Nuke 'Em 'Till They Glow And Then Shoot 'Em In The Dark

The Rant
Nuke 'em 'till they glow and then shoot 'em in the dark
By DOUG THOMPSON
Feb 5, 2003, 13:23

OK. I’m convinced. Warm up the B-52s, fire up the Stealths, unleash the smart bombs. Time to nuke Iraq until it glows and then shoot Saddam in the dark.

Using the massive snooping capabilities of the National Security Agency, whose recorders could hear a fly fart from 2,000 miles away, Powell laid out the long-awaited evidence that Saddam and his goons are moving his weapons of mass destruction out of sight just before the United Nations weapons inspectors show up.

It’s a shell game. Guess which shell has the nukes, the chemical weapons, the multiple warheads under it? Saddam is always at least one step ahead of the boys from the UN.

But he can’t escape those pesky satellites, the long-range listening capabilities of the NSA or the various assets the CIA has tucked away in Iraq. They gave Secretary of State Colin Powell what he needed to prove Iraq still has the weapons, still lies about having the weapons and gets enough advance notice of what the UN is up to so that the weapons can be moved and hidden whenever needed.

Bush laid out the evidence early Wednesday morning at a breakfast briefing of Congressional leaders. Even perennial Democratic doubter Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware came away a believer, saying “if I had this evidence before a jury that was an unbiased jury, I could get a conviction,"

Sure, the Russians and Chinese still say they’re not totally convinced, although the Russkies did tell Iraq it ought to come clean, but nobody expected them to come around anyway. Others may argue the UN weapons inspectors ought to have another shot at finding the weapons but Powell’s presentation made it clear the Iraqis have a pipeline to the UN and know ahead of time just when and where the inspectors will go.

So let’s stop pussyfooting and employ the U.S.’s primary tool of diplomacy – bomb them into the Stone Age and then send in the troops to kill whatever is left moving.

We’re gonna have to do it sooner or later. Get it over with. March right into Baghdad, walk up to Saddam, put a gun to his forehead and blow the lying bastard’s brains all over the floor of one of his lavishly decorated palaces.

Surprised? Don’t be. Like most Americans, I’m a savage at heart. Blood lust pumps through my veins just like all red-blooded patriots. The only thing that worried me up until this morning was a lack of documentation to justify leveling Baghdad and sending Saddam off to meet Allah.

Powell provided that documentation. As predicted on this web site on Tuesday, he didn’t have hard, fast, proof that Saddam is playing footsies with Osama, but he provided the usual suspected links between Iraq and terrorism at large and that’s reason enough to rain down hellfire and damnation.

Powell did document the sad, and scary, fact that the Butcher of Baghdad has weapons of mass destruction and has not intention of getting rid of them.

Will frying Saddam bring more terrorism to the land of the free and the home of the brave? Yes, but it’s coming anyway. September 11 proved our shores can, and will, be breached and while John Ashcroft and Tom Ridge are busy spying on normal Americans, the real terrorists will slip through and bring more death and destruction.

So let’s stop talking and prove to the world that this is America, damnit, and Americans can flex their muscles and pound our enemies into submission whenever we please. Coalitions? We don’t need no stinkin’ coalitions.

But save a bomb or two for North Korea. Sooner or later, we’re going to have to deal with them.

And Osama. He’s probably still hiding in a cave somewhere, planning more mayhem and proving that anyone can use religion to try and justify murder.

And save a few for the others who are out there who haven’t shown up on the threat list yet but who are just waiting for their chance to bring the giant, evil Satan to its knees with something even bigger and more spectacular than turning the World Trade Center into a giant coffin.

Welcome to Halabja! I predict the war against Iraq will start on the symbolic date, March 16th 2003.

Saddam's Opression of the Kurdish Minority.

A PUBLIC ATTENTION ON THE GENOCIDE OF THE KURDISH PEOPLE IN IRAQ.

Those who are responsible for the chemical massacre of more than 5,000 Kurds in Halabja and the genocides of more than 182,000 Kurds during “Anfal” operations in 1988 by the Iraqi regime must be brought to justice as criminals against humanity.

By standing against using chemical weapons, I condemn these crimes and their criminals, and I demand justice. The halabja and anfal crimes have to be recognized as genocides against humanity by the UN and the world governments.

Please sign at,
http://www.rezgar.com/general/camp/index.asp

Bloody Friday - Chemical massacre of the people of Halabja by the Iraqi regime March 1988.
http://www.kdp.pp.se/chemical.html
HALABJA March 16, 1988
http://medyaarts.com/halabja.htm
Halabja : evidence of the massacre.
http://www.iraqipapers.com/halabja.htm
March 16, 2003 - 15th Commemoration Day of the Halabja poison gas massacre.
http://www.aidainternational.nl/halabja/
Chemical Bomb Attacks on Halajba.
http://members.tripod.com/surkew/id54.htm

So What Did Happen On Friday 17th March 1988?

