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CounterPunch
March 22,
2003
Mass
Murder as Liberation?
Pounding the
Life Out of a City
By SALVADOR PERALTA
I have just witnessed the
Reuters video feed of the bombing of Baghdad. What I have
seen is a night sky lit by a sea of fire. An eerie illumination
that is punctuated only by bursts of flame and brilliant flashes
of light followed by mushroom clouds and plumes of smoke as missile
after missile pounds the life from this city of 6 million people.
As as I reflect on what these images
do not show, human beings being incinerated, bodies blown apart
in what some will no doubt regard as a triumphant display of
American force, I recall that more than 3 million of Baghdad's
citizens are under the age of 15 years old. I recall the story
of a christian missionary in Iraq, an American, now dead, probably,
who only this morning mentioned that life and normalcy were beginning
to return to the streets of Baghdad.
I think of the images and stories that
I have seen and heard of Iraq's citizens: A bowling champion
who gave one of his prized medals to a missionary that I recently
met; People selling trinkets on the streets; children standing
in food lines; I realize that what I am witnessing is a holocaust.
This is my generation's Dresden. What some people wish that we
had done to Hanoi in America's last unjust war.
And yet some people will hold America
blameless for what is happening today in Baghdad. Cognitive dissonance
will kick in and some will believe it when they hear that the
people who are dying today are not dying at the hands American
weapons. They are dying at the hands of Saddam Hussein, who may
or may not already be dead himself.
These people will suggest that "everything
we could do to avert war has been done". That these are
merely "surgical" strikes. That we are liberating the
people of Iraq.
I will remind those people that the first
action of this war was to attempt to destroy the leadership of
Iraq. To cut Iraqi leaders off from their military.
At the time, I remember thinking that
perhaps it was a humanitarian move. I remember thinking that
maybe if we just kill Hussein, we will not have to firebomb Baghdad.
But now it has dawned on me that one of the consequences of cutting
off Iraq's leadership from its military is that the leadership
cannot order a general surrender. By cutting off communications
in Baghdad, our leaders have assured its annhilation.
Mass murder masquerading as liberation.
I wonder what I could have done to avert
this holocaust. I turn that question over in my head. If only
I had been more persuasive in writing to my representatives;
If only I had worked harder in the last election; If only I had
persuaded more people to advocate Peace; then maybe things would
be different.
I am kidding myself, of course. President
Bush was never going to be deterred from this war once he had
chosen his course of action. Nevertheless, I, like every adult
American man and woman, hold a measure of blame for what is happening
today in Baghdad. Our tax dollars are financing this slaughter.
In the end, all I am left with is a great sense of shame, burden,
and sorrow at the suffering and loss of life that I have helped
to finance.
Salvador Peralta
works at the Mark O. Hatfield Library at Willamette University.
He can be reached at: speralta@willamette.edu
Yesterday's
Features
Ben Tripp
Blood
for Oil: the Exchange Rate
Cathy Breens
Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
Scott Handleman
Fourth
Generation Protesting: Shutting Down San Francisco
Vanessa Jones
Paint
Them Red
Brian J. Foley
Patriotic
Protest for Professors
Zoltan Grossman
After Saddam, a War on Iraqi Rebels?
Philip S. Golub
Inventing Demons
Richard Lichtman
On the Current Experience of Terror
Milan Rai
Blitz-Coup
Pepe Escobar
A Cheap Family Farce
Floyd Rudmin
The Nightmare at the Back Door: Nuclear Plant's as Terror Targets
Chris Floyd
See Rome (poem)
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
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