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On 16th of January 1991, US fighter jets headed into Iraq airspace:
What came on the 16 January at 23:30 GMT was a devastating and sustained aerial bombardment involving cruise missiles launched from US warships and US, British and Saudi Arabian fighter planes, bombers and helicopters.
More than 1,000 sorties were flown in the first 24 hours of Desert Storm. The main targets were military, but Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, was heavily hit and there were many civilian casualties.
Those of us who watched this war from home were told that the war was necessary – as all wars are claimed to be. And we were told that we were using amazing new technology, so stealthy and so precise. We were not told about Amiriya.
Welsh poet Robert Minhinnick does tell us, in the video above which was shot when he toured the Baghdad several years later. He tell us the story of the over 340 Iraqi civilians died in one of our “precision” bombings.
And now, twenty years later we still have just a bit shy of 50,000 American soldiers occupying Iraq – and an untold number of mercenaries and “diplomats.” While direct American combat operations have ended, the devastation of the Iraqi people has not. Our twenty years of war on them has left a country where electricity is minimal, water is unsafe and the food supply still unstable. The numbers of orphans reach close to a million, the numbers “displaced” impossible to count.
This afternoon, Mohammed ibn Laith and Imam Suleiman Aydin from Iraq talked with some of us about Jihad as part of the GorillasGuides Introduction to Islam at MyFDL. We did not speak of Amiriya or of those bombs twenty years ago, instead we spoke of “struggle” as the meaning of this oh-so-misrepresented Islamic belief. Mohammed wrote:
To engage in Jihad is to make an effort, often a strenuous effort, to achieve a good end.
The war against the Iraqi people has achieved no good end. And 50,000 troops or 5,000, it never will. Twenty years on, we must at least demand that it does end.
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That’s the problem you haven’t watched the war from home. I’m off to dinner ready
With our complete withdrawal, mercs and all…! 8-(
Aloha, Siun…! *g*
Yes, let’s get with it…No one anymore can say we are a peaceful country…For shame.
Aloha CT and Hello RevBev.
I’ve been thinking all day about the discussion earlier with Mohammed and Imam Aydin … we have so much to learn.
I was against this war when hw was getting the congress ready to bend to his will. I have never understood the real reason for invading and then allowing hussein to crush the Shiites after calling for hussein’s overthrow.
I have always looked at hussein as similar to Tito in Yugoslavia. He held that country together by brutal means with such a disparate population. The Iraqis were so much better off before we “liberated” them. I could go on, but you’ve heard it all before.
It is massively evil what the US has done to Iraq.
and in hearing news about Iraqi Christians, the evil continues.
.
Seconded
The terrible thing is that we can do nothing to “fix” the situation. I don’t think the Iraqis want us to rebuild their country – I imagine they would like to do that themselves. There is simply nothing we can do except walk away and I don’t think we will ever completely do that. They have oil, after all.
I really do hope folks are taking a look at the Islam posts at MyFDL – today’s was stunning and the discussion was great. I find myself mulling over the essays and the discussions long after …
The authors check back over the following two days in case folks leave questions or comments later on.
It was a great discussion…! 8-)
Btw folks, they promise to answer any further questions tomorrow…! ;-)
*heh* While I was on a beer run, we crossed comments… Whatcha drinking, M’dear…! *g*
Now the question every American needs to ask is whether our government is preparing for 20 more years of war and occupation in Iraq through permanent bases. And we’re halfway to this solemn anniversary in Afghanistan.
smiling – I’m still on ice tea but thinking about something more … energetic now that my writing is done.
Wow, 20 years, what a waste.
Thanks for the right term for what we’ve done there, Siun: War On Iraq.
And building permanent bases in Afghanistan as well.
Hard Lemonade, perchance…? ;-)
And it’s been twenty straight years – from Desert Storm though the sanctions and bombers to shock & awe to now. Obama would like us to forget that we are still there …
What the US does to support its oil companies and rich folks and their friends seems to never end (Ex-dictator “Baby Doc” former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier being one such friend of the GOP rich and right wing who was driven from power by a popular uprising in 1986 after 28 years of hell caused by his dad and himself with US support has now returned to Haiti on Sunday – even under Bush he was afraid to come back – but not under Obama).
In Iraq we tested weapons and weapon concepts – like the bomb designed to destroy all electrical infrastructure by putting copper into the air to short out everything. Seems to have worked – they still only have a few hours of electricity a day – less than under Saddam – despite contracts to rebuild that went to GOP favored firms that appear to have built little.
