by the Editorial Board, World Socialist Web Site
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/mar2003/bagh-m22.shtml
22 March 2003
Baghdad, March 21home of 5 million people |
Baghdad, March 21home of 5 million people |
The US bombardment of Baghdad, which began in earnest Friday, is a horrific, brutal and cowardly attack. It is being carried out for predatory imperialist aims — above all, the seizure and control of oil wealth — against the defenseless population of a nation that represents no threat to the American people. March 21, 2003 is a shameful day in US history.
In the first day of the campaign of “shock and awe” — the modern equivalent of the Nazi blitzkrieg — as many as 3,000 lethal bombs and cruise missiles rained down on Iraqi cities, principally Baghdad, a metropolis of some five million people. American military officials have indicated that they intend to unleash in the opening phase of the current war ten times the destructive power employed twelve years ago in the initial stage of the first Persian Gulf war.
According to Rear Admiral Matthew Moffit, aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, some 320 missiles were launched on Baghdad. Each missile can carry a 1,000-pound warhead and is designed to fly at low altitudes near the speed of sound to hit “high value” targets.
Reported upon with undisguised glee by the American [Jewish-Zionist controlled] media, the bombs and missiles exploded with terrifying force in Baghdad, creating enormous fire-balls, deafening explosions and sending mushroom clouds into the sky. During the first wave of attacks, at around 9 p.m. Iraqi time, Reuters correspondent Khaled Oweis reported, “The earth is literally shaking in Baghdad.”
 Iraqi child in hospital after American/British attack |
A second wave of bombs and missiles hit an hour or so later. At that time CBC News reported that “large parts of Baghdad [were] already in flames.” Jordanian journalist Tamara al-Karram told CBC, “You can’t even know what places are the targets now. There is no safe place in Baghdad now.” Other eyewitnesses confirmed that sections of the city had been turned into an inferno.
Jean-Pierre Perrin of Libération, the French daily newspaper, described bombs that “on striking the ground, give the impression of transforming into huge balls of fire” and eventually turn into “thick columns of black and grey smoke visible for kilometers around.” He continued: “Each explosion makes the downtown buildings shake and the bomb blasts can be felt some kilometers from the point of impact.”
A reporter for IslamOnline.net described “a ferocious and terrifying aerial assault on the Iraqi capital.” The report went on to say, “The air was thick with clouds of smoke as missile after missile whistled through the sky, followed by furious explosions as they slammed into targets across Baghdad, including the Republican Palace. ... It was impossible to count how many buildings had been hit. Balls of choking black smoke rose in the sky as Baghdad was repeatedly pounded.”
Baghdad, March 21home of 5 million people |
According to Reuters, “Fires broke out in wrecked buildings. Ambulances, fire engines and police cars rushed around otherwise deserted streets of the city, sirens wailing. Fires raged in different parts of the city.” Associated Press reporter Hamza Hendawi wrote, “A huge fire raged to the south of the city; the red glow of the flames illuminated the horizon.”
Other journalists spoke of a “flood of fire.” A headline in the Saudi English-language newspaper Arab News read, “Hell Rains Down on Iraqis.” The article described a family of eight killed when their vehicle overturned as they attempted to flee the bombing.
Attacks of similar ferocity were launched on the northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk and on Basra, in the south.
Baghdad, March 21home of 5 million people |
The number of Iraqi civilians killed in the March 21 attacks is impossible to determine. No one watching the ferocious assault can doubt that casualties were high. The US government, in the person of one of its chief thugs, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, insisted that “no comparison” could be made between the US-led bomb attacks on Baghdad and those of World War II. “The weapons that are being used today have a degree of precision that no one ever dreamt of in a prior conflict,” Rumsfeld said.
When one reporter at the Pentagon press briefing pointed out that hundreds of targets in Baghdad were being hit and asked if that alone did not raise the likelihood of civilian casualties, Rumsfeld dodged the question.
In fact, a comparison between the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 and other fascist outrages of the 1930s and 1940s and the current US campaign is entirely apt. In terms of sheer firepower, the American assault on Baghdad undoubtedly surpasses the German Luftwaffe’s pounding of Polish cities.
