One Iraqi's Story

by Howard Zinn

excerpted from the book

Howard Zinn on War

Seven Stories Press, 2000, paper

My reaction to the December 1998 bombing of Iraq by the Clinton Administration was sent out over the Internet, although I was not aware of this until I received an e-mail from an Iraqi physician living in London. It cut through the abstraction of "bombing" to see what happened to a single family. After my article appeared, a number of Americans began a correspondence with Dr. Al-Obaidi.

As Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were bombing Iraq on December 20, I received an e-mail message from England:

Dear Professor Zinn,

I am an Iraqi citizen who sought refuge here in the U.K. because of the brutality of Saddam's regime, which, within two years, killed my innocent old father and my youngest brother, who left a wife and three children....

I am writing to you to let you know that during the second day of bombarding Iraq, a cruise missile hit my parents' house in a suburb of Baghdad. My mother, my sister-in-law (wife of my deceased brother), and her three children were all killed instantly.

Such a tragedy shocked me to such an extent I lost my tears. I am crying without tears. I wish I could show my eyes and express my severe and painful suffering to every American and British [citizen]. I wish I could tell my story to those sitting in the American Administration, the U.N., and at Number 10 Downing Street. For the sake of Monica and Clinton, my family has to pay this expensive and invaluable cost. I am wondering, who will compensate me for my loss? I wish I could go to Iraq to drop some tears on my mother's grave, who always wanted to see me before her death....

Please convey my story to all those whom you think can still see the truth in their eyes and can hear this tragic story with their ears.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Mohammed Al-Obaidi

It seems to me this conveys with terrible clarity that Saddam Hussein and the leaders of our government have much in common: They are both visiting death and suffering on the people of Iraq.

In response to the possibility that Saddam Hussein may have weapons of mass destruction" and the additional possibility that he may use them ~n the future, the United States, in the present, shows no compunction about using weapons of mass destruction: cruise missiles, B-52 bombers, and, most of all, economic sanctions, which have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.

With the December bombings, Bill Clinton was perfectly willing to kill a number (how many we do not know) of Iraqis, including five members of Dr Mohammed Al-Obaidi's family. Why? "To send a message," his Administration said.

Would the United States be willing to take the lives of a similar number of Americans "to send a message"? Are Iraqis less worthy of life than we are? Are their children less innocent than ours?

President Clinton said that Saddam Hussein poses a "clear and present danger" to the peace of the world. Whatever danger Saddam Hussein may pose m the future, he is not a clear and present danger to the peace of the world. We are. Notice the President's use of this much-abused term. The Supreme Court of the United States invoked it to justify the imprisonment of people distributing leaflets protesting the U.S. entrance into World War I. Cold Warriors used it to justify McCarthyism and the nuclear arms race. Now President Clinton has pulled it off the shelf for equally disreputable purposes.

President Clinton also said that other nations besides Iraq have weapons of mass destruction, but Iraq alone has used them. He could say this only to a population deprived of history. No nation in the world possesses greater weapons of mass destruction than ours, and none has used them more often, or with greater loss of civilian life. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more than 100,000 civilians died after the United States dropped atom bombs on them. In Korea and Vietnam, millions died after the United States dropped "conventional" weapons on them. So who are we to brag about our restraint in using weapons of mass destruction?

The U.S. penchant for bombing blots out the government's ability to focus on humanitarian crises-and not just in Iraq. When Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America, leaving tens of thousands dead and more than a million people homeless, there was a desperate need for helicopters to transport people to safety and deliver food and medicine. Mexico supplied sixteen helicopters to Honduras. The United States supplied twelve. At the same time, the Pentagon dispatched a huge armada-helicopters, transport planes, B-52s-to the Middle East.

Every cruise missile used to bomb Iraq cost about $1 million, and the Pentagon used about 250 of them: a quarter of a billion dollars in cruise missiles alone. At the same time, the Knight-Ridder News Service reported that the Department of Defense, on the eve of winter, had stopped distributing millions of blankets to homeless programs around the country. The Senate Armed Services Committee had not approved the appropriation. According to the news dispatch, "The Congressional committee said the cost of the blanket program diverted needed money from weaponry."

Thus, our weapons kill people abroad, while homeless people freeze at home. Are not our moral priorities absurdly distorted?

When I received the message from Dr. Al-Obaidi, I tried to meet his request by reading from his letter on a number of radio interviews in various parts of the country. I have written to him to tell him that. Nothing, of course, can restore his family. All we can do is try to convey to the American public the human consequences of our government's repeated use of violence for political and economic gain. When enough of them see and feel what is happening to people just like us-to families, to children-we may see the beginning of a new movement in this country against militarism and war.

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