That was no war, it was homicide - and still Iraqis die
Behind the official version of Desert Storm lie awful secrets of a one-sided slaughter, writes John Pilger.

The great American reporter Seymour Hersh is at war with the American military over his report in The New Yorker that one of its most lauded generals, now a member of President Bill Clinton's Cabinet, ordered his troops to fire on retreating Iraqis on the eve of the Gulf War ceasefire in 1991.

Barry McCaffrey, commander of the 24th Infantry Division, has denied accusations such as the machine-gunning of 350 disarmed Iraqi prisoners. "Why are we shooting at these people when they are not shooting at us?" says one of his men on a tape quoted by Hersh. "It's murder," says another.

The allegations against McCaffrey suggest he was a bad apple. But the enduring secret of the 1991 Gulf War was that it was not a war at all, rather an epic act of homicide. A great deal of propaganda has been devoted to covering up this truth and promoting the precision of so-called smart weapons, as if war has finally become a science.

The bombing of the Al-Amiriya bunker in Baghdad in February 1991, incinerating more than 300 people, mostly women and children, was immediately blamed on Saddam Hussein. The bunker, we were told, was a "military facility".

Although the lie was exposed by several reporters, the taint of "Iraqi reporting restrictions" remained. Britain's Independent Television News said it was censoring its report because the material was "too distressing".

Six months later, the unedited CNN and World Television News "feeds" of footage of the bunker were obtained by the Columbia Journalism Review. "They showed scenes of incredible carnage," wrote the reporter who viewed them. "Rescue workers were collapsing in grief, vomiting from the stench, dropping blackened corpses."

The atrocity was passed over quickly, and the "coverage" returned to its main theme of a sanitised, scientific war. Unknown to reporters corralled in Saudi Arabia, less than 7 per cent of the weapons used in the Gulf War were "smart"; most were old-fashioned "dump" bombs. Seventy per cent of the 88,500 tonnes dropped on Iraq and Kuwait - the equivalent of more than seven Hiroshimas - hit no military targets and fell in populated areas.

Paul Roberts, one of the few journalists to escape the "pool" system, travelled with Bedouins. "I experienced bombing in Cambodia, but it was nothing like that ..." he said. "There were three waves every night. After 20 minutes of this carpet bombing there would be a silence and you would hear a screaming of children and people. [The survivors] were walking around like zombies."

This was never published in the mainstream media, nor was the overwhelming evidence that - as in Vietnam and last year in Serbia and Kosovo - civilians were not mistakenly killed, but targeted. Cluster bombs, still killing and maiming children in Kosovo, are, as the label says, "anti-personnel".

As the ceasefire was being negotiated with Iraq, columns of retreating other nationalities who had been trapped in Kuwait, mostly guest workers, were attacked by American carrier-based aircraft. They used cluster bombs and napalm B, the type that sticks to the skin while continuing to burn. Returning pilots bragged about a "duck shoot" and a "turkey shoot". Others likened it to "shooting fish in a barrel".

Unknown to journalists in the pool system, in the two days before the ceasefire (when the McCaffrey atrocities allegedly happened), American armoured bulldozers were deployed, mostly at night, burying Iraqis alive in their trenches.

Six months later, the New York Newsday reported that three brigades of the 1st Mechanised Infantry Division used snow ploughs mounted on tanks and combat earthmovers to bury thousands of Iraqi soldiers - some still alive - in more than 110 kilometres of trenches.

A brigade commander, Colonel Anthony Moreno, said: "For all I know, we could have killed thousands." To my knowledge, the only images of this shown in the West included a few fleeting pictures on the BBC.

The policy of the American commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf, was that Iraqi dead were not to be counted. One of his senior officers boasted: "This is the first war in modern times where every screwdriver, every nail, is accounted for."

As for human beings, he added: "I don't think anybody is going to be able to come up with an accurate count for the Iraqi dead."

The London Independent rejoiced in the "miraculously light casualties". In the US, there was some attempt to root out the truth. However, this was confined to very few newspapers, such as Newsday, and samizdat publications such as Z magazine, which publishes Noam Chomsky.

Shortly before Christmas 1991 the Medical Educational Trust in London published a comprehensive study of casualties. Up to 250,000 men, women and children were killed or died as a direct result of the American-led attack on Iraq. A one-sided slaughter.

