[R-G] [P] THE POWELL DOCTRINE of Targeting Civilians...

[Adar]

(No war in Iraq - http://pnews.org/)
=========================================================================
  Subscribe or Unsubscribe to PNEWS ("progressive" news and views) forums
     (on internet since 1982):  ---    http://pnews.org/signup.shtml
=========================================================================

THE POWELL DOCTRINE of Targeting Civilians...

   "In the fall of 1990, when the US Congress was debating going to war,
   Amnesty International (AI) released an explosive report detailing how
   Iraqi soldiers had taken Kuwaiti babies out of incubators and left
   them to die on hospital floors. Many US Senators later claimed it was
   the Amnesty "dead baby" report that finally convinced them to use
   vicious force against the Iraqis." [Heather Wokusch -
   (heather at heatherwokusch.com) "The Powell Doctrine:
   Baghdad/Jenin/My Lai" - August 16, 2002 - http://www.disinfo.com/]

EXCEPT IT NEVER HAPPENED...... It was a propaganda ploy to support the war
against Iraq and demonize Saddam Hussein.

   "Minor glitch. It was soon revealed that the Amnesty report was a
   complete sham - Kuwaiti propaganda put together by the PR firm Hill &
   Knowlton. The Summer 2002 edition of Covert Action Quarterly describes
   how political infighting at AI had pitted a board member (who said the
   report was too "sloppy" and "inaccurate" to release) against a
   high-level official at Amnesty UK, now suspected of having been an
   undercover British intelligence agent, who released the sham report
   anyway." [ibid]

"On December 19 Amnesty International issued a document on reported events
in Kuwait. The main story that emerged from that document was a reported
`infanticide' in a Kuwaiti hospital, where Iraqi soldiers allegedly took
babies out of incubators and watched them die. Bush used that report (he
actually waved it) in outrage to point to an intrinsic, sadistic evil
residing in Iraqi soldiers. (George W. Bush did the same thing with the
Taliban and their treatment of women. While their treatment of women was
atrocious so was the Northern Alliance who were George Bush's "freedom
fighters" against the Taliban and al-Qaeda...Hank Roth) It turned out that
the incubator story was a myth, but it was unquestionagly devoured by an
American population mroe than ready to digest such suggestions. The false
report also propagated two signifiers that were never negated thereafter:
The evocation of `infanticide' posed a threat to the notion of family,
since it represents the discontinuation of family; and it confirmed the
Iraqis as the epitome of moral evil (on a par with Hiter) -- on the
opposing pole of all good morality as contained principally within the
boundaries of the family." [Abouall Farmanfarmalan, in article: "Did You
Measure Up? The Role of Race and Sexuality in the Gulf War" - from Cynthia
Peters (ed) - COLLATERAL DAMAGE, 1992]

There was plenty of demonization as there is now by members of this right
wing regime in Washington and during the war viewers were treated to a
media pool which is carefully filtered news that avoided the real carnage
like tens of thousands of Iraqis murdered by the allies of the "butcher of
Washington", George Bush (Senior)...

  AND, "... television
   viewers worldwide were absorbing endless footage of laser-guided
   bombs, pinpoint missiles and other" precision warfare" that
   miraculously seemed to destroy machinery without harming civilians.
   Back home, flag-waving hysteria followed Operation Desert Storm to its
   climax, and returning conquerors, including then Chairman of the Joint
   Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, were feted as national heroes."
   [Heather Wokusch]

HIGHWAY OF DEATH ........

Another massacre and Colin Powell again

   "Minor glitch. A few months later it was revealed that actually 100,000
   to 200,000 Iraqis, many of them unarmed civilians, had died during the
   six-week attack, including tens of thousands mowed down in aerial
   assaults as they were trying to flee along what became nicknamed "The
   Highway of Death."" [ibid]

   "Equating civilians and combatants is integral to "The Powell Doctrine"
   which recommends using overwhelming force on the enemy, regardless of
   civilian casualties. In his autobiography, Colin Powell discusses the
   Vietnam War and explains the benefits of destroying the food and homes
   of villagers who might sympathize with the Viet Cong: "We burned the
   thatched huts, starting the blaze with Ronson and Zippo lighters . . .
   Why were we torching houses and destroying crops? Ho Chi Minh had said
   people were like the sea in which his guerillas swam. We tried to
   solve the problem by making the whole sea uninhabitable. In the hard
   logic of war, what difference does it make if you shot your enemy or
   starved him to death?"" [ibid]

COLIN POWELL admits to targeting civilians. Perhaps this is why he can
find it so acceptable to target civilians again with sanctions and the
hundreds of thousands of sick and dying (or deceased) Iraqis as a result
of the Powell Doctrine of targeting civilians. 70% of smart bombs used in
the first Gulf War missed their targets and also caused death and
destruction and the killing and maiming of civilians. The same happened in
Afghanistan.

Hank Roth (TheGolem)
http://pnews.org/

     _____
    / o o \
===OO=====OO==================================================
           TheGolemsPlace  (Where everything REALLY begins)
    West Server -: http://pnews.org/ East Server -: http://g0lem.net/
Vortals: http://pnews.org/NWO/phpnuke/ (New World disOrder)
         http://pnews.org/MEP/phpnuke/ (Middle-East)
         http://g0lem.net/PHP/phpnuke/ (Progressive News and Views)
         http://g0lem.net/HTH/phpnuke/ (Health and Veterans)
==================================================================
    \_/ \_/

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 NO BLOOD FOR OIL - DROP BUSH, NOT BOMBS! - PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS!
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||