Just one of Iraq's one thousand nine-elevens

Friday/Saturday, December 9-10, 2005

A THOUSAND NINE ELEVENS

It’s about time that the average U.S. citizen drop the line "well what about 9-11?" when they speak of the administration’s desire to cleanse the world of evil. That incident occurred more than four years ago and will never duplicate itself. Nineteen Islamic fundamentalists got lucky because the U.S. let its guard down in its airport security. No amount of killing people on foreign soil will change 9-11-2001 and rewrite history. All that will do is incite others to attempt another 9-11.

Despite all the logic and clear-thinking about the reality of 9-11, most U.S. citizens still cite that date and keep trying to avenge the incident. A recent edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune published a letter from Christy King of Lakeside, CA, a suburb of San Diego. It was titled "Remember Sept. 11" and it stated:

I wonder where all you non-Bush supporters were on 9/11. How could you have not seen the horrific terror attack on our Free America? How can you forget that nearly 3,000 innocent people were killed? Our president and our uniformed forces are keeping the war off our soil to protect everybody, even you.

The Bush administration salivates every time it reads letters like this. The neo-cons even wished, in writing, prior to 9-11, that a "Pearl Harbor-like" incident would occur under the Bush watch. Not only did it occur, but it still is occurring in the feeble minds of many Americans.

If Ms. King were true to her philosophy, she should be decrying the innocent people who have been killed in Iraq since 1991 at the hands of three U.S. administrations, both Democrat and Republican. And, if she read only a few newspapers, even the propagandistic pro-Bush ones, she would realize that the 19 martyrs were not attacking a "Free America," but an imperialistic America that had caused havoc in the Arab and Muslim world.

Since August 2, 1990, the U.S. has killed almost three million Iraqis. The first Gulf War, the encompassing embargo and the current fiasco combine for between 2.5 million and three million deaths. In other words, Iraq has suffered ONE THOUSAND nine-elevens. That’s right, one thousand.

If Ms. King had watched the news over this time, she would have seen incinerated babies dragged from bomb shelters. She would have seen Iraqi cities imbedded in filth because the U.S. would not allow the Iraqis to import chlorine to purify the water system. And, the U.S. bragged about this when Schwarzkopf took to the microphone shortly after the Gulf War hostilities began and stated, "We’ve knocked out their drinking water. Soon, they will begin to acquire diarrhea and malnutrition." All the time, he was smiling when he forecast the dismal future for Iraq.

If Ms. King went a little further and, instead of surfing the Internet for Bible interpretation sites, looked for information about Iraq, she would have seen the headless bodies of eight-year-olds or the brains oozing out of a head that once belonged to a 10-year-old girl. She would also have seen the skeleton-like bodies of kids suffering from malnutrition.

Malnutrition was a long-forgotten disease in Iraq. I say "was" because it re-appeared after the Gulf War and stayed on with a vengeance. Before the 1991 slaughter, there had not been a case of malnutrition in Baghdad for decades. By the time of the March 2003 invasion, the Iraqi government, although still under blockade, had almost eradicated malnutrition again, only for it to become rampant after the illegal invasion and occupation.

Who cares? It seems no one in the U.S. government. And, for those Democrats who call the G.O.P. warmongers and uncivilized, it was Madeleine Albright, the Democrat Secretary of State who, in 1997, while being interviewed by Leslie Stahl and asked if the embargo was worth the deaths of almost a million children, coldly and precisely answered, "Yes."

Genocide is a term that has been liberally thrown around in the past decade. Bosnia, Kosovo, and Chechnya have all been linked to the word. However, many, many more people have died in Iraq during this period, yet the word "genocide" is rarely heard, despite it being accurate: the targeting of a particular people for destruction.

Genocide was, is, and will be occurring in Iraq. The Jewish population always says, "Never again," in referencing the genocide perpetrated against their people in WWII. "Never again" are the most hollow words the Jews have uttered because they not only are quiet about the genocide being perpetrated against Iraq, many cheer it on.

A few years ago, it was discovered that Israel had perfected a biological weapon that could kill Arabs, yet was harmless to Jews. In addition, it could target Iraqi Arabs. All this sounds like science fiction, but because of the distinct differences yet closeness of Arab and Jewish DNA (Semites include about 95% Arabs and 5% Jews), it is now possible to create such a doomsday weapon. Israel has it. I guess "never again" does not apply to Arabs.

No, Iraq has undergone 1,000 nine-elevens. However, their thousand is even much more diabolical than if the U.S. had suffered that number of incidents.

At least after 9-11-2001, the American public could go on with life in the same manner as it had prior to that date: work, attend school, play sports, purchase goods, eat, drink, and whatever else was a part of a daily routine. Since March 1991, the Iraqis have not had that luxury. A country in which poverty had been eradicated and that was the crown jewel of modernity in the Arab world, became destitute and the once-thriving middle class quickly became the poor. For 12 years, the embargo not only killed millions, but it kept those still alive in a state of limbo between starvation and deprivation.

Today, it is even worse. No electricity; no gasoline; no heat in buildings; no jobs. Plenty of violence.

More than 100,000 innocent Iraqis have been and still are imprisoned. They have been brutalized, sodomized, victimized and whatever other ized there are. At least after 9-11, unless you are a Muslim, nobody was forced into prisons in the U.S.

No, each of the Iraqi 1,000 nine-elevens makes the one U.S. nine-eleven pale in comparison. The ongoing destruction of Fallujah is no exception. And, this is being performed in the name of Jesus.

For two days before the invasion began in earnest in November 2004, the U.S. Marines held a Christian revival on their base. Loudspeakers blared with Christian music and Christian speakers talking about God’s will. Chaplain-after-chaplain gave speeches telling the Marines they were going to kill on the side of God. The enemy was "Satan."

Maybe it’s my feeble atheist brain, but I can not conceive how the U.S. military could be transformed into a religious unit. I don’t believe that Jesus Christ ever existed, but, for sake of argument, let’s assume he did. Most Christians say they interpret Jesus Christ as a spokesman for love and tolerance. To us heathens, this is an honorable message. How then, can a bunch of Marines be chomping at the bit to kill for Christ? The mind boggles.

At about this time last year, I received a message from my friend Dahr Jamail who was in Baghdad. He conveyed a couple of interesting thoughts. First, he said, "The good news is that interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has announced a shortening of the curfew that most of Iraq is under. So now, rather than having to be off the streets by 10:30pm, we can stay out until 11:00pm before we are shot on sight."

He then told about the method of burying the dead in Fallujah: "Rather than burying full bodies, residents of Fallujah are burying legs and arms, and sometimes just skeletons as dogs have eaten the rest of the body."

I have yet to hear of an American citizen being eaten by a dog after 9-11-2001.

Cover of "The Mother of All Battles," to be released January 2006