In evidence before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, the major international relief agencies reported that 1.8million people had been made homeless, and Iraq's electricity, water, sewerage, communications, health, agriculture and industrial infrastructure had been "substantially destroyed", producing "conditions for famine and
epidemics".

Most of this was not reported, or was tucked away. In the most covered war in history, almost everybody had missed the story.

It is hardly surprising that, in the nine years since, the death of half a million children due to economic sanctions, and the continuing bombing of populated areas in Iraq by American and British aircraft, are not news. "The thought that the state is punishing so many innocent people," wrote playwright Arthur Miller, "is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied."

There follows extracts from a conversation with someone who has recently observed the Hague Tribunal at close quarters. The person's name and the proceedings observed have not been revealed. As the following article makes clear, no one who has had any dealings with the tribunal can feel entirely sure that its tentacles will not wrap themselves around him or her long after they have left the Hague behind them.

"The court is situated in the former headquarters of an insurance company in the outskirts of the Hague. There are three court rooms in the building all hermetically sealed. Of course, most courts are secure and airless places, but there seems to be something deliberate about the complete isolation of the Hague Tribunal from the environment.

The prisoners in its detention centre constantly complain that they are held without any access to the open air. They are brought to the Tribunal building from a life lived under artificial light in black-windowed cars (as are witnesses) and then they have to sit in the airless world of the court. The fact that no breath of fresh air ever reaches prisoners or their prosecutors seems symbolic. The Prosecution is bent on creating an artificial world where its ideology rules to the exclusion of all other ideas or even common sense.

As in Soviet courts of old, and French Napoleonic courts before the recent reforms, the prosecutor predominates. The judges are at his beck and call. Emphasis on the Prosecution is appropriate. The panels of three judges rarely seem in charge of the court. Whatever their individual merits – they are drawn from the second tier of courts around the world – there is little sense that they embody or uphold the majesty of impartial justice. The system is weighted in favour of the prosecution.

This dominance of the prosecution over the judges sitting on the bench is especially striking given the common-law provenance of the lawyers who drew up the ICTY's procedures. In one recent case, the prosecutor wanted to introduce tape-recorded evidence into the proceedings even though it had not been shown to the judges, let alone the defence counsel. It was only when the witness and defence counsel objected that the judges intervened and ruled that such evidence could only be introduced later at the rebuttal stage.

Both the composition of the judiciary and the prosecution is dominated by people from the common law tradition. The code of procedure of the Tribunal was established when judges and lawyers from Great Britain, the US, South Africa and Australia were in charge. These people threw overboard large amounts of Common Law jurisprudence, especially when it came to the rights of the defendant and the rules of due process. It was almost as if, liberated from the constraints of Anglo-American justice, they fell for the joys of the inquisitorial procedure hook, line and sinker.

For example, anonymous witnesses and secret testimony are permitted so that the defendant cannot often identify his accusers. Rape victims can remain anonymous. The justification for this procedure is, no doubt, to encourage victims to come forward and give evidence. However, this strips away the defendant's basic rights as malicious or false accusations are even more difficult to counter when the accuser's identity is hidden from view.

The venom against defence witnesses recalls the question posed at the trial of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera in Barcelona at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July, 1936: "Do you hate the defendant?" If you didn't, you went into the dock too!

Witnesses are attacked on ideological grounds. Anyone who calls into question the policies of the leading NATO states (even, or especially, when they colluded with Milosevic's regime in the early 1990s) is denounced and hectored at as "extremist." Western academics appearing as expert witnesses have been subject to personal abuse as well as intrusive inquiries into their personal lives by the Prosecution's allies in the NATO intelligence services. The intention seems to be to intimidate anyone not sharing the Prosecution's purpose and to warn off others from giving evidence. The refusal to contemplate the idea that even individual NATO servicemen may have committed acts liable under the Tribunal's charter vitiates its impartial character.

The Prosecution certainly, but in practice, the whole Tribunal structure acts as a revolutionary or ideological court. Opinion is as much on trial as actions. The Tribunal supports certain goals and national independence is not one of them. Whatever their differences, Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims who believe in the independence of their states or peoples are viewed negatively by the ICTY ideology. It is against all nationalisms. Even British academics are routinely abused for being "Euro-sceptic" in their private views – though with what relevance to Balkan atrocities is not clear unless the Tribunal takes the view that any scepticism about large multinational political conglomerates is preparatory to crime.

