Tag: Kuwait

There was no turning back (Liberate THIS, Part 13)

Posted on by kathiemm

[A continuing series by guest author Dr. Dahlia Wasfi]

Finally, on Christmas Eve, I got a seat on a red-eye flight out of London and landed in Kuwait City on Christmas morning. Though I was tired, my excitement prevented me from getting any sleep.  Exhausted and jet-lagged, I struggled through airport customs and the Kuwait border emigration process to get to Kuwait’s northern border.

Security post on Iraqi border
Security post on Iraqi border. Image in public domain.

It was raining, and my kind taxi driver waited so I could have shelter until the bus arrived to carry passengers across the several-kilometer no-man’s land between Kuwait and Iraq.

I peered out my rain-streaked window to see a soldier (whom I remember to be British), standing over what looked like an oil barrel and brushing his teeth using a small hand-held mirror.

It was a bizarre sight, and I started to ask myself where the hell I was and what was I doing.

Finally, after what felt like a long wait, the shuttle bus creaked into the make-shift parking area.  Upon its arrival, numerous travelers emerged from the cars parked nearby, moving hurriedly with their boxes and bags to climb aboard and escape the desert rain.

The bus was old and weather-battered, and in my sleep-deprived fog, I wondered if it was the same bus my parents rode when they made the commute in the early 1970s.  There I was that day, alone, isolated, physically and emotionally drained, and unsure of what was coming next.

Somewhere along that anonymous road, in the sands of a nameless desert, I burst into tears. I thought, “This was the stupidest plan I have ever come up with…why didn’t anyone try to stop me?!”  Of course, many friends and family had tried to alert me to the dangers and difficulties of this trip.  I had ignored them.

Now, there was no turning back.

 

Iraq’s borders were sealed (Liberate THIS, Part 12)

Posted on by kathiemm

A continuing series by Dr. Dahlia Wasfi

Map of Iraq & Kuwait
Image in public domain

In late 2004 through early 2005, kidnappings of Westerners became prominent news stories.  Fearing for my safety amidst ever-escalating anti-American sentiment, my Iraqi family advised me to stay safely at home.

Yet I was undeterred from making another trip and selfishly gave little thought to the potential danger for my family’s “harboring” an American.

That my father is Iraqi and I was on vacation probably wouldn’t mean much to those seeking expensive ransoms to feed their families or wishing to send a message to foreigners to get out of Iraq.

But I was mostly oblivious to the risks.  I figured that if I were kidnapped, I could use the few words of Arabic I’d learned growing up (from when my father was angry) in reference to my government.  Surely, I thought, with such skills of wit and a photo of my father, I could get myself out of any sticky situation.

By the end of 2005, with no end to the chaos in sight, my family agreed to host me once again, before the situation deteriorated further.

Because the road from Amman to Baghdad was now exceedingly dangerous, my trip was planned only for Basra this time. Hostility still governed relations between Iraq and Kuwait, not only from the era of Gulf War I, but from the decades of territorial dispute dating back to the early twentieth century.

Even with an American passport, I knew my Iraqi background might be sufficient cause for Kuwaiti border officials to make my trip more difficult. But I didn’t see any other option. I bought tickets to fly via London to Kuwait City, which sits about 82 miles (132 kilometers) from Basra, with the Iraq-Kuwait border about halfway in between.

I had a planned layover in London for two days to attend an anti-war conference organized by the UK Stop the War Coalition. My scheduled flight to Kuwait was for the following evening, December 11th.  If Kuwait had been my final destination, I could have made the trip without a problem.

However, four days before the scheduled December 15 elections, Iraq’s borders were sealed for “security” reasons.  I had to postpone my trip out of London until the borders were reopened.

With bitter sarcasm, I joked with my family that the new Iraq had so much freedom in it that occupation forces had to close the borders to contain it all.

 

Shattering my world (Liberate THIS, Part 3)

Posted on by kathiemm

[Note by Kathie Malley-Morrison:  Today we are pleased to publish the third in our ongoing series from Dr. Dahlia Wasfi‘s book, Liberate THIS.]

