http://orlandosentinel.com/automagic/columnists/2000-11-26/OPEDreese26n112600.html
Bitter fruit from seeds of hate
By Charley Reese, Commentary
Published in The Orlando Sentinel on November 26, 2000
Most Americans don't realize how heinous our own government has been
in its foreign policy.
The Sunday Herald, a Scottish newspaper, last September reported that
the United States and its allies deliberately destroyed Iraq's water
supply and in the nine years since have deliberately prevented it
from being repaired by keeping out the equipment and chemicals
necessary.
A Georgetown University professor has obtained a seven-page document,
prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency, that pointed out the
vulnerability of the water system, its dependence on imported
equipment and chemicals, and the likely consequences of its
destruction.
The report was dead accurate. The United States and its allies
destroyed the system. The Sunday Herald reported that eight
multipurpose dams were repeatedly bombed, smashing the infrastructure
for flood control, municipal and industrial water storage, irrigation
and hydroelectric power. Four of Iraq's seven major pumping stations
were destroyed, as were 31 municipal water and sewage facilities.
The result: Water-borne diseases -- typhoid, dysentery, hepatitis,
cholera and polio -- have killed thousands of civilians in Iraq.
There is always a rough justice in the universe, however. The Sunday
Times has reported that tens of thousands of American and British
troops are suffering from radiation poisoning from the depleted
uranium shells fired during the Gulf War. No wonder both governments
are trying to deny that Gulf War Syndrome even exists.
The water-supply system, which we attacked, had absolutely nothing to
do with supplying or supporting the Iraqi troops in Kuwait. It was a
deliberate, cold-blooded attack, intended to kill and sicken Iraqi
civilians. It was a war crime.
People who like to yap about the rule of law should see to it that
their own government obeys the law.
The new president of Yugoslavia has our number when it comes to the
rule of law. He said, "Washington introduced into the rule of law
everything that is opposed to the rule of law: voluntarianism,
insecurity and arbitrariness."
It's one thing to knock out communications towers, bridges and
ammunition dumps, but a city's sewer and water system has nothing to
do with the military. Taking those out seems more malicious than any
American would be capable of -- unless you've met some of the
unthinking automatons and some of the heartless sharks who infect the
Beltway. They flit around like wraiths, whispering their poisonous
malice into the ears of the office holders.
It would be comforting to imagine that one day the American people
will elect to public office men and women who make clear to the world
that we do not make war on women and children.
Unfortunately, I fear that the cruelty and disregard for human life
and human rights is a reflection of the American people's own
attitudes. So long as the victims are "the others" -- foreigners --
most Americans don't seem to give a flip what is done to them.
One hates to keep returning to the universal wisdom of religion, but
what one sows one reaps. Our government has, in our name, been sowing
hate, and one day we will reap the fruit of that hate. It will be
bitter fruit.
It will not be much consolation, if one day someone poisons our water
supply, to know that that person got the idea from the U.S. Defense
Intelligence Agency.
We need a new, more benign emperor in our Rome on the Potomac.
