"Now, I Am the Terrorist