No regime has launched such a one-sided military campaign since that time — until now. The scenes of downtown Baghdad in flames make abundantly clear why US officials insisted on covering up a reproduction of Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” at the UN Security Council during Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February 5 presentation of the American case for war against Iraq. Picasso’s painting commemorates a Basque village devastated by a German bombing raid in April 1937 during the Spanish Civil War.
In any event, the public is intended never to know how many Iraqis are slaughtered by the US military machine. As a Financial Times article published March 19 pointed out, the American government has refused to publish an official estimate of Iraqi casualties in the first Persian Gulf War. Unofficial estimates range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands killed and hundreds of thousands more wounded.
The reduction of sections of Baghdad to smoldering rubble, on only the first day of the all-out assault, exposes the US government’s nauseating claim to be “democratizing” Iraq. Only a deranged ignoramus, impervious to world public opinion, like George W. Bush, could declare against the backdrop of flames and mushroom clouds in Baghdad that “We’re making progress” toward the “liberation” of the country.
Iraqi civilian people “liberated” by American troops in southern Iraq
The Washington Post was obliged to report: “US officials have declared that the liberation of Iraq is at hand, but few residents in Baghdad, even in private moments, have framed the conflict in those terms. While Hussein’s government remains distinctly unpopular and even more feared, the mood seems to break along several fault lines. Anxieties over the destruction that a sustained US air attack may bring mix with worries about looting and lawlessness that could follow the government’s collapse.
“This war was imposed on us,” said Affaf al-Naimi, carrying yogurt out of a store in the wealthy neighborhood of Palestine. “Liberate us by bombs? The bombs are going to liberate us? We didn’t ask them to liberate us. We sat in our houses relaxed, we were safe, we entertained ourselves. We don’t need someone to come here to be our godfather.”
The manner in which the second Gulf War began speaks volumes about the Bush administration’s goals, as well as the moral makeup of its personnel. The assault on Iraq began early Thursday with an assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein, in the language of the Mafia, a “hit.”
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf aptly compared the Bush administration to gangsters.
“You consider them superpowers. Well, this is a disgrace, a complete disgrace. They are a superpower of villains. Al Capone is the typical official of America in these days.”
One of the great lies quickly exposed is the mantra that this war has “nothing to do with oil.” US and British troops made the capture of the oil fields in the south and north their first major objective. After initially claiming that the Iraqis had set fire to 30 oil wells, officials later acknowledged the number was seven. The Iraqis asserted that they were not wells at all, but oil-filled trenches set alight.
The US and British governments claimed they were making seizure of the oil wells a priority on “environmental” grounds. But the Financial Times admitted that “London and Washington are risking the accusation that the war is as much to do with Iraq’s huge petroleum wealth as its alleged weapons of mass destruction by making oil fields early targets.”
MSNBC reported, “Allied forces are now in control of the oil fields of southern Iraq and are bringing in contractors to extinguish fires burning at seven oil wells... Oil markets seemed to take comfort from the speed of the US-British advance and shrugged off the news of the well fires. The lack of an impact from the war on oil shipments from Kuwait also inspired confidence.”
A CBS News correspondent reported Friday night that the US military planned to attack 1,000 more Iraqi targets in the next 24 hours, firing 600 cruise missiles “and using virtually every type of warplane in the American arsenal, including the B-2 stealth bomber.”
The assault on Baghdad, whatever its immediate outcome, will prove a political disaster for the Bush administration and American capitalism. No regime can long survive such a horrendous crime. Tragically, American civilians may also pay a price, as the bombing will inflame public opinion in the Middle East and encourage more terrorist attacks.
Added note: Any terrorist attacks on Americans will very likely be covertly committed by the U.S. government for propaganda purposes, just like the 9-11 attacks, to justify American state terrorism before an enraged world.
Related pages
Satanic American/British Babykillers: State Terrorism of the Iraqi People
Photos worth ten thousand words.
American Massacres of People on Baghdad Market Streets
The 3 BIG LIES About Iraq
by John Pilger
American/British Terrorism and Genocide of the Iraqi People 1991–2003
The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf
by Ramsey Clark
Desert Slaughter: The Imperialist War Against Iraq
by the Workers League
Iraq’s Poisoned Water:
The deliberate genocide of the Iraqi people by America and Britain
Bibliography:
American Sanctions Against the Iraqi People
Neighborhood Bully: American Militarism
interview with Ramsey Clark
America: the Ultimate Terrorist
by John Pilger
9-11:
The United States Government Committed the September 11 Attacks
The Israeli Connection To 9-11
Fox News Special Report: Israeli Spying on the U.S.
