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BOMBS OVER BAGHDAD
#498 Column Written 2/24/2001
What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which
enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war.
-- Simone Weil (1909-1943), French Philosopher
Once again, after almost a decade had passed, the fiendish roar of American
and British jets echoed in the suburbs of Baghdad, Iraq, and a deadly rain
of bombs once again hits one of the oldest cities on earth.
Immediately, the corporate media rushed to the airwaves to promote the
bombings, and Bush Administration officials announced that the aerial attacks
on the Iraqi capital were acts of "pre- emptive self-defense."
Once again, the corporate-political media launch into the demonization
game, with attacks on a "Hitler"-like Saddam Hussein, with foreboding threats
of Iraq developing "weapons of mass destruction," - yeah, uh huh.
George Bush II announces that this, his first substantive international
action (other than a contemporaneous photo-op with Mexico's Vincente Fox,)
was meant to "send a message" to Hussein. His Dynastic, Unroyal Highness
did not deign to tell his subjects what that "message" really was.
This writer will try.
The great English writer, George Orwell, in his prophetic novel of an intrusive,
panoptic, totalitarian state, 1984, illustrated with brilliant clarity
the capacity of such states to utilize words that mean exactly the opposite
of what they were proffered to mean. In 1984 the state states:
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
Similarly, "Weapons of mass destruction" is a term that evokes fear, but
fear stifles thought and cripples reason.
Consider the fact that never has either Israel or the apartheid-era South
Africa been described as states wielding "weapons of mass destruction,"
although both possessed nuclear capacities.
If having a "weapon of mass destruction" is a violation of international
law, then the USA must be a global criminal, for no nation possesses so
much nuclear weaponry (moreover, no nation has formerly used such weapons-except
the U.S.)
If most Americans are asked to name the country that sells the most arms
to the rest of the world, even reasonably well-informed folks would say,
"Russia," "China," France," or "Brazil." Few would answer, "USA."
In selling weapons the U.S. truly is "Number One." Iraq wages a bitter
and vicious war for almost a decade against her Shi'a neighbor and rival,
Iran. Almost a million men, women and babies perished in that southwest
Asian holocaust. Guess who sold the most arms to Saddam Hussein's army?
The United States of America.
Back during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, it was the Ayatullah Khomeini
who was being demonized by the media. Iraq's Hussein was "our guy."
What the bombing of Iraq was and still is all about-is oil.
Don't take my word for it.
Several years ago, when another U.S.-U.K. bombing spike was going on, the
American general, Brig. William Looney, spoke openly of the "Message" that
America was trying to send to Iraq:
If they turn on the radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs [surface-to-air
missiles]. They know we own their country. We own their airspace... We
dictate the way they live and talk. And that's what's great about America
right now. It's a good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out
there we need. [Blum, Wm., p. 159; Rogue State (Common Courage, 2000).]
The general sez, "oil." Shouldn't he know why Iraq is being bombarded?
This is the voice of Empire, as real and as omnipotent as any empire in
history; the Roman, the Byzantine or the Ottoman Empire. And empires do
what they do for one real reason: they can.