The Clinton Administration did not ask the UN's approval before ordering several missile attacks against Iraq last week. Nor did it get a UN green-light for expanding the so-called "no-fly zone" over Iraqi airspace. The US fired 44 missiles on the Middle Eastern nation during the course of two missions. CNN reported that some of the projectiles missed their designated targets--areas with alleged air defense sites south of Baghdad. Other US missiles remain entirely unaccounted for. Still, the Pentagon denies Iraqi claims that the suburbs of Baghdad, where destruction reportedly occurred, were hit by these stray missiles.
While some countries such as Britain, Germany and Israel have placed their support behind the Clinton Administration's actions, other nations, including France, Spain, China, and Russia, have voiced strong discontent with America's latest intervention in the Gulf region.
A strategic map of Iraq fronted the New Haven Register last Wednesday, explaining the recent US missile attack on Iraq as if it were a game to entertain the American public. While diagrams of all the American aircraft and firepower utilized in the mission filled the article, the only picture of the real live people involved in the carnage was the typical mugshot of Saddam Hussein himself.
CNN's web site, CNN Interactive, titled their special section "Strike in the Gulf," in tabloid-esque italics. The section was well outlined with a plethora of multimedia, maps and graphs, yet it contained not a single mention of the tragic Iraqi deaths due to the bombings.
The American public has been denied the whole story by our media and government. We have not been allowed to witness the human side of Iraq. We see Saddam Hussein, the too-powerful leader whom we have been conditioned to hate. But we never see the pictures of the suffering Iraqi children who starve from the US-led UN economic sanctions which have (as of last year) caused the death of some 576,000 Iraqi children (as reported by the UN's own Food and Agriculture Organization).
The "evil" Saddam Hussein (who was militarily empowered by America in the 80s) has been made the sole symbol of Iraq by the US media. The people of Iraq have been forgotten and must now live not only under an oppressive dictatorship, but also under crippling economic sanctions and sporadic foreign military attacks.
Who gains from all this? With economic sanctions in place, the American arms market in the remainder of the Middle Eastern oil-producing countries is secure, since these nations profit greatly from the rise in the price of oil. With US presidential elections just around the corner, military attacks become a useful tool for an incumbent who wishes to appear firm. As Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov explained, "These strikes will not help anyone, with the exception perhaps of those whose priority is domestic politics." Military attacks during election years have boosted presidential approval ratings as much as 20 points.
The Clinton Administration has made it clear that it must defend the Kurdish minority living in northern Iraq. Yet they have never taken action or spoken out against the Turkish government which has been widely known to attack Turkey's significantly larger Kurdish minority. The sanctions on Iraq are responsible for much of the deterioration in the Kurdish villages.
And Iraq's people suffer: voiceless, unheard, ignored.
--Joseph Habboush, BR '98
President of the Arab-American
Anti-Discrimination Committee