War and Terror

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines terrorism as “systematic use of violence as a means to intimidate or coerce societies or governments”. Terror is synonymous with fear, and that is what an ordinary person on the streets in Baghdad cannot but be in grip of.

It is claimed that coalition (precise) weapons of mass destruction now pouring on Iraq are meant to disarm “Saddam Hussein” of his imprecise ones. The media, for the most part is willing to comply with the regimen and reports abound from “embedded” correspondents, who can report “first-hand and safely” from one side, and more importantly not report anything undesired.

On the other side of the divide is a “rogue state”, whatever it means – does it not have people like us living there, bound not by choice as much as by a biological event far beyond their control. Once upon a time, not so long ago, we in the USA were supportive of it and along with our Saudi and Kuwaiti friends encouraged it to invade and fight the non-Arab republic to its east. We even looked the other way when the tyrant used the weapons that now bother us so much.

Much before the first salvo was fired in the current conflict, it was never in doubt that there would be destruction, of military and communication centers, and of the innocent. Robert Fisk, writing from Baghdad in The Independent of London on March 21 states:

The first of the latter, a taxi driver, was blown to pieces in the first American raid on Baghdad yesterday morning. No one here doubted that the dead would include civilians. Tony Blair said just that in the Commons debate this week but I wondered, listening to this storm of fire across Baghdad last night, if he has any conception of what it looks like, what it feels like, or of the fear of those innocent Iraqis who are, as I write this, cowering in their homes and basements.

Fortunately Robert Fisk is in Baghdad, for he brings the horror that is war down to a human level. On March 23, a day after the campaign of “shock and awe” (recall that awful derives from awe) his report begins:

Donald Rumsfeld says that the American attack on Baghdad is “as targeted and air campaign as has ever existed” but he should not try telling that to five year-old Doha Suheil. She looked at me yesterday morning, drip feed attached to her nose, a deep frown over her small face as she tried vainly to move the left side of her body. The cruise missile that exploded close to her home in the Radwaniyeh suburb of Baghdad blasted shrapnel into her tiny legs – they were bound with gauze and, far more seriously, into her spine. Now she has lost all movement in her left leg.

Another eyewitness report from the BBC World Service Reporter Subhy Haddad in Baghdad talks of a cruise missile raid on northern Baghdad at noon on March 24. Interviews with some of the injured in the Al-Nouman Hospital suggest and as the reporter states, “It is a residential area - I know it very well”. We are also informed that five of the injured have died.

Our leaders have made attempts to link the events of September 11, 2001 to the regime in Iraq. Yet it is impossible to comprehend why five year-old Doha, who is certainly not, in any way responsible for those crimes against humanity should suffer the consequences of the “most humane targeting” that Donald Rumsfeld talked about.

As this is being written, reports are coming in of casualties’ suffered by the invasion forces – or the liberating forces, as some might prefer. They are also our loss, as much as Doha, the taxi driver and many more whose kin were searching for their remains on the battlefield of Najaf, or in the neighborhoods of Baghdad. It is certain that those that are in positions of authority, on either side will degrade in one case the human loss as “collateral damage” and glorify in the other as “the finest”, these deaths which many may, in all probability given time and the benefit of that wonderful thing called hindsight, believe were not ever necessary or needed.

To come back to war and terror, it is difficult to understand what a “war against terror” means, and who is waging it. For inhabitants of planet earth, in the long list of sad days, the first day of spring 2003 – March 20 follows September 11, 2001.