Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Reality...buried in the sand
William Blum sez:
“No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine.”
Sunday’s post—inspired by Jarhead—dealt a little with the way the home of the brave wages war...specifically Operation Desert Storm.
Consider this Part II (more from Seven Deadly Spins):
During the build-up to war, a 15-year-old Kuwaiti “refugee” named Nayirah tearfully described witnessing Iraqi troops stealing incubators from a hospital, leaving 312 babies “on the cold floor to die.” Nayirah’s false testimony was part of a $10 million Kuwait government propaganda campaign managed by the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton. Rather than working as a volunteer at a hospital, Nayirah was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington. “We didn’t know it wasn’t true at the time,” said Brent Scowcroft, President George H.W. Bush’s national security adviser. But, he admitted, “It was useful in mobilizing public opinion.”
(Herr Scowcroft)
Once Saddam Hussein was judged equal to a certain Nazi dictator, the rules of war became moot. When fighting the devil, the tactics come straight from hell. Carpet bombing, depleted uranium shells, cluster bombs, and sanctions that killed children ...to name a few. Iraqi conscripts in the desert learned firsthand how the good guys fight to win. Patrick J. Sloyan won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Desert Storm while Senior Correspondent for Newsday and has written about the U.S. tactic burying Iraqi troops in the deserts of the Gulf.
(Rosemarie Jackowski in action)
“Thousands of Iraqi soldiers, some of them alive and firing their weapons from World War I-style trenches, were buried by plows mounted on Abrams main battle tanks,” Sloyan states. “The Abrams flanked the trench lines so that tons of sand from the plow spoil funneled into the trenches. Just behind the tanks, actually straddling the trench line, came M2 Bradleys pumping 7.62mm machine gun bullets into the Iraqi troops.”
“I came through right after the lead company,” said Army Colonel Anthony Moreno, who commanded a brigade during the first Gulf War. “What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with people’s arms and legs sticking out of them. For all I know, we could have killed thousands.”
Since firing on retreating troops is illegal under international law, it’s not difficult to imagine the global outcry had Hussein utilized this same technique against Iran, Kuwait, or the Kurds.
As Ludwig Wittgenstein sez:
“Let’s cut out the transcendental twaddle when the whole thing is as plain as a sock on the jaw.”
Again, the lesson is there...waiting to be learned:
When this happens…
...this becomes inevitable:
(more photos here: http://tinyurl.com/8xz8)
Reminder: This Veteran’s Day, remember to celebrate those anti-war veterans.
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In the light of the above and the ongoing situation in France, today’s last word goes to Frederick Douglass:
“Find out just what people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
F. Douglass shrugged off the shackles of slavery. Today, to borrow from Bob Marley, we must emancipate ourselves from mental slavery.
Copyright © 2005-2007 Mickey Z.
