Tag: bombing

Truth & Reconciliation, Part III, by Ross Caputi

Posted on by kathiemm

 

 

Child at Fallujah Maternity and Children’s hospital. Photo by Dahr Jamail, used with permission
Child at Fallujah Maternity and Children’s hospital.
Photo by Dahr Jamail, used with permission

 

There was no casus belli (just cause) for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The leaders of the coalition forces treated the lives of Iraqi civilians with reckless disregard as they bombed and invaded Iraq, citing intelligence they knew to be questionable. The shock-and-awe bombing of Iraq claimed over 7,000 lives, and the subsequent occupation claimed hundreds of thousands more.

The occupation also shredded the social fabric of Iraqi society, exploited a social division in Iraq that previously held little significance, provoked a civil war between the Sunni and Shia communities, and has resulted in entrenched resentments and a divided country.

Entire communities have been displaced, uprooting people, robbing them of their historical bond with their locality. The agricultural system, the historic seed bank, the marshes, have all been forced to change.

The medical and educational systems have been destroyed too. Many Iraqi researchers, instructors, and doctors have been assassinated. Many others have fled the country, leaving these essential services understaffed and incapable of meeting the needs of Iraqis.

Worse yet, pollution from war has left Iraq with a crippling public health crisis. Rises in birth defects and cancers have been reported throughout the country, with extreme rates in cities like Fallujah and Basra. Iraq will remain contaminated with radiation for billions of years because of uranium weapons. And the extent of the contamination from other sources—such as burn pits and lead and mercury from conventional munitions—is still unknown.

The occupation has left Iraq divided, polluted, and silenced under a corrupt political system and an oppressive government that enjoys considerable support from both the US and Iran.

What was taken from Iraqis can never be given back to them in its entirety. The harm our society caused theirs is immeasurable. Reparations are a moral imperative. Though the cause of the harm may be unidirectional, the healing will not be. Assisting Iraqis in the rebuilding of their society will cultivate in us a culture of responsibility, solidarity, and caring.

Join us at Islah [http://www.reparations.org/projects/truth-reconciliation/ in collaborating with Iraqis who are rebuilding the social infrastructure of their society. Help us in confronting the public silence surrounding the crimes committed against the Iraqi people. By campaigning for an international war crimes tribunal too, we hope to collaborate with Iraqis to create the requisite conditions for a future truth and reconciliation commission.

Ross is currently on the Board of Directors of ISLAH. He is also a graduate student and a writer. In 2004, he was a US Marine in the US-led occupation of Iraq. His experience there, in particular his experience during the 2nd siege of Fallujah, compelled him to leave the US military and join the anti-war movement. His activism has focused on our society’s moral obligation to our victims in Iraq, and to the responsibility of veterans to renounce their hero status in America.

Imagine an occupation of the U.S.

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Dr. Dahlia Wasfi

Imagine that on September 11, 2001, instead of four airplanes used as missiles, massive air strikes had targeted numerous strategic sites in the U.S.

Over 50 aerial bomb drops
Stenciling boasting over 50 aerial bomb drops. Image in public domain.

Instead of attacks over a few hours on a single morning, consider the bombardments continuing unabated for three-and-a-half weeks, for the purpose of “shocking and awing” the American people.

Instead of nearly 3,000 dead, tens of thousands of Americans are murdered in the bombings.  And in the aftermath, local police and fire departments responsible for aiding the ill and injured are rendered helpless by swarms of occupying soldiers who take control of American society.

Consider the scenario of our elected leaders then being kidnapped or simply made to disappear, and foreigners—most of whom do not speak English—declaring authority over the U.S.  Our lives become ruled by a military occupation that lasts the next decade.

The occupation force responsible for our security comprises primarily young men and women ignorant of our society. Human rights violations become the norm.

During the course of this decade of occupation, the foreign military protects Texas oil fields, while the fabric of American society is destroyed.