As to Jihad as “struggle”, jahada does indeed mean “to strive for” so what you wrote is very true and is how the vast majority of Muslims interpret it – indeed it is the way all the Muslims I know interpret it – indeed “Holy war” is forbidden based on their interpretation. Indeed some that one might call mystics reject the legal definition of jihad as armed conflict, telling Muslims to withdraw from the worldly concerns to achieve spiritual depth.
But it seems others look at the history and at their teachers and their words and see something else – indeed they speak of “greater jihad” as the soul’s struggle with evil — the daily inner quest to be a better person. But others also speak of a “lesser jihad” that is the struggle against religious or political oppression — an armed conflict fought in defense of Islam — where the adversary is an actual physical presence that must be destroyed. Indeed some of these few hold that Muslims who interpret their faith differently are infidels and therefore legitimate targets of jihad. And the history of Jihad as used to guide early territorial expansion is out there, with the early practice of telling the non-Muslims to convert or accept Muslim supremacy, and, if faced with refusal, to attack them until they submitted to Muslim domination (I saw Mohammed’s letter to the leaders of the Coptic Church as the rulers of Cairo that is preserved in Istanbul)(albeit it took 300 more years before half the population of the conquered areas were Muslims – and then it seems the tax that was avoided by being a Muslim was perhaps an incentive in that conversion).
I appreciate the beauty and love that is Islam as understood by most Muslims – Mohammed ibn Laith and Imam Suleiman Aydin seems to be like the Muslims I know – good people of faith. I only wish there were not others that mis-understand their faith (indeed that thought goes for a portion of my fellow Christians and a portion of some folks that are Jewish).
Finally, let me join you in saying “we must at least demand that it does end”.
Twenty? Closer to thirty. The Iran-Iraq war started in 1980 and didn’t end until 1988. If the United States wasn’t a major driving force in goading Iraq to invade Iran then I’m a Chiquita banana.
That too, Peg…! ;-)
Teddy Partridge is upstairs…
Sunday Late Night: Florida Fingers First 112th Frosh & Finance Friends
People forget that the 1991 Gulf War caused the September 11 attacks. We put U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia in 1991 in order to remove Iraq’s troops from Kuwait. But we left the troops in Saudi Arabia after the “war” ended. The troops stayed there until after 9/11. And, by leaving these troops on the “holy land,” we enraged devout Muslims. One of the three reasons for 9/11 was the stationing of U.S. troops on Saudi soil, said bin Laden. I remember attending a small group of protesters outside the White House in the days before the Gulf War. I said “Our involvement will come back to bite us hard.” My prediction came true on 9/11. It’s strange that almost nobody ever ties the Gulf War to 9/11. I wish more people would do so, and remind us that America is its own worst enemy.
Be sure to vote.
You select either PNAC’s Democratic actor, or GOP Teaparty’s actor…both actors in PNAC’s “New American Century” in Likud’s new Oil war colonies Iraq and next Iran.
Its crucial that you believe in some ostensible “change” while your PNAC terrorist corp. invades its opportunity zones with deficit taxpaid cash.
Mercenary private armies need terror and murder-jobs like Blackwater-Dyntech, Lockheed, E-Systems…your DEM-GOP-Teaparty of permanent oil-resource war.
It’s the least we can do reinvesting DEM-GOP’s billionaire CEO’s bonus tax breaks into finishing off the US middle class, creating Chnese, Malaysian, Indian jobs, Iraq mercenary jobs and expanding Dem-GOP-Teaparty’s (PNAC) corporate ownership for its Heritage Foundation’s great grandchildren.
Iran’s wealth is next.
For Obama, Fox Terror Corp, Boehner , Citi, BOA and Goldman Sachs it’s truly PNAC’s New Amercian Century.” War Industrial Complex per Dwight Eisenhower’s warning 1960, codified 1999 by PNAC, subcontracted 911 to Saudi NSA-CIA asset Bin Laden, on-schedule today in Exxon-BP-Chevron’s Iraq colony-Iran’s new Likud owners now enroute to Goldman-Citi’s next Iran oil war bank spoils. re. halliburton-Blackwaer-Dyntech-E-Systems campaign kickbacks.
Our corporate PNAC whorehouse government privatized
I don’t understand this comment, Twain. While I’m not sure how much it can be cleaned up, given that there are massive amounts of rubble from the massive bombings, and then the enormous concrete divider walls surrounding different ethnic communities, it may be nigh on to impossible to move.
But there are countless dumps full of toxic chemicals and low-level radioactive materials that children scavage and get sick from. That we are arguably NOT fixing Iraq wouldn’t indicate to me that the Iraqis wouldn’t like us to.
It’s hard to even find reports about what really is happening there. No one cares, since the media pretend we are already gone.