The missiles that trailed across the Arabian night sky that January of 1991 fractured the calm over Iraq, like the war itself shattered my world and my memories to pieces.

Marine fighter planes during Iraq war
Marine fighter planes during Iraq war (Image in public domain)

There was no question that the regime of Saddam Hussein was politically repressive. But now, Iraqis suffered under brutality from within and aerial bombardment from without.

Iraqi families were under attack.  My fellow students were celebrating.

Yet, even though I had insight that no one else could have, I said and did nothing for our victims.  At the time, assimilation was a higher priority for me than speaking the truth.  I reeked of selling out.

More than 100,000 Iraqis perished during the 42 days of Gulf War I, but I was lucky.  My blood relatives survived. The worst was yet to come, however, because our aerial assaults had purposely targeted Iraq’s electricity plants, telecommunication centers, and water treatment facilities.  These attacks were in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilians in war[1].

In a matter of days, life became desperate. There was no potable water, no electricity, and with economic sanctions in place, there soon would be no means of rebuilding.

Severe economic sanctions had been imposed on Iraq four days after Iraqi troops entered Kuwait, on August 6, 1990.  (In sad irony, that date was the forty-five year anniversary of another Western targeting of a civilian population, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan.)  All of Iraq’s exports and imports were banned in order to induce Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.[2]

Though withdrawal was completed by the end of the 1991 Gulf War in April, those brutal sanctions remained in place for years.  Once stored resources were depleted, Iraqis began to starve.  It was a stringent medical, cultural, intellectual, and nutritional embargo that victimized the already-suffering Iraqi people.

I knew the direct correlation between my government’s actions and human suffering.  I did nothing.

Dahlia Wasfi

[1] http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/INTRO/380  Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.

[2] Herring, Eric.  “Between Iraq and a Hard Place:  A Critique of the Case for UN Economic Sanctions” in Falk, Richard, Irene Gendzier, and Robert Jay Lifton, eds.  Crimes of War:  Iraq. Avalon Publishing Group, Inc.  New York, NY.  2006. p .223.

 

Proportionality in recourse to war (Just war, part 8)

Posted on by kathiemm

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison:  Today we again welcome another in our series on just war, by guest author Dr. Michael Corgan.]

Proportionality with respect to just war principles is a broad idea. It refers both to the decision to go to war and  to conduct during a war, even a just one. Here we deal with jus ad bellum or the level at which war can be fought.

Falklands war, ship sinking
Argentine ship sinking after British submarine attack (Image in public domain)

The U.N. Charter in Articles 41 and 42 suggests that a range of actions can be contemplated against an aggressor state, with war (military action) as the last resort. Clearly any concept of just war means that all other means must be attempted before resorting to war.

The historical record on this point is not reassuring.

But if this last resort–the use of actual war–is called for, the scale of the war must still be appropriate to a frustration or undoing of the aggressor’s actions. It must not be used as a  pretext for a major effort to “teach a lesson” to the aggressor or to reduce his future
capacities for waging war. Two recent examples may illustrate.

In 1982 the Argentinian government of General Galtieri invaded the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands and captured the small British garrison there. When the British counterattacked to retake the islands, they made it clear that their actions would be confined to a war zone around the Falklands and no action would be taken against the Argentine mainland. Nor was any.

Ten years later the U.N. Security Council authorized the first war against Iraq. Fighting was ended after 100 hours in which the Iraqi forces were driven out of Kuwait. Some military action was taken in Iraq itself but there was no drive to Baghdad.

Contrast this relative restraint with the “shock and awe” introducing the second Iraq war in 2002 and its lingering on for nearly ten years.

In both the Falklands and the first Iraq war there were some excesses, but the wars were, relatively speaking, constrained to undoing the effects of the aggressions. Yet another test for a just war is that its employment of force and its duration be only what is required to undo a specific aggression and no more.

Michael T. Corgan, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Department of International Relations, Boston University