| 
Recent Stories
March 26, 2003
Bruce Jackson
A Battlefield from Hell
Pablo
Mukherjee
Watch Their Lips
David Krieger
Shock But Not Awe
Linda
Heard
Winning Hearts and Minds Bush-Style
Imad Jadaa
The Beautiful Face of America
Adam
Engel
Buckets of Blood
Patrick Cockburn
Kurds Unimpressed
David
Lindorff
POWs, Torture and Hypocrisy
Robert Fisk
The Coup That Didn't Happen
April
Hurley, MD
A Doctor's Outrage in Baghdad
Gloria Bergen
Chretien's Shame
Reema
Abu Hamdieh
The Smell of Death Surrounds Me
March 25, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Life During Wartime
Gary
Leupp
What Democracy Looks Like: the Streets
of Cairo
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
An Interview with Hanan Ashrawi
Bruce
Jackson
Why Protest? Why Write?
Uri Avnery
Bitter Rice: Thoughts and Warnings on
the War
Jason
Leopold
Blood Indicator: Casualties and the Stock
Market
Ralph Nader
A Pre-emptive War on a Defenseless Country
March 24, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Ominous Signs
David
Lindorff
Peacekeepers at Ground Zero
Diane Christian
Blood Sacrifice
Kathy
Kelly
The Morning After Shock and Awe
John Stanton
US Bombs Iran
Wayne
Madsen
How to Live with a Rogue Superpower
Anthony Gancarski
Iraq and the Death of the West
David
Vest
Earth vs. Bush
Ahmad Faruqui
The Liberation of Iraq in Perspective
Robert
Fisk
We Bomb, They Suffer
March 22 / 23, 2003
Edward Said
The Other America
Saul Landau
The Threats of Empire
Kathleen and Bill Christison
On the Road in the West Bank
Joanne Mariner
Suing Seymour Hersh
Ann Harrison
The Battle of San Francisco
Robert Fisk
A Cauldron of Fire
Hani Shukrallah
The Gates of Hell
Chris Floyd
Memory Lane
Kathy Kelly
Imagine Chicago Under This Kind of Attack
Ramzi Kysia
Bombing Away a Chance for Joy
Linda Heard
Baghdad Burns While Bush Does Lunch
Bradley Burston
Could the US be at War for Years?
Salvador Peralta
Mass Murder as Liberation?
Tom Gorman
Now That's a Coalition!
Jorge Mariscal
Johnny Mack, When Are You Coming Back?
Cindy Milstein
The Grassroots Go Global
Josh Frank
Blocking Portland's Bridges
Elaine Cassel
The Case of Elizabeth Smart: Kidnapping and Insanity
Gordon Solberg
Drowning in Niceness: the Lessons of Elizabeth Smart
Tom Crumpacker
Getting to Know the Real Havana
Poets' Basement
Dobie, Guthrie, Alam, Wechsler
March 21, 2003
Ben Tripp
Blood for Oil:
the Exchange Rate
Cathy Breens
Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
Scott Handleman
Fourth
Generation Protesting: Shutting Down San Francisco
Vanessa Jones
Paint Them
Red
Brian J. Foley
Patriotic Protest
for Professors
Zoltan Grossman
After Saddam, a War on Iraqi Rebels?
Philip S. Golub
Inventing Demons
Richard Lichtman
On the Current Experience of Terror
Milan Rai
Blitz----------------Coup
Pepe Escobar
A Cheap Family Farce
Floyd Rudmin
The Nightmare at the Back Door: Nuclear Plant's as Terror Targets
Chris Floyd
See Rome (poem)
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
March 20, 2003
Stephen Banko
I Was a Soldier
Once
Kevin Alexander Gray
How Did We Become
an Outlaw Nation?
Shane Claiborne
Nomadic
Solidarity: Glimpses of Life in Baghdad on the Eve of War
Kathy Kelly
Waiting on the Baghdad Skies to Crack
Anthony Gancarski
Michelle
Makin's "Liberty Shields"
Rahul Mahajan and Robert Jensen
Myths and
Facts About the War on Iraq
Jason Leopold
Cheney's
Lies About Halliburton and Iraq
Ron Jacobs
If War is Business as Usual, There Should be No Business as Usual
Chuck O'Connell
Predictions About the Iraq War
Douglas Herman
US Air Force Veteran on the Coming Air Campaign
Ralph Nader
Come On Democrats,
Stand Up for Peace
William Hughes
War is Theft
Sima Saeedi
Dispatch from
Iran
Hammond Guthrie
John Philip Sousa
Website of the Day
Iraq
Body Count
Hot Stories
Gore Vidal
The Erosion
of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach Bush:
A Draft Resolution
Click Here for More
Stories.
Burn Your Sweatshop Clothes!
