What If They Gave a War and Nobody Paid Attention?

• Author: Kysia, Ramsey
• Position: US war against Iraq - Brief Article

The US government is at war. It is at war with the government, and with the people, of Iraq. And what bothers me most about this war, aside from the actual war itself; is that it has somehow become "controversial" to even acknowledge it. For over a year, in what is now the longest running air-war since Vietnam, the United States has been bombing Iraq on the average of 3-4 times a week. It has bombed Iraqi military and intelligence facilities. It has bombed radar stations. It has bombed communication centers. It has also bombed oil fields and oil pipelines, farms and food warehouses, water supplies, hospitals, schools, and civilian neighborhoods. But they say that somehow this is not war.

The military says that it bombs Iraq only in "self-defense." What does that mean when, after over a year of bombing missions, Iraq has not managed to hit one of our planes--let alone shoot one down? They say that they enforce the "no-fly-zones" to protect the people living under them. What does that mean when they continue to allow Turkish planes to violate those zones and drop bombs on those same people?

They deny that they are targeting civilians with their bombing campaign. And when we confront them with independent, UN or international press reports of civilian casualties, they say that these are "accidents." How the US government can consistently bomb civilians and civilian infrastructure by accident is something I do not understand.

They say that they are engaged in their non-war because they are fundamentally opposed to "weapons of mass destruction." If they are, if that is true, then why do they continue to use a weapon of mass destruction against Iraq? Sanctions are a form of collective punishment, and, in Iraq, they have indiscriminately killed over 1,000,000 people. Sanctions are the greatest single weapon of mass destruction at work in the world today.

Since August 6, 1990, the US--through the United Nations--has enforced a world-wide blockade on all trade with Iraq. Because of this blockade, there are critical shortages of food and medicine. Because of this blockade, Iraq has been unable to rebuild the civilian infrastructure (specifically, electrical plants and water and sewage treatment centers) that were so thoroughly destroyed during "Desert Storm." Because of this blockade--these "sanctions"--over 1,000,000 people, mostly children, have died from malnutrition and disease. According to the UN, a child dies every 10 minutes in Iraq because...