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 The oil of war: 1991By David B. McCoy July 2, 2002 The Iranian True wars are never won. -- E. E. Cummings Administration officials have offered...at least six overlapping reasons why American men and women may have to die in a war with Iraq. -- U.S. News & World Report, 26 November, 1990 Day 10 From television news broadcasts I learn the new total number of successful sortie missions allied forces have flown over Iraq and Kuwait. To date, over twenty thousand -- dropping more bomb tonnage than that dropped on all of Japan. But having learned a fatal lesson from the media coverage of the Vietnam War, Army Intelligence experts release only a few flashy game-like videos of night-time bombing runs -- being careful never to show what must be horrendous damage. Even the language of this war is quaint: "Bombing missions" are now "sortie missions;" the "battlefront" is now the "theater of operations;" "killing the enemy" has become just "neutralizing the enemy." To gain at least some perspective of what destruction there must be, I slide from under my desk a box containing family papers and World War II photographs my father sent back from Nagasaki. The scenes are familiar to most -- a city leveled to ruins. But one photo, always the last, shows a man with his mouth wide open in what must have been his final scream as flesh was blown from his body in one great flash. Perhaps if there were some stead-fast, clear-cut reason for declaring war on Iraq, instead of all those superficial reasons given by President Bush (which seem to change as regularly as the phases of the moon), I would not feel in my gut the wreckage of all those bombs. Day 21 AMERICA "squeeze your nuts and open your face!" AMERICA, I said, "squeeze your nuts and open your face!" -- look at what you've done! AMERICA you've elected the reigning champion of Republican rhetoric -- a sorcerer of sound bites: "I see a kinder, gentler nation with no new taxes; I see a New World Order with a Thousand Points of Light." AMERICA you've elected the prince of patriotism who parades around draped in an American flag stealing your heart. AMERICA we are at war, and you are STILL falling for the same old rhetoric, sound bites, and patriotic bullshit. AMERICA, I beg of you, "squeeze your nuts and open your face!" Look past the propaganda and see a failed energy policy, a failed foreign policy, a failed presidency. Day 23 It's 2:30 P.M. and all of my history students have boarded their buses and have gone home. Again there was no talk of the war today -- allowing me to avoid the inevitable question: "Mr. McCoy, are you for the war with Iraq?" A war, they would recite, that is being fought to crush Hussein, to crush the Republican Guards, to crush the threat of nuclear warfare, to crush the threat of chemical warfare, to ensure democracy, to ensure a New World Order. Allowing me to avoid asking the question whether we are, in fact, at war due to a failed foreign policy, a failed energy policy, a desire to protect American oil interests, a desire to advertise our high-tech military arsenal, a desire to distract attention away from a slowing economy and growing unemployment, a desire to restore a sinking popularity rating. Allowing me to avoid discussing the necessity of dissent in this nation, and the impact of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, the Abolition Movement, the Labor Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Movement, the Youth and Anti-War Movements, the Environmental Movement. Allowing me to avoid being called down to the principal's office and told to keep my mouth shut. Day 24 Support the troops -- pray for peace. In nearly every state there were pro-war rallies -- people singing and waving flags -- hoping to keep troop morale high through a display of American support. But there was something strange in their support. They were not showing support for war itself, but only for the troops sent off to fight a war no one fully understands. Even those protesting the war made a point of saying they support the troops, just not the reasons for the war. Could it be that we are a nation racked with guilt? Day 28 I guess it would be logical to think that the people who elected you to be president solely on the issues of the American Flag and A Thousand Points of Light would believe you when you said that our argument is not with the people of Iraq, that our war aim stops at the borders of Kuwait, and that once all Iraqis are out of Kuwait our troops will come home. But the awful truths are that the people of Iraq are responsible for Hussein's horrific regime, that unless all of the internal security services of Iraq are destroyed there will be more and even worse leaders than Hussein, and that our glorious victory will mark only the beginning of our long-term military occupation of the Middle East. Day 36 Today, Iraq accepted the Soviet Union's peace plan calling for a cease-fire and the complete withdrawal from Kuwait: "And what I wish to know is how do you like your" New World Order now, Mr. Bush? Day 39 Shortly after the order to begin the ground war was given, the battleship Missouri (the ship on which Japan signed the formal surrender of World War II) let loose with 16 inch guns on Iraq's front line of defense. Within hours, allied forces crashed through the weakened front, and the Missouri turned her guns on Kuwait's coast- line and on Kuwait City. What brought a sense of real urgency to the mission were recent reports of executions of Kuwaiti citizens -- but won't just as many, if not more, Kuwaitis be killed by the Missouri's massive guns? A contradiction easily over- looked, but this war's full of contradictions: Like how Western nations sold Hussein high- tech weapons only to then wonder how he was able to become such a threat; like how our defensive role before the election changed to an offensive role within minutes of the last polls closing; like how allied nations can go to war to restore a government which allowed just eight percent of its people to vote; like how Mr. Bush can claim he has no ill feelings toward the Iraqi people but insist they pay war reparations; or like how the media, whose job used to include interpreting the news, seems content with only reporting the news. Day 40 After forty days of war, Mr. Bush took to the air waves to announce that the victory over Saddam Hussein's evil regime was quick, decisive, and just; that Hussein's military threat to the region has been nullified; that the al-Sabah family government has been restored. Later, as TV crews showed the moon-scape damage of Kuwait, my gut began to churn once again -- knowing that now the real war -- the political war -- has begun. Author David B. McCoy is a social studies teacher in a township school near Massillon, Ohio His most recent publications include THE GEOMETRY OF BLUE, Prose and Selected Poems, and a chapbook entitled RICE FISH.
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