slaughter
are heightened when one considers the propaganda
that was spread far and deep in support of this war of aggression.
A Blind, Flattered, and Deceived American Public
- In late 1990 as the U.S. was gearing up for its destruction of Iraq,
President Bush gave a speech before a group of Christian Broadcast
executives. In it he praised America's generous spirit and
love for freedom, which, of course, was why it was so willing to help
the poor Kuwaiti people who had been invaded by that
wicked Sadaam. He alluded a couple of times to God and "Christian values",
and the Christian Broadcasters ate it up. On
Super Bowl Sunday Bush and his wife appeared on television (before
the game, of course) in a living room set decorated
everywhere with little American flags. He recited his oft repeated
praise of American democratic values and decency, and one
watching could not help but feel he belonged to a great country, and
hope that the wicked Iraqi's would be bombed to
smithereens, which they were. Many similar speeches and empty oratory
were delivered by this President as he prepared to
unleash an unprecedented death wave of destruction. What he didn't
tell Americans, among other things, is that wealthy
Kuwaitis were partying in Cairo and weren't worrying much about what
was going on back home.
The news media was the choir, the Bush administration
the preacher, and these sham institutions worked together to
seduce the American people "into the celebration of a slaughter by
controlled propaganda demonizing Iraq, assuring the world
no harm would come to Iraqi civilians, deliberately spreading false
stories of atrocities including chemical warfare threats,
deaths of incubator babies and threats to the entire region by a new
Hitler.
"Independent observers, eyewitnesses' photos, and
video tapes with information about the effects of the U.S. bombing
were excluded from the media. Television network ownership, advertisers,
newspaper ownership, elite columnists and
commentators intimidated and instructed reporters and selected interviewees.
They formed a near-single voice of praise for
U.S. militarism, often exceeding the Pentagon in bellicosity." (ibid).
THE PRICE OF TYRANNY
Never in the history of warfare have the victors
been held accountable for its war crimes and atrocities. Had Nazi Germany
won World War II, there would have been no Nerumberg trials. Nazi storm
troopers would have come home to yellow
ribbons and a ticker tape parade, and Hitler would have received a
standing ovation at the Reich stag for his role in making
the world a better place.
As unthinkable as that outcome would have been, it
takes on a real life dimension when one considers the true motivations
behind the Gulf War and the utter falsity and pretense of the propaganda
supporting it. When the human factor is included in
the picture, the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed by U.S.
bombs, or the diseases that flourished in the aftermath, and
the half a million or more babies that died for lack of infant formula
because of sanctions, and the thousands of young army
conscripts who were consumed by fire bombs as they fled for their lives,
or buried alive or suffocated or ripped to shreds by
cluster bombs, one may find the picture of a present day victorious
Hitler to be entirely realistic.
Even though it doesn't appear that President Bush
and his administration officials will be punished for their war crimes,
justice is being carried out nonetheless. Since the "cease-fire" in
the Gulf was declared, the U.S. has experienced the Los
Angeles riots, an increase in racial tensions some call a prelude to
a race war, Waco and the rise of the militia movement, the
Oklahoma City bombing, as well as numerous financial tremors. There
are also mysterious, communicable diseases that are
ravaging an increasing number of Gulf War veterans and their families,
indicating the possibility that coalition soldiers were
exposed to biological and chemical agents in the Gulf War. As the plague
spreads and the government continues stonewalling,
the anger and suspicion in America will become so pervasive that it
tears the social fabric. This is the sort of environment that
breeds revolutions, bringing once haughty rulers to the executioner's
block.
Even though the future is very dark for those who
have committed crimes against God and humanity, it is equally as bright
for those who have left off supporting crime and oppression and wait
for divine providence to finish its course. "Strengthen ye
the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are
of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God
will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come
and save you." Isaiah 35:3,4.
Written 2/97