The Prosecution's use of conspiracy as a charge recalls the great Soviet show trials of 1936-38. In one case, the Orwellian proportions of the Prosecution mindset was revealed as the accused was charged with conspiring, despite the admitted lack of evidence. But "lack of evidence can in fact be proof of conspiracy."!! It is not the destruction of evidence but its very absence which can be used to convict! Even Vyshynsky never reached that advanced stage of terror in 1937.


Miscarriages of justice aplenty threaten but there is no genuinely independent appeals procedure. Quite to the contrary, appellants do not face a separate tribunal and, as in Soviet law, they risk getting an increased sentence as well as new charges leveled against them if they challenge the original verdict.

It will come as no surprise to learn that certain states and their servants are privileged by the court. Needless to say, it is the NATO states who pay the Tribunal's bills and whose personnel are treated as beyond error, let alone perjury. Ignoring the damning precedent set in the English courts in the mid-1970s when the then leading Appeal Court judge, Lord Denning, ruled that British policemen in the Queen's uniform could not possibly have perjured themselves to frame the so-called Birmingham Six (alleged IRA pub bombers in 1974), the tribunal has repeatedly shown deference to the testimony and persons of British troops who had served in UNPROFOR in Bosnia. No questioning of the British government's cynical policy there is permitted.

On the point of financing it is quite extraordinary that this would-be international even global judicial system depends on private finance. As with many UN agencies the member states have not been enthusiastic about paying for the ICTY. But that has not stopped the Tribunal accepting money from clearly biased private sources. George Soros has made no bones about his attitude to many of the indicted and yet the Tribunal takes his cash. Similarly Islamic donors are prominent.

How can there be equal justice when the stipends of the court officials are paid by advocates of the guilt of some of the defendants?! It is an outrage but one which has gone by default because so many of the human rights NGOs depend on the same sources of funding as those giving to the Tribunal. The intermeshing of NATO governments, the tribunal and so-called NGOs and private donors means that the whole system is not under any kind of independent review.

All this raises the alarming prospect that the proposed International Criminal Court will follow the same pattern on a global scale. Even if the US Senate is unwilling to ratify it, nonetheless the same sort of US personnel (frequently actually the same people) who helped establish the Hague Tribunal's appalling procedures have been active in determining those of the future International Criminal Court.

Far from being an abstract entity judging criminal cases impartially without fear or favour, the proposed International Court is going to be a glorified version of the ideological court in the Hague but with a global agenda. Judicial activism – this time led by prosecutors rather than Supreme Court judges – threatens to extend its reach around the world criminalizing anyone or any party who dissents from the "consensus" established by the secret diplomacy of states and their allies among the so-called NGOs.

The failure of human rights groups to question the procedures and presumptions of the ICTY is striking. If the courts and prosecution in any individual EU state acted as the ICTY does, then appeals would soon be flying to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Imagine the Strasbourg Court permitting unseen evidence to flit into court without prior disclosure to the judges, let alone the defence counsel! The prolonged periods of detention before trial would also raise doubts in Europe. But of course the Hague Tribunal is an international body, immune to the rule of law that everyone else in Holland is subject to.

The ICTY sets an interesting and dangerous precedent. It used to be a principle of English law "Be you ever so high the law is above you," yet today in this age of human rights rhetoric, the new international courts' system is being established immune from judicial review. Under the cry of "Stop impunity" the advocates of international courts urged the establishment of tribunals like that in the Hague as a way of bringing to justice those too powerful to face trial in their own states. Ironically, the impunity bestowed upon the Prosecution and Tribunal sets a much more dangerous precedent. Under the guise of global justice a judicial monster unfettered by common law restraints is coming into being.

2500 years ago Plato saw that "no-one commits a worse injustice than when it is done in the name of justice." For the sake of punishing a few Balkan butchers, human rights activists colluding with cynical governments are unleashing on the world a new kind of tyranny: the international tribunal."

http://www.antiwar.com/stone/stone-col.html

thx:

thanks for answering my question.

it's not as if i completely disagree with
you....guess it's the harshness with which you
stand by your 'principles'.

makes me think you are younger than many here.

By Antonio ( - 209.239.214.142) on Friday, July 7, 2000 - 03:55 am:
By Dimitri ( - 63.85.63.20) on Thursday, July 6, 2000 - 05:23 pm:
>Mask,

>LOL. Yeap, I know what you mean. Antonio took a
>liberty to speak for all of us Russkies, when in
>fact only so few actually know anything in
>Armenian.

