Shock and Yawn
by
Geov Parrish
Dissident Voice
February 25, 2003
Exactly
a month ago Pentagon planner Harlan Ullman, in a CBS-TV interview, publicly
revealed for the first time the Pentagon's "Shock and Awe" plan for
its assault upon Iraq, should (or when) George W. Bush orders it.
Ullman's information was
subsequently confirmed by a number of sources; it's for real. Here is what I
wrote about it in my column of January 30:
"The plan includes
simultaneous ground invasions from north and south... It also includes a sudden
decimation of Baghdad by raining down on its people, in two days, over 800
cruise missiles -- more than were used in the entire Gulf War. Ullman... characterized
the Baghdad assault thusly: `You have this simultaneous effect, rather like the
nuclear weapons of Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but minutes.' It would
be a firestorm, a Dresden or Tokyo with 60 years of new technology. It would be
a war crime of quick and staggering proportions.
"Such a plan, of
course, makes a mockery of Donald Rumsfeld's ritual insistence that the
Pentagon takes enormous care to avoid civilian casualties; the plan apparently
is to kill a staggering percentage of Baghdad's civilian population in the
first day alone. ... The name refers to the demoralizing effect such an attack
would have on Iraqis, an effect, presumably, similar to the instant (although
already planned) surrender of Japan after the gratuitous bombing of Hiroshima
(and even more gratuitous bombing of Nagasaki. But those were, both military
and diplomatically, demonstration attacks -- suggesting what could be done to
the imperial rulers themselves and to Tokyo, a city far more valuable and
populous than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
"In Iraq, Baghdad is
the capitol."
Now, those plans, and
sentiments of horror similar to mine, have been echoing around the Internet for
a month; they've been featured extensively in alternative publications that
have come out during that time. Which is precisely the problem.
The United States is
planning to suck all the oxygen out of the air with a fireball over the heads
of the five million residents of Baghdad -- so that, as another Pentagon
interviewee said, "nobody in Baghdad will be safe," whether above
ground or below. This has been well-documented public knowledge for a month,
widely reported in the rest of the world. But in America it has been roundly
ignored, confined to the fringes of the media landscape and probably, by many
Americans, dismissed as a result as conspiracist nonsense.
This raises two questions:
1) Are Americans --
politicians, media executives, and ordinary citizens -- so numb, or oblivious,
or callous to the horrors of war that we cannot raise ourselves to be bothered
by what would be, if it works as planned, one of the greatest massacres, one of
the greatest war crimes, in the history of the world, committed in our name and
with our money?
2) Forgetting for a moment
those apparently irrelevant concerns about millions of innocent lives, war
crime tribunals, and the like, do America's war planners seriously think such
an action would decrease the motivation or effectiveness of terrorists, who are
presumably the target of the "War on Terror" and who will most
certainly not be in Baghdad? (More, in fact, are likely to be huddled in any
major American city. Perhaps we should preemptively bomb Philadelphia or
Houston.)
To take the last question
first, whether it is ever implemented or not, even the publicizing of this plan
does incalculable damage to the already-abysmal reputation of the United States
in the Islamic world and beyond. Any country that would even seriously consider
such a monstrous act certainly isn't going to be shown mercy when war is brought
to its civilian population. That's you and me.
According to captured
Al-Qaeda documents, planners of the 9/11 massacre had originally considered
flying jets into American nuclear facilities, but decided not do so to on
"humanitarian" grounds. Does anyone think that, after our
amphetamine-soaked pilots casually incinerate a major world city and its
inhabitants, that they'll show such restraint next time? You know the answer.
Muslims, who, like the rest
of the world, seem to have a longer memory than we do, will also recall that a
massive famine, killing up to six or seven million Afghans, was only narrowly
averted in fall 2001, even though the U.S. bombing campaign cut off badly
needed supplies almost until it was too late - - and would have continued to do
so had the Taliban not retreated. Shock and Awe, then, is the second serious
brush with genocidal civilian death from the Bush crew in only 15 months. And
we genuinely wonder why anyone hates us? Who wouldn't?
It is as if Bush and his
sociopathic advisors want stronger terrorist groups -- want further attacks on
Americans -- so as to justify their lust for global military dominance.
Regardless, they're certainly doing their best to provoke it.
And this brings us to the
initial question: why don't Americans seem to care? Again, setting aside
niggling questions of morality, plans like this, whether executed -- er,
carried out -- or not, put every single person living in this country in far
greater danger. Forget duct tape; we need protecting from the Bush White House,
and from the record levels of new and deepening anti- American sentiment it is
generating daily.
Some would point to
corporate control of media as the culprit in the lack of publicity given to
Shock and Awe, but I suspect the more significant factor is more banal. Such
images of mass suffering are so overwhelming in their scope that they mean
nothing to most of us. If 9/11 seemed like a movie -- as many Americans said at
the time -- Shock and Awe represents a horror so sweeping it has only rarely
been depicted on film, and never by Hollywood. You simply can't have an action
hero take on a nuclear bomb in mid- detonation, or a barrage of cruise missiles
(and munitions using un- depleted uranium) that have a similar, instantly
lethal effect. What you would have is an action hero called The Shadow, because
that's what would be left of him, burned into the sidewalk along with a few
million husbands, wives, moms, dads, and children.
Politically, this country's
leaders could not even conceivably propose turning America into a nation
permanently at war, let alone one capable of such monstrosity. Unless, under
the leadership of both major parties, we had not spent decades being inured to
American militarism, and, in the last few years, to bombings, invasions, and
civilian deaths in faraway lands. Granted, most of the least desirable aspects
of American militarism have been carefully excised from U.S. media, but even
so, what we do get to see and hear should horrify anybody. It doesn't, and so,
an apocalyptic vision like Shock and Awe becomes just another abstract
headline, part of the arcana of military planning, completely divorced from the
daily reality of our extremely comfortable lives. No wonder news editors don't
think we'd care.
But, of course, as February
15 literally demonstrated, many of us do care. And hopefully, many of us will
keep caring long after Bush either backs down or incinerates the cradle of
civilization. (Ashes to ashes, indeed...) The problem, ultimately, isn't Saddam
Hussein, or Iraq, or even George Bush. The problem is militarism, and a
purported democracy in which its leaders think themselves above accountability
for their actions. Or crimes.
Geov Parrish is a
Seattle-based columnist and reporter for the Seattle Weekly, In These Times and
Eat the State! This article first appeared in Working For Change.com