Indecent Burial: Rescuing
History from Empire's Eraser
by Chris Floyd
One of the most important books published in 2010 -- or indeed, in this century -- was
Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions. As I noted here
a few months ago,
Professor Joy Gordon's "detailed, richly sourced and morally horrifying
account of the sanctions era must be read to be believed. However bad
you thought it was, the reality was much worse."
The latter
statement is one of the key elements of the book's importance. Even if
you are one of the very few who have made yourself aware of the reality
of this vast crime against humanity -- digging out whatever nuggets of
truth you could glean from the mountainous slagheap of lies and myth and
amnesia that bury it -- you will be staggered by the picture of
cold-blooded inhumanity that Gordon brings to light. (I have also
written about the book
in this post, which highlights a powerful review of Gordon's book by Patrick Cockburn, who added even more detail.)
Earlier
this month, the UN Security Council formally voted to lift the
20-year-old sanctions against Iraq. Having launched a Hitlerite war of
aggression against the country, plunging it into a living hell that has
taken the lives of more than one million innocent people, displaced
millions more and spread disease, ruin, terrorism, extremism and tyranny
across the conquered land, the great defenders of Civilization in
Washington lauded themselves for their magnificent act of clemency and
mercy in ending the sanctions regime.
The story was little-noted at the time, but Professor Gordon noticed it, and
penned a striking piece for the Capital Times,
which also serves as an excellent introduction to her book -- and as a
reminder of the continuing, murderous hypocrisy of our bipartisan elite.
Below are some excerpts. And remember: much of this deadly record
occurred under the "enlightened" leadership of our last "progressive"
president, the Democrat's beloved Big Dawg himself, Bill Clinton --
whose wife now directs America's foreign policy.
From Gordon:
Last week the U.N. Security Council voted
to lift the sanctions that it imposed on Iraq 20 years ago. Vice
President Joe Biden hailed the occasion as “an end to the burdensome
remnants of the dark era of Saddam Hussein.”
What he did not say was that the
sanctions were more than burdensome. They triggered a humanitarian
crisis that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children,
and the collapse of every system necessary to sustain human life in a
modern society. And he certainly did not mention that among all the
nations on the Security Council, it was the U.S. -- and the U.S. alone
-- that ensured that this human damage would be massive and
indiscriminate.
... The U.S. policies were extreme and
relentless. The U.S. blocked refrigeration for medicines, on the grounds
that refrigerators might be used to store agents for biological weapons
... The U.S. blocked child vaccines and yogurt-making equipment on the
grounds that the Iraqi government might use them to make weapons of mass
destruction. ... The U.S. prevented Iraq from importing water tankers
during a period of drought, while there were epidemic levels of sickness
from drinking water unfit for human consumption. ... At one point, a
U.S. official came before the 661 Committee with a vial of cat litter,
and informed the members, in all seriousness: “This could be used to
stabilize anthrax.”
No one else found the U.S. justifications to
be plausible. UNMOVIC, the U.N.’s weapons inspectors, disputed many of
the U.S. justifications for blocking humanitarian goods. ... Still, the
U.S. rarely relented.
The U.S. insisted that these policies were
aimed at Saddam Hussein. But it was obvious that they had little to do
with him. Iraq’s political and military leadership, and the wealthy
elite, were insulated from the hardship. But the population as a whole
was not.
To destroy a country’s infrastructure, to reduce a nation to
a pre-industrial condition and then keep it in that state, means
precisely that it will be unfit to sustain human life. The reports of
U.N. agencies and international organizations such as the Red Cross
ensured that U.S. officials knew, with certainty, exactly what harm was
being caused by U.S. policies.
While Vice President Biden tells the
world that the end of the sanctions means that Iraq can now move forward
to a bright future, what he does not say is that in fact there was
damage that was irreversible, including child deaths and stunted growth
from years of malnutrition. What he also does not say is that the rest
of the damage -- the collapse of the infrastructure, the terrible
deterioration in industry, agriculture, electricity, health and
education -- was not just due to Saddam Hussein’s indifference. However
much harm Saddam did to the Iraqi people, the U.S., for over a decade,
made it far, far worse.
These excerpts are just part of the story. You should read the whole
article, then read the book. As our public life -- and our common
humanity -- become more and more degraded by the relentless, howling
maelstrom of lies and meaningless inanity that pours down on our heads
day after day, the task of preserving our historical memory -- the
record of reality -- becomes more urgent all the time. Professor Gordon
has performed an heroic task in reclaiming the story of this atrocity
from the efforts of our corporate and militarist and political elites to
erase it.