The Full Horror of Saddam's Savagery
A Daylight Massacre without Warning
By: Olga Maithland

It all began somewhat earlier. The very first attack took place on April 15th 1987. Four planes flew very low over seven villages in Northern Iraq dropping very unusual bombs-in the shape of unfamiliar shells. They did not explode like the bombs they had experienced until then. The odd-looking shells threw up a soft yellow cloud instead. All the inhabitants suffered puffy and watery eyes, dry throats and harsh coughs. Skin burns developed. Some lost their sight for up to tow weeks depending how close they were to the attack. Down wind the suffering was greater, hit the full impact of what was likely to have been the powerful poison, mustard gas.

The next day April 16th, six more villages and a whole valley was bombed. In the village of Sheikh Wassanan with a population of 500, twelve aircrafts flew in at 7 am while families were breakfasting. For nearly fifteen minutes both chemical and conventional weapons were dropped. Everybody was poisoned to some extent. 121 were killed instantly. The 286 injured hurried to seek medical attention in the nearby town of Arbil. The Iraqi authorities demanded first their signature on a declaration naming Iran as the "perpetrator" of the attack. They refused, and were subsequently arrested and ultimately those who had not died through lack of treatment were killed and buried in mass graves. These attacks were just the beginning. By mid 1987chemical attacks had become a daily reality. Mustard gas first remained the predominant chemical weapon. Later more toxic gas nerve gases were used. Wave upon of planes dropped their deadly poisonous gases killing people instantly without leaving any apparent injuries.

Escaping death became more difficult. The conventional methods of protection were no longer useful as the gases being odourless and lighter than mustard gas, seeped through the wet breathing turbans damaging the respiratory system of the victim. People were seen gasping and struggling for breath and helplessly lying on the ground jerking with convulsions. One witness 27-year-old K.Bakhtiar said:" I knew it was a different gas attack. People were behaving strangely and so were the animals acting as if they were struggling some were lying on the ground. I saw birds falling off trees. I was frightened and I ran away towards the hill. I felt weak, unable to control my movements. My mouth was full. I could not see properly but worst of all I could not breathe properly. I can not remember any more, I lost conscious."

Over sixteen months, Saddam dropped his deadly gases on fourty different occasions. The most spectacular was striking Halabja, but the villages suffered equally. In the village of Birjinni villagers described how eight planes dropped four bombs each.

The survivors told of clouds of smoke billowing upward 'white, black and then yellow', rising as a column about 150 feet in the air; then the column began to break up and drift. As it moved people smelt gas. It was a pleasant smell at first; 'it smelled of apples and something sweet.' Others said it reminded them of 'pesticides in fields'. Soon however 'It became bitter. It affected our eyes, mouth and skin. All of a sudden it was hard to breath.'(ref. Genocide in Iraq, P 270).

In the village of Ruseh the people in the valley were struck. The survivors were up in the mountain, but just tow hundred meters down, it was a different story. As one man described how his brother 'began frothing at the mouth, and choking and his skin became dark. Than he died.'

( Genocide in Iraq, p 273).

After another attack a woman was found lying on the ground sighing and moving her lips as if she wanted to speak, but no words came out. She had vomited and her skin was black. She died three hours later. a few yards away the grass was blackened and dead farm animals lay all round. When the family cleaned her body, her dry and blackened skin came off in their hands. (p. 275 ibid). The climax came on 16th March, 1988 with the attack on Halabja- a wholesale murder taking place in broad day light under the very nose of the world. It was eleven in the morning when Iraqi Air force helicopter appeared over the city of Halabja with tow men inside taking pictures of down below. According to Jeffrey Goldberg writing in The New Yorker, a young woman Nasreen Abdl Qadir Muhammed was outside her home preparing rice, bread and beans for the family. Nusreen was just sixteen, freshly married to her cousin Bakhtiar Abdl Aziz Halabja, 31. Close by was her sister Rangeen, 15.

The bombardment began when the Iraqi Army positioned on the main road fired artillery shells, and the Air force dropping bombs. The attack ebbed by tow O'clock when the rhythm changed. As Nasreen told Goldberg: ' At the end of the bombing the sound changed. It wasn't so loud. It was like pieces of metal just dropping without exploding. We didn't know why it was so quiet.

In another neighbourhood, middle aged Muhammed saw an unusual sight: ' A helicopter had come to the town, and the soldiers were throwing white pieces of paper out of the side.' In retrospect, he understood they were measuring wind speed and direction.

Nearby, a man, Awat Omer, 20, was overwhelmed by the smell of garlic and apples. Nasreen gathered the food quickly, but she noticed the odd smells. 'At fist it smelled bad like garbage. And then it was a good smell like sweet apples. Then like eggs.' As she went into the house, she noticed the caged partridge that her father kept. ' The bird was dying. It was lying on its side.' She looked out of the window. ' It was very quiet but animals were dying. The sheep and goats were dying.'

Nasreen ran to the cellar where her family had taken shelter. ' I told everybody there was something wrong. There was something wrong in the air.' The people in the cellar panicked. The bombardment made it difficult to abandon the shelter. Only splinters of light penetrated the basement. But they a sharp pain in her eyes like 'stabbing needles.' Her eyes became very red. Then the children started throwing up. ' They were in such pain and crying so much. They were crying all the time. My mother was crying.

