textfiles/politics/SPUNK/sp001119.txt

**********  Kuwait & Iraq : After the Gulf War **********
                            from Workers Solidarity No 34
                                                  [1991?]

It's a proud day for America and, by God, we kicked the 
Vietnam syndrome for once and for all" declared Bush.

"In the hours after the ceasefire north of the 
Iraqi border, it was impossible to drive on the 
highway without running over parts of human 
bodies.  I watched wild dogs feasting on Iraqi 
flesh and camera crews filmed all this.  But 
scarcely a frame reached television viewers.  
Faced with the reality they supposedly craved, 
nearly all television editors decided that 'good 
taste' would restrict their reports now that 
government officials were no longer there to 
censor them.  Having therefore offered viewers 
war without responsibility, television ended the 
Gulf conflict by giving them war without death."
Robert Fisk, Irish Times, January 19th.
  
The imperialists' victory over Iraq was no surprise given 
their massive technical and military capacity.  What is 
more interesting is the ready help given them by the 
"free press".  This article focuses on how the media 
provided a "licence to kill" in the Gulf.

LET'S EXAMINE a few of the myths that were 
floating around in February 1991.  Firstly was 
this a war aimed only at liberating a small 
independent country from a pitiless 
aggressor? 

A Kuwaiti "exile" told Maggie O'Kane in the Irish 
Times of the hardships they had endured due to the 
invasion, "In my normal life I would have servants to do 
everything in the house now I am ironing my own 
clothes and I have only one servant". "Before the 
invasion Kuwaiti citizens had the highest standard of 
living in the world and enjoyed free education, health 
care and social services.  Sounds o.k. but only 15% of 
the workforce are citizens!

The remaining 85% are "guest workers" and enjoy the 
most appalling conditions.  Since the war ended 300,000 
of the 400,000 Palestinian guest workers have been 
expelled.  Only 60,000 propertied Kuwaiti males have 
the vote - not that theres been an election in quite a 
while.  The al-Sabah ruling family returned promising 
democracy and immediately began assassinating Kuwaiti 
opposition figures.  Kuwait was and is little more then 
a rentier state. The Al-Sabahs were installed by 
Britain in 1961 and still depend totally on the 
imperialists.

This doesn't justify Iraq's expansionism.  Saddam, 
despite playing "the Palestinian  card", was no sort of 
liberator.  However the rush to "save" Kuwait while 
ignoring Israel's grabbings over the years shows clearly 
that the West "defends small nations" only when it 
suits their geo-political schemes.

Secondly, was Saddam the new Hitler?  Saddam 
Hussein is not a nice guy.  In fact he's a pretty vicious 
nationalist dictator.  He was responsible for the 
agonising death by (West German made) Cyanide and 
mustard gas of 5,000 Kurds at Halabja.  He killed 
thousands of Shias during the uprisings in March and 
continues to rule Iraq with an iron fist.

However, much as he might relish the thought, Saddam 
was not and certainly is not in the position of Adolf 
Hitler in 1939.  Nazi Germany was the second most 
powerful industrial nation in the world, almost totally 
self-sufficient with it's own massive arms industry.  Iraq 
is only self-sufficient in oil (which it can't fully process), 
dates and some vegetables and was almost $ 80 billion 
in debt at the start of the war.  Despite the hype they 
were actually years away from producing nuclear 
weapons and had almost no native arms technology.  Up 
to August Saddam relied totally on the major powers.

Thirdly Iraqi forces in Kuwait were accused of being a 
gang of murderers.  No war is ever "clean".  In this war, 
as in all others, there were horrible atrocities on both 
sides.  However given the balance of forces it comes as 
no surprise that the coalition forces were the ones that 
reaped the biggest harvest of death and destruction.  
Only 137 coalition troops were killed (many by "friendly 
fire") compared to at least 100,000 Iraqi troops.  At 
least 200,000 Iraqi civilians died in the bombing or as a 
result of the starvation and disease that followed. 

While the press rabbited on about Western hostages, 
millions of workers from third world countries were not 
allowed to leave Saudi Arabia and other countries for 
the duration of the war.  Only 1 in 10 Palestinians in 
the West Bank (were many of the Iraqi scuds 
eventually landed) had gas masks in case of chemical or 
biological attack. 

The Western media both "tabloid" and "quality" were 
prepared to exaggerate, lie, accept rumours or just 
publish any old rubbish that aided the war effort.  We 
were told that babies in Kuwait city had been ripped 
out of incubators and left to die.  Hospital officials 
dismissed these as absurd - they didn't have enough 
incubators to even hold the number supposedly ripped 
out. 

