When you know something’s so unfair
In an editorial for The Moscow Times, Chris Floyd suggests that the Bush administration’s insistence that it would minimize civilian casualties in Iraq was – to fashion a crude pun – a load of bolshevik.
The armchair warriors who directed the American-led conquest of Iraq would like us to believe that the estimated 10,000 innocent civilians who died in the invasion were simply unfortunate, inadvertent, unavoidable, accidental victims of a just and noble action. No one wanted these innocent people to die. Surely no American leader ever knowingly ordered a mission with the certain knowledge that innocent people were going to be killed by it. These deaths just happened; no one is to blame for them.That’s what the armchair warriors tell the world—and themselves too, no doubt, when they look into the mirror every morning. But like almost every other statement issued by the Bush Regime on the subject of Iraq, this comforting fairy tale is a cynical, blood-soaked lie.
Perhaps one of my favorite comments I received on my still-popular entry written on the night of Bush’s first strike in Iraq was the one that asked me how I could suggest that American soldiers would intentionally target civillians.
I think I was gravely misunderstood. I never intended to suggest that they would intentionally target civillians. In fact, I don’t think I even unwittingly suggested it. I think they just wanted to call me a traitor (among other nasty names). I did, however, point out that in a war innocent people die. It’s part of what makes a war a war. It’s part of what makes war Hell.
But who do we believe?
On one side, we had the media telling us every day that our laser-guided missiles were working spectacularly, and that people in Baghdad were going about their daily business as if nothing was happening, because they knew they wouldn’t be hit by stray fire.
On the other side, we had reports coming in from European and Middle Eastern news sources telling us about missiles that landed in market squares and bombs that blew apart schools and community centers. And plenty of pictures of wounded children. Plenty of pictures.
So, which side do we believe when we ask the question: How many innocents had to die for a war that Bush is now having trouble justifying to the world and to his own country?
Maybe the answer is neither of them. Maybe we need to believe a little bit of both.
In a debriefing for American and “Coalition” brass, U.S. Lieutenant General Michael Mosley confirmed that all air war commanders were required to get Rumsfeld’s direct approval for any airstrike that would likely kill more than 30 innocent people, The New York Times reports. That certainly sounds like admirably strict oversight for such a momentous battlefield decision. In practice, however, Rumsfeld’s management of the process was based on the same philosophy that his boss George W. Bush applied to death-penalty cases when he was governor of Texas: “What the hell, let ‘em fry!”More than 50 times, Rumsfeld was approached with mission plans likely to leave at least 30 innocent people vaporized and mutilated by unstoppable high-tech weaponry crashing down on them without warning, without the slightest chance of escape. More than 50 times, Rumsfeld signed his name to these multiple death-warrants: Every such mission was approved, said Mosley.
Rumsfeld is not a stupid man. He knows – as everybody who has half a brain knows – that no matter how good the technology is and no matter how good your intelligence is, innocent people are going to die in a war. Going in to attack targets in a civilian area means civilian casualties.
Is that a defense for Rumsfeld? No. Not in the least.
Because Rumsfeld did not sign off on civilian deaths in the name of a just war. Rumsfeld signed off on civilian deaths in the name of a conflict pushed through unilaterally by an imperialistic administration, in violation of the rules and the wishes of the international community. Rumsfeld signed off on civilian deaths in the name of a war in which we were the aggressors – a war shored up by lies, half-truths, faulty intelligence, and jingoistic macho grandstanding.
But the ultimate responsibility must be laid at the ultimate authority, the man who indeed insists that it was his imperial will alone that launched the invasion: George W. Bush. True, it’s painfully obvious that he is the witless mouthpiece of ideological extremists like Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney—those Bolsheviki of the boardroom. In fact, Bush is apparently ignorant of the actual events that led up to the war: In one of his very rare unscripted remarks, he panicked and told reporters last week that he invaded Iraq only after Saddam Hussein “wouldn’t allow UN inspectors into the country”—a breathtaking display of disassociation from reality.