  • Women’s rights are set back for decades, if not centuries.
  • American infrastructure deteriorates while the healthcare and educational systems are decimated.
  • An estimated 1,000,000 – 1,500,000 American citizens die
  • Nearly 5,000,000 Americans are displaced [opens in PDF] from their homes
  • Five million children lose one or both parents
  • Between one and two million widows are made
  • Electricity, potable water, and security are scarcities.

How would we feel about the people responsible for this calamity? How would we feel about the soldiers occupying our streets?

How do Iraqis feel about us?

Dahlia Wasfi

Street sewage in new “democratic” Iraq (Liberate THIS, Part 9)

Posted on by kathiemm

A continuing series by guest author Dr. Dahlia Wasfi

In February and March 2004, I made a 19-day journey to Iraq. The first memories of my life were from my early years in Iraq. My life would start over again there, too.

Sign: What have you done today for the Iraqi people?
Photo by Peter Rimar, in public domain

With Baghdad International Airport controlled by American occupation forces (as was true for years to come), I flew to Jordan and made the 10-hour car ride to Baghdad.

In Iraq’s capital, a year after the invasion, damage from bombing raids was omnipresent. Iraq had been liberated, alright—from sovereignty, security, electricity, and potable water. The new “democratic” Iraq modeled sewage in the streets, rolling blackouts, shootings, and explosions.

After several days spent visiting my Baghdadi relatives, I needed to reach my father’s immediate family in the south. Ahmed[i], one of my cousins from Basra, drove 12 hours round trip with a friend to pick me up and bring me to visit the rest of the family. With numerous checkpoints and no security, their efforts were Herculean.

To my naïve foreign eyes, Basra’s condition appeared to be much the same as Baghdad’s, except that the damage seemed more extensive. This city had been destroyed during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, the 1991 Gulf War, and the 2003 Shock and Awe invasion.  Throughout that time, sanctions and neglect had thwarted the city’s—and her people’s—recovery.

I expected to encounter resentment during my visit.  After all, my immediate family had left Iraq for America during the good days of the 1970s.  So much destruction had been wrought against the Iraqi people by my government since then.

Every destroyed building we passed, every sewage-flooded street, every child suffering in poverty, I despairingly thought to myself, “You’re welcome, Iraq. I helped do this to you.”  I held resentment towards myself and deep shame as an American in this occupied land.

[i] Name changed.

“They started bombing” (Liberate THIS, Part 1)

Posted on by kathiemm

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: Today we begin our serialization of excerpts from Dahlia Wasfi’s upcoming book on the invasion and occupation of Iraq from her perspective as the daughter of an American Jewish mother and an Iraqi Muslim father.]

Ordnance load on U.S. Marines plane during Operation "Desert Storm" 1991
Ordnance load on U.S. Marines plane during Operation "Desert Storm" 1991 (Image in public domain)

“Dahlia, come here,” my father called.

The resignation in his voice told me that something was wrong.

On the east coast of the United States, it was 7 p.m., January 16, 1991.  In Iraq—my father’s birthplace—it was 3 a.m. the following day. I was upstairs in my parents’ house in Delaware, during winter break of my sophomore year at Swarthmore College.

When I heard his sad command, I tiptoed to the balcony overlooking the family room.  I thought that if I stepped delicately enough, nothing would be disturbed when I reached my father.  My efforts were futile.  Peering over the railing, I saw him standing by the television.

“They started bombing,” he said.  The assault of Gulf War I had begun.

I looked down to my father over the banister with helpless despair.  He looked into the television screen with helpless despair.  I wanted to reach down into the TV and stop what was happening, maybe even stop time until I could figure out a solution.  But I could only stand motionless, frozen at the balcony, trying to process what was happening.

Even as I tell this story years later, my stomach churns as it did that day, for the hopelessness and helplessness of that moment.  Fear and sadness instantly overcame me.

My relatives were among the millions of Iraqis who had no say in their government’s actions, but who would pay dearly at the hands of the most powerful military in the world.  I couldn’t help my dad.  I couldn’t help my family.

Moments later, once the initial shock of the news passed, I found myself nervously humming. I soon realized the song was R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” For me, it was.

Dahlia Wasfi, M.D.