I never claimed to speak for the Rooskies at all. As for the Armenians I can only tell what I know. Are you really Russian, or are you a Jew?

---

Oh, here we go again..LOL

First of all , YOU DID, liar. You said " Russians and Armenians have expresion for for you - "gyote". Don't you dare to speak for Russians ever again.

I am Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish and Polish, mostly Russian. I am a Soviet, allthough I dissaprove of the regime. I love Russia, I am proud of Israel, I don't care Poland, and I like Ukraine with an exception of western Ukrainian Nationalist lard-eaters.

Why are you asking, BTW? So I can hear som anti-semite crap in my address? LOL..Go on then, amigo, see what you can do.

By Antonio ( - 209.239.214.142) on Friday, July 7, 2000 - 03:55 am:
"""That is not true. The Armenians really have lost millions to Turkish butchery. The Jews only lost about 1 million to Hitler. """

Source? Otherwise I will consider this as a bold statement. ALSO, the Jews lost a lot to Stalin. ALSO the Jews suffered during Russian Civil War of 1919-1921 when Red Army, White Army and numerous gangs were killing Jews left and right. I suggest for you to look up the word "Pogrom" and read a bit, see what it's all about. But of course you already know alll about it. And if you do then of course you already know that Soviets and post-Tzars Army killed at the very least a good half a million of Jews during those times.

You say that Hitler got subsidized by wealthy Jews. True to the certain extent (your usual, I suppose): Jews did not help him (be very careful when you accuse the whole nation), Hitler used only few certain very wealthy Jewish individuals (Rotchilds, as you wish to call'em, LOL) to get the money for his Party. Yes, those were not the best examples of Jews, but every nation has flaws, just like yours. Or mine. Maybe you want me to spell out why those certain few hepled Hitler? It'd be my pleasure: el numero uno)fear that Hitler will destroy their lives (cowards, right? LOL) Not. El numero dos)Hitler assured he wouldn't touch them, nor their families., nor their businesses. Some of them sure were cowards, but once again, we are talking about individuals and unlike you I am not speaking for the whole nation. Dixi.

"""I have no doubt that there may be some Armenians here and there who don't despise the Jews"""

---

Watta coincedence, all couple of dozens of Armenians that I know happen not to have any hatred against the Jews!

"""I lived in Yerevan and Stepanagerd for 18 months and got a pretty good idea from the inside. """

---

And I am sorry, but when you say you lived in Armenia for 18 months, which I believe of course, how exactly did you get such a good knowledge of Armenians hating Jews. What did you do - came to every Ara and asked him: "now, do you hate Jews or what?". And of course every single Ara responded" Oh yes, I sure do!". No offence, but I really find your position on this laughable. That is unless your agenda at that time was to do a 18-month survey on how do Armenians feel about the Jews. If that is the case, I'm a believer. But we both know it is not.

"""And most Armenians are aware that Vladimir Lenin's mother was a Jew and his father was a Turk. """

---

In your own words, that is not true. You're unbelievable! What's next you're going to tell me that I am Turk? LOL. I don't have my exact info at work, but I guarantee you that on Monday I will bring the detailed info with a sourse on what nationality his parents were. From what I remember for sure though, his father, Ilya Alexandrovich was half Kazakh or Tatar, half Russionized Jew. His father, Lenin's Grandpops, a Jew, converted to Orthodox from Judism for financial and recognition reasons and took an Orthodox name - Alexander. Lenin's mom comes from Swedish(German?)-Jewish family. More detailes to follow on Monday.
You DON'T know as much about Lenin as so many Russians do. Why? Well..you don't have inside iformation, you are an outsider and outsiders (with very few exceptions - foreigners who devote their life to Russian history, for instance) see the surface only, basically whatever was translated and exported to Barnes and Nobles and so forth. Or whatever they can absorb in 4 weeks of time. Just like I probably won't know about your own California, unless, of course, I spend years and years un studying it. Usted me entiende?
You just cannot know everything. And most of your posts claim you "know the truth cuz you've seen the light". That's fine with me, but let me assure you, with this kind of tactics you will not get any understanding. Ever. People of religion are usually good psycologists and now how to gather people under their religious umbrella; you on the other hand are simply offending people by saying that one nation is •••••• up and the other one is great.

