Empire Notes

The hypocrisy of the Bush administration has once again exceeded all previously known bounds. A familiar statement; in a way, all of us suffer from a sort of death of outrage. But here’s something to make you angry, if anything still can.

You may recall that, back in September, the Bush administration shifted $3.4 billion of the congressional allocation for reconstruction away from water, electricity, and oil into “security.” At the time, only about 5% of the money allocated had been spent and only about one-fourth of that was actually going to benefit the Iraqi people, instead of to private mercenaries, government corruption, and corporate profits.

The New York Times reports recently that, of 81 water reconstruction projects being planned, all but 13 have been defunded. The Kurdish north, which has been harmed by the occupation much less than the rest of the country, lost all but two of the 20 projects being planned.

The project for Halabja, $10 million allocated to bring water to a town where only half the population has access to running water, was one of those that was cut.

A little historical review is required to understand how heinous this is. On March 16, 1988, as part of Saddam’s Anfal campaign in which 100-200,000 Kurds were killed, Saddam’s forces attacked the town of Halabja with chemical weapons. Somewhere from 3-8000 people died in agony, grotesquely distorted and discolored.

The United States intervened to make sure the Security Council did not act nor even issue a toothless condemnation. As it unfolded, the United States actually increased the flow of agricultural credits that was its primary means of supporting Saddam’s war machine. The United States even deliberately put out disinformation suggesting that Iran was responsible for the attack. It aided and abetted the massacre of Halabja and is guilty as an accomplice of Saddam’s, a fact he will surely bring up at his trial if allowed to.

You might think that afterwards the United States would want to bury its guilt over the dead of Halabja, but you would only be half right. Halabja remained buried until Saddam crossed a certain “line in the sand” in Kuwait. Since that time, Halabja has been rhetorically used by three U.S. administrations in order to justify the first Gulf War, the sanctions, the 1998 Desert Fox war, the ongoing invasion and occupation of Iraq, and all the other ills that the United States has made Iraqi flesh heir to.

On March 16, 1998, the 10th anniversary of the gassing, James Rubin at the State Department presided over a special ritual commemoration -- in the middle of a propaganda campaign that culminated in the December 1998 bombing. And it is not an accident that George Bush chose March 16, 2003, the 15th anniversary, as the occasion to launch his twin ultimatums -- one, to Iraq to capitulate immediately or face war, the other to the United Nations, to capitulate immediately or face war in Iraq. In that speech, he showed his pious horror at the suffering of Halabja’s dead, suggesting that they died because the U.N. was ineffectual, not because the United States smade the U.N. ineffectual.

Although the victims of Halabja have garnered a great deal of rhetorical concern, any actual help is a different matter. Two years after the regime change, the disabled and gravely ill survivors of the nightmarish attack wait in vain for any medical aid, compensation, or other restitution from the United States, some attempt to expiate its own guilt for their condition. Cuba has 25,000 doctors in Venezuela, but apparently with our $11 trillion GDP we cannot afford any help for these people we have so grievously wronged.

A little over a year ago, on the 16th anniversary of the gassing, Paul Bremer and Colin Powell flew to Halabja for the commemoration and decided to “help” the town, not by providing water, but by allocating $1 million for the building of two schools. The Washington Kurdish Institute found evidence of cytotoxic chemicals in the soil on those sites; the United States has refused to follow up with a serious study, confident that the children of Halabja won’t mind just a little bit more exposure.

Those plans for schools are about the only thing that’s been done so far to “help” the people of Halabja. The hypocrisy of the Bush administration and our whole American exceptionalist culture stand revealed as ultimately monstrous and revolting. If you’re looking for something concrete to do, campaign for justice for Halabja.

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