An icerink in the city was said to hold thousands of 
bodies - none were found. Up to 40,000 Kuwaitis were 
alleged to be held hostage - they weren't.  Airmen who 
appeared in Iraqi TV were supposed to have been 
beaten black and blue by the Iraqis but sustained their 
injuries ejecting from their planes had high speeds.

COLLATORAL DAMAGE

The Iraqis couldn't, even if they wanted to, have come 
close to the imperialist tallies.  The Iraqi army of young 
and mostly untrained recruits was annihilated in 
Kuwait.  Iraq itself was bombed back into the stone-
age.  It wasn't so much a war as a turkey shoot. 

Between Kuwait and Basra a fleeing and deserting 
army in every conceivable vehicle was exterminated.  
They were attacked by British and American tanks and 
from the air with rocket and cluster bombs.  Tens of 
thousands were wiped out and it didn't merit a 
headline in many papers.  They called it "the mother of 
all easy target areas".

A few journalists were revolted by what they saw.  
Some did not to a lesser or greater extent take part in 
the sanitised and censored coverage.  They refused to 
be involved in the censored military press briefings or 
to be photographed in camouflage at the front "with 
our boys".  One British group, Media Workers Against 
the War, had 800 people at their founding meeting. 
They produced their own "War  Report" which 
contained much good factual reporting. 

Breaking the consensus carried its risks which tended 
to increase nearer the front.  DJ Miles Patterson of 
Jazz FM in London played a few mildly anti-war tracks 
and was fired.  Bob Fisk who tried to prevent Kuwaitis 
beating up Palestinians in Kuwait city was told by an 
American soldier "You have a big mouth, this is 
marshall law boy.  Fuck off!"  All things considered he 
probably got off fairly lightly.

KURDISH WORKERS' COUNCILS

One possible reason for the massacre between Kuwait 
city and Basra could have been the rebellious feelings 
of many of the fleeing conscripts.  Though the West 
wanted rid of Saddam it would much prefer a palace 
coup within the Ba'athists then a popular uprising.  It 
was possibly, also, for this reason that his elite imperial 
guards were left fairly intact.  On the 29th of March 
one of the first tanks back into Basra destroyed a 
poster of Saddam.  A generalised uprising soon gripped 
the area.

The rising in the South was portrayed by the media as 
exclusively Shia Muslim in character.  However this 
area of Iraq has always been strongly secular.  Basra, 
Nasariah and Hilah were traditional center of the Iraqi 
Communist Party (effectively wiped out in the sixties).  
Had the rebellion lasted longer there might have been 
some appearance of socialist ideas on the agenda.

In the North according to some sources1 quoting 
participants in the Kurdish uprising there may have 
been up to 100 'shoras' or workers councils.  These were 
active in the fight against the Ba'athists.  They also 
came into conflict with the nationalists of the Kurdish 
Front (KF) and the Stalinists of the 'March of 
Communism' (RAWT) group. 

The nationalist forces seem to have been extremely 
unpopular in some areas. One witness said that Jalai 
Talabani (who later signed a treaty with Saddam) was 
not let into the town of  Sulaymaniyah.  Massoud 
Barzani of the Kurdish Democratic Party had two body 
guards killed by the people of Chamcharni. 

Shoras called for self-determination, bread, work and 
freedom including freedom to strike, for a "shoras 
government", for womens' equality and that people 
should control their own economic and political destiny.  
It would appear that a revolution which began as a 
nationalist one was being taken further by workers 
fighting for a social revolution.  According to one 
activist "a large part of the shoras movement didn't 
acknowledge the KF's social authority". 

Of course the KF have since brokered an agreement 
with Saddam which recognises his authority in return 
for an autonomous region.  The lessons of the Gulf 
massacre and the Kurdish uprising seems to be that 
nationalists have no answers.  Neither Saddam, Yasser 
Arafat, the KF or any bourgeois outfit have anything 
to offer workers fighting imperialism in the Gulf region. 

All nationalists eventually find themselves in 
collaboration with the imperialists and only step out of 
line to pursue their own interests (as in Saddam's case).  
The working class must assert it's interests.  They must 
break with nationalism and boot out all the Emirs, 
Sheiks, petty dictators and imperialist stooges.

Only in a revolutionary war against the imperialists 
and their own rulers can the really defeat imperialism 
as a force.  Only through fighting for real socialism can 
they take revenge for the crimes of the imperialists.

1 The Kurdish Uprising and Kurdistan's nationalist shopfront 
and it's negotiations with the Ba'athist/Fascist regime" 
BM Blob + BM Combustion London WC1N 3XX, and the Autumn 
1991 issue of "Wildcat".