Massive Israeli Spy Ring Linked to September 11
9-11 Was a Mossad “False Flag Operation”
9-11, Mossad, the CIA and “False Flag Operations”
The CIA, Insider Trading and the World Trade Center Terror Attack
Operation 911: NO SUICIDE PILOTS
Fake Terror: the Road to Dictatorship
See the Honest News page, as well as the sites below, for more news about American state terrorism of the people of Iraq.
Related sites
What Really Happened
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
This alternative news site is one of the best for breaking news on American state terrorism of the people of Iraq.
Aggression Against Iraq
http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/news066.htm
“The IRAQWAR.RU analytical center was created recently by a group of journalists and military experts from Russia to provide accurate and up-to-date news and analysis of the war against Iraq. The following is the English translation of the IRAQWAR.RU report based on the Russian Army Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) information.” (Translated into English and posted at aeronautics.ru with maps and photos, courtesy of Venik.)
These Russian G.R.U. reports are written from a professional military point of view, and contain perhaps the most detailed information publicly available on the Web about America’s latest state terror campaign against the Iraqi people.
First report in the series, starting with the events of March 14-17:
http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/news066.htmApril 7 report:
http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/news092.htm
Russian Intel Reports
http://www.rense.com/Datapages/RUS.htm
This is a Rense.com datapage with a collection of the above ongoing reports from Russian G.R.U. intelligence analysts.
Electronic Iraq: News
http://electronicIraq.net/news/
“Electronic Iraq is a news portal on the US-Iraq crisis published by veteran antiwar campaigners, Voices in the Wilderness, and respected Middle East supplementary news publishers, the Electronic Intifada.”
Al-Jazeerah
http://www.aljazeerah.info/
http://www.aljazeerah.us/
Al-Jazeera T.V. and related websites are the major Arab news source for information on America’s latest genocide of the Iraqi people. The website and mirror above are in English.
“The word ‘Al-Jazeerah’ means ‘The Island,’ in Arabic. ... The main goal of Al-Jazeerah Information Center is to promote cross-cultural understanding between people all over the world. ...Palestinians are victims of the Israeli military occupation and oppression. It is the mission of Al-Jazeerah Information Center to promote non-violence in the resolution of international conflicts, particularly the U.S.-Iraqi conflict and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, without equating the oppressed Palestinians with the oppressive Israeli occupiers. ... Thus, Al-Jazeerah will be an island of truth and hope.”
War: Iraq
http://www.rense.com/Datapages/warr.htm
Rense.com datapage with a collection of important news articles about America’s latest war crimes against the Iraqi people.
The “Shock and Awe” Photo Gallery
http://www.marchforjustice.com/id191.htm
“The brutal ‘Shock and Awe’ military strategy devised by the Zionist Harlan Ullman is taking a horrific toll on the Iraqi children of Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq. Ullman is a Jewish ‘defense intellectual.’ He was the Navy’s ‘head of extended planning’ and taught at the National War College. One of his students was Secretary of State [and war criminal] Colin Powell, who says he ‘raised my vision several levels.’
“The American people are not being shown the horrific devastation that the massive tons of bombs and missiles are causing to Iraqi civilians including its children. La Voz de Aztlan has collected the following pictures from the non-Jewish-dominated media to show the Mexican-American community and the USA community in general the horrible slaughter the U.S. military is inflicting on the children of Iraq.”
Iraq Body Count
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
“This is a human security project to establish an independent and comprehensive public database of civilian deaths in Iraq resulting directly from military actions by the USA and its allies in 2003.”
Islam Online
http://www.islamonline.net/english/index.shtml
Another good site for news about America’s latest genocide campaign against the Iraqi people.
“Our Goals: To work for the good of humanity, as Islam teaches us. To work to uplift the Islamic nation specifically and humanity in general. To support the principles of freedom, justice, democracy, and human rights. To reinforce values and morals on the individual, family, and community levels.”
The crisis of American capitalism and the war against Iraq
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/mar2003/iraq-m21.shtml
“The unprovoked and illegal invasion of Iraq by the United States is an event that will live in infamy. The political criminals in Washington who have launched this war, and the wretched scoundrels in the [Jewish-Zionist controlled] mass media who are reveling in the bloodbath, have covered this country in shame.