By Antonio ( - 209.239.214.142) on Friday, July 7, 2000 - 03:55 am:
""""Even the people in Odessa warned me to be careful of all the Jews there. I just met an Armenian man the other day who told me that Odessa is a Jewish city! """"

---

Bullshit! First of all people of Odessa are either Jews or have a Jewish descent. Most famoous writers, compozers, filmakers, architects from Odessa were either Jews or had some Jewish in them. David Oistakh, Issac Babel, Ilya Ilf, Mikhail Zhvanetski and many more who brought nothing but fame were Jews. The following is from one of the Odessa pages:

Of course the Internet is a great way to get more information about almost any subject. But sometimes all you want is a great book to read while you curl up on a couch. This section of Odessa Pages helps you find and buy books that are related to Odessa or authors born there. If you know a good book about Odessa that's not listed here, please let me know .
The Odessa Pages Books takes part in the Amazon.com associates program and the Barnes & Noble associates program, so when you buy any books listed on these pages, part of the price will go towards supporting Odessa Pages. So whether you want to support the Barnes & Noble associates program, the Amazon associates program, the Odessa Pages web site or just want to find out more about our beautiful city - take a look at our recommendations.
Odessans - a lot of famous writers where born in Odessa or had a close connection to the city. This is where you can find books written by or about them.
History - even though Odessa has officially been a city for a little over 200 years it already has a lot of stories to tell.
Jewish - Odessa has a long and rich Jewish history, this section contains books related to the history and life of Jews in Odessa.
Genealogy - if your ancestors come from Odessa or you want to find ways to search for your relatives take a look at our selection of genealogy books.
Travel guides - planning a trip to Odessa or Ukraine in general? Hopefully these resources will help you along the way.
Suggest a book - just read a good book about Odessa and don't see it here? Suggest it and I'll add it to the list.
http://odessa.lk.net/english/books/ and
http://odessa.lk.net/english/books/jewish.html

Now, that I proved your incompetance in this matter, maybe you can stop talking of what you know very little about. Even if you think you do, keep in mind that you are trying to convience a born and raised Odessit that you know about Odessa more because you stayed there for two weeks. As I said - you're unbelievable!

Odessa without its Jewish culture is simply not Odessa. I would have said it even if I didn't have any Jewish roots in me. That's that, amigo.

Thx, still wondering, Where was it "just been recently revealed" that south Korea was planning on invading the North.

"US lap dogs"...that was funny.

OK then lets say the US "regime" as you put it was done away with. What type of government in your mind should take its place? Simple question.

"A real change of regime is when a particular class of people who do not subscribe to the rulling regime and are not on any way part of it wrest power from it."

So what specific class of people are you talking about. Who do you think should run the country? Do you have any ideas or specifics or are you just preaching generalities about what you don't like about the current government and have no idea what would be better. Of course to you, not having the current government would be good but what should replace it, what particular class of people? You see it is easy to complain about a system but if one doesn't want to work within a system to make changes they see for the better they should have some idea of what system should be used instead. If one doesn't then they are wasting there time blowing hot air with no actual change as a result.

Dimitri, I don't think Antonio has a clue what he is talking about. He does seem very much the anti-semite. I think it is so sad when people try to blame , condem, etc a whole religious group, ethnic group etc. as if all of them were criminal just because of there religion or race.

I am against not only loony fanatic Jews like Jake (and his magic sword!) but also Jewish control and manipulaion of the mainstream media.

Jewish control of the media? Specifically what jews are you taking about. Do you have any names or is that just a conspricay theory? Plus if you think jewish people control the media what specific things has the mainstream media done as you see it was bennifitial to them and not to others?

Gonzo, thank you for you vote of support. Antonio, who is actually pretty smart fella, seems to be so blind to certain things and such a racist. And because of that he will never get any crediblity from any of us, though some things he says deserve attention. I don't want a racist to be on my side.

I see, Antonio now speaks not just for Russians and Armenians, but for entire world (except US, thank God for your small miracles). It's also obvious that, in addition to being chosen by God, Jews are now chosen by Antonio, too. To the point of ecstasy. Father, you are hot!

P.S. btw, Jake is as Jewish as I am a Prince of Darkness.

Antonio
Jake B is a FAKE JEW!
It's wellknown on Dms

There was a mistake in my 4:36 post. The name of one of the greatest Odessa residents, a graduate of the Odessa Conservatory, world-renowned violin virtuoso is David Oistakh. Born in 1908, BTW. Not that anybody here cares..

fuckk,I did it again! it is OistRakh...daaang..