Buy Union Made Apparel!
|
March
29, 2003
Horror Chamber
Inside
the Al-Amiriya Shelter
By RAMZY BAROUD
A
few years ago, I stepped into the horror of the Gulf War. It was April
1999, and the place was Baghdad's al-Amiriya bomb shelter.
Living
most of my life in a refugee camp in Gaza, where the murder of innocent
people at the hands of Israeli troops is routine, I was little hesitant
to walk into al-Amiriya. I was not braced for what I would witness.
I already knew that hundreds of people had wasted there, during the
Gulf War, in 1991, when an American 'smart' bomb shattered the giant
compound. But that's all I knew.
It
was cold, damp and dark. A few lonely florescent lamps were not working
since the regular bombing of Baghdad's electric generators by US-British
warplanes left the city without any power for most of the day, everyday.
Ironically, the only light shed on the shelter came from the monstrous
hole in the roof, made eight years ago by the American bomb.
The
shelter was designed to withstand a nuclear attack on Baghdad; it was
solid and giant, and had the capacity to host hundreds of people. Among
the scores of colorful pictures of the victims, there were a few photos
of three Palestinians families. They were refugees, working and living
in Iraq, and there, in this place, they died.
When
the American bomb fell, the shelter's doors shut down, automatically.
The doors were designed to do so, since the attack was never expected
to target the shelter itself, but nearby areas. Those who didn't immediately
die as a result of the massive explosion pounded at the door and screamed
for help.
American
officials at the time assured us that that the place was used for military
purposes; as they always do, when innocent people are "mistakenly"
killed.
The
powerful explosion penetrated to the bottom floor where giant water
tanks were stored. On that floor, families cooked and washed. Some of
these tanks boiled with water. Seconds later, the tanks exploded and
the boiling water rose to over three feet.
You could still see the mark of where the water rose, as well as the
impression of the human flesh that melted to the wall due to the intense
heat of the water.
"These
are the marks of a woman's skin still holding her child," an Iraqi
woman, who lost her entire family in al-Amiriya said. She left her husband
and nine children and ran home to bring some food. She came back to
find them all dead. Since then, she has lived in a tiny trailer in the
shelter's backyard, escorting visitors with her black cloths and a candle.
"These are my children", she points to a framed picture of
happy looking children, neatly dressed and smiling politely.
As
I stepped out of al-Amiriya's "tour", I could never escape
the echoing voices of the Iraqi children, pounding at the door, pleading
to God and to humanity to get them out of the inferno.
But
al-Amiriya was neither the beginning, nor is it the end.
During the 1991 Gulf War to "liberate Kuwait", uncounted innocent
lives were taken. Some estimates put the number of Iraq casualties during
the war at over a million. Even the most moderate estimates are catastrophic.
The
US has successfully liberated the oil fields in Kuwait, but the Iraq
tragedy continues to unfold. Anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000 Iraqi children
have die every month, as a direct result of the US-led UN economic sanctions
on Iraq that followed the war. Even United Nations' own reports testified
to that.
The
Oil-for-Food program, which came into effect nearly five years after
the end of the Gulf War, was of little significance to assist an ailing
economy and a ruined infrastructure. Iraq was still banned from importing
many products using the little funds that the program provided.
Over
a week ago, the United States and its British allies began yet another
war against Iraq, killing and maiming hundreds thus far, with the aim
of "liberating Iraq", and "freeing the Iraqi people."
It's appalling how such twisted logic can hold for such a long time.
An
MSNBC commentator explained the reason why the first day of bombings
in Iraq, was so concentrated and not widespread. "We have to keep
in mind that in a few days, we will own this country," he said.
We
need not examine such statements however, nor the provocative comments
made by top US army officials, nor the desecration of an Iraqi flag
and the offensive replacement of an American one, after the Umm al-Qasr
battle. If this eagerness to invade Iraq was for the sake of the Iraqi
people, why have we tortured and starved an entire generation of them
for so long?
We
can disagree on the reasons behind the war; whether it was for strategic
control, the oil or Israel. But rational people should have no illusions,
that saving the Iraqi people is not one of the reasons we are investing
over $100 billion to finance this indefensible war. If you wish to have
further proof, pay a visit to al-Amiriya shelter. Despite everything,
it is still standing.
Ramzy
Baroud is the editor-in-Chief of PalestineChronicle.com
and the author of "Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the
Israeli Invasion."
Yesterday's Features
Daniel Wolff
A Road Trip in Wartime
Chris
Clarke
We Never Spit on Any Baby Killers
David Lindorff
Saddam, a Hero Made in Washington
Pierre
Tristam
Icarus on Crack: American Hubris and
Iraq
Jason Leopold
Richard Perle: the Enterprising Hawk
Saul
Landau
Technological Massacre
Carol Norris
The Mother of All Bombs
Riad
Abdelkarim, MD
Iraq War Lingo 101
Adam Engel
Schlock and Awe
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links / |