“Hundreds of millions of people in every part of the world are repulsed by the spectacle of a brutal and unrestrained military power pulverizing a small and defenseless country. The invasion of Iraq is an imperialist war in the classic sense of the term: a vile act of aggression that has been undertaken on behalf of the interests of the most reactionary and predatory sections of the [Jewish-Zionist dominated] financial and corporate oligarchy in the United States. Its overt and immediate purpose is the establishment of control over Iraq’s vast oil resources and reduction of that long-oppressed country to an American colonial protectorate.”
The Amariyah bomb shelter: a sea of flames, no place to hide
http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/iraq_amiria_e/index.html
From the Chugoku Shimbun (Hiroshima) newspaper site. The story about an American atrocity committed during Iraq Genocide 1, in 1991.
Birth defects of Iraqi babies caused by American/British depleted uranium weapons radiation
http://www.wakefieldcam.freeserve.co.uk/extremedeformities.htm
WARNING — the photos on this page, of bizarrely deformed infants with birth defects caused by American and British Depleted Uranium, are horrifying and nauseating. View at your own risk. The photos are worse than those from Nazi concentration camps, but they are a painfully necessary part of the public record of American/British WAR CRIMES.
See these photos and behold the future — of America and Britain.
To the cowardly pilots and military/corporate/politician slime of America and Britain: you will not live this down.
Fire and Ice:
The Devastation of Iraq by War and Sanctions
by Ramsey Clark
http://www.iacenter.org/fireice.htm
About Iraq Genocide 1: “There was no war. No combat. There was only a deliberate, systematic genocide of a defenseless population while barely setting foot on Iraqi soil. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1967, ‘The greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own government’, he could not have dreamed in his worst nightmare what the U.S. did to Iraq.”
Iraq Daily
http://www.uruklink.net/iraqdaily/
Published by the Iraqi Ministry of Information, with sections devoted to national and international news, the arts, literature, science, sports, society and technology.
No longer available, due to American/British censorship.
Iraqi News Agency
http://www.uruklink.net/iraqnews/eindex.htm
The Iraqi News Agency (INA) employs 320 editorial, technical and administrative staff. INA has 48 offices and correspondents in Arab and foreign countries, reduced to 15 since the sanctions have been imposed on Iraq in August 1990. INA Transmits bulletins in Arabic and English over a period of 14 hours a day.
No longer available, due to American/British censorship.
Bibliography
The Fire This Time:
U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf
by Ramsey Clark
Desert Slaughter:
The Imperialist War Against Iraq
by the Workers League
American Sanctions Against the Iraqi People
(bibliography)
Pirates and Emperors, Old and New:
International Terrorism in the Real World
by Noam Chomsky
Rogue State:
A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
by William Blum
Killing Hope:
U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since WWII
by William Blum
The Beast Reawakens
by Martin A. Lee
Apocalypse 1945:
The Destruction of Dresden
by David Irving
Against Empire
by Michael Parenti
The Sword and the Dollar:
Imperialism, Revolution and the Arms Race
by Michael Parenti
What Uncle Sam Really Wants
by Noam Chomsky
Censored 2000:
The Year’s Top 25 Censored Stories
by Peter Phillips & Project Censored
The Culture of Terrorism
by Noam Chomsky
The Real Terror Network:
Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda
by Edward S. Herman
Western State Terrorism
Alexander George, editor; essays by Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, Gerry O’Sullivan and others
Terrorizing the Neighborhood:
American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era
by Noam Chomsky
Pressure Drop Press, 1991
Derailing Democracy:
The America the Media Don’t Want You to See
by David McGowan
Inventing Reality:
The Politics of News Media
by Michael Parenti
Manufacturing Consent:
The Political Economy of the Mass Media
by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media:
Decoding Spin and Lies in Mainstream News
by Norman Solomon
On Killing:
The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
Dave Grossman
published by: Little, Brown
Examines the consequences of conditioning American soldiers to overcome the instinctive loathing of killing. Shows how it has increased post-combat stress disorder and how contemporary society — especially the media — replicates the U.S. Army’s conditioning techniques, resulting in increased violence in American society.
Available from: Edward R. Hamilton, Bookseller