Across the city other families were also making the same decision to flee. But Nouri Hama Ali recalled: 'The chemical clouds were on the ground. They were heavy. We could see them. People were dying all around. When a child could not go on, the parents, becoming hysterical with fear. Abandoned him. Many children were left on the ground by the side of the road. Old people as well. They were running, then they would stop breathing and die.'

They saw powder on the ground, when touched it caused blisters. New symptoms developed. Breathing had stopped so quickly that people dropped on the ground ' as if frozen' said Nasreen. 'There was a small baby on the ground away from her mother. I thought they were sleeping. But she had dropped the baby and then died. And I thing the baby tried to crawl away but it died too. It looked like everyone was sleeping.' Nasreen and her family decided to escape to higher ground. Running proved difficult.

The children couldn't walk. They were so sick. They were exhausted from throwing up. We carried them in our arms.' A truck passed them and stopped. ' They driver said he couldn't go on and wandered away. He left his wife in the back of the truck. He told us to flee if we could. They chemicals affected his brain because why else would someone abandon his family?' Meanwhile, Bakhtiar, Nasreen's husband was frantic He was outside the city when the attack started. He hunted desperately for her. He had acquired from a clinic tow syringes of atropine, a drug that counters the effect of nerve agents. He injected himself with one, the other he saved. Neighbours finally guided him to a house near a mosque on the hill. ' I called out for Nasreen. I heard crying and I went inside the house. When I got there I found that Nasreen was alive but blind. Everybody was blind.'

Nasreen had lost her sight about an hour or tow before Bakhtiar found her. She had been searching for food for the children when her eyesight failed. 'I found some milk and I felt my way to them and then I found their mouths and gave them milk.' She said. Bakhtair organised the children. ' I wanted to bring them to the well. I washed their heads. I took them tow by tow. Some of them couldn't came. They couldn't control their muscles.' Bakhtair still had one syringe of atropine. He did not inject his wife. She was not the worse in the group. ' There was a women named Asme. She was not able to breathe. She was yelling and running into the wall crashing her head. I gave the atropine to the woman. She died soon afterwards. I should have given it to Nasreen.'

Nasreen was blind for twenty days. Nasreen would live, but she kept a secret from Bakhtair. ' I couldn't stop menstruating. It wouldn't stop. I kept bleeding. We don't talk about this in our society, but eventually a lot of women confessed they were also menstruating and couldn't stop.' Doctors gave Nasreen drugs that stopped the bleeding but they told her she would be unable to have children, as it indeed proved to be the case.

Today, fourteen years on, she is thirty, she is pretty but her face is expressionless. She doesn't seek pity. But she has one request. ' I would like a doctor to help me with a cough I have had since that attack.' As heavy clouds of gas smothered the city, people became sick and confused. Awat Omer was trapped in his cellar with his family. He recalled that his brother begun laughing uncontrollably and then stripped off his clothes and soon afterwards he died. As night fell, the family's children grew sicker, too sick to move. In another neighbourhood, Muhammed Ahmed Fattah, 20, was overwhelmed by the oddly sweet odour of sulphur and he too realized he must evacuate his family.

> There were hundred and sixty people wedged together in the cellar. ' I saw the bomb drop thirty meters from our house. There was shouting and crying in the cellar. People became short of breath.' One of the first was Muhammed's brother Salah. ' His eyes were pink. There was something coming out of his eyes. He was so thirsty. He was demanding water.' March 16th was supposed to be Muhammed's wedding day. ' Every preparation was done.'

His fiance Bahar Jamal was among the first in the cellar to die. ' She was crying very hard. I tried to calm her down. I told her it was just unusual artillery shells, but it didn't smell the usual way weapon smelt. She was smart. She knew what was happened. She died on the stairs.'

Death came quickly to others. A woman named Hamida Mahmoud tried to save her tow-year-old daughter by allowing her to nurse from her breast. Hamida thought the baby wouldn't breath in the gas if she was nursing. She nursed for a long time. her mother died while she was nursing but she kept nursing. But the time Muhammed decided to go outside, most of the people in the basement were unconscious, many were dead, including his parents and three of his siblings.

For those hit by the cyanide vapour death was instantaneous. The gruesome sight of bodies with discoloured skin, eyes open and staring where they have not disappeared into their socket, a greyish slime oozing from their mouths and fingers grotesquely twisted as if in pain. Death seemingly caught them unawares in the midst of household chores. Some had the strength to make it the doorways of their homes only to collapse there or a few feet beyond. Here a mother seems to claps her children in a last embrace, there an old man shields an infant. Victims within five hundred meters of a cyanide shell had no chance.

Le Nouvelle Observateur on 1st April, 1988 commented: 'Even the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany despite possessing substantial stocks, did not dare use them.' The very fact that Saddam Hussein did and could again should keep us on the alert. The scenes reported are neither from the Hiroshima atomic bombing nor snaps from Hitler's crime in Dachau. What has been experienced took place only fourteen years ago in the Kurdish City of Halabja. The wretched survivors many still suffering with the after effects of lung disease, cancer, genetic disorders, babies born with birth defects are a continuing testimony and reminder that the threat continues. Who knows where the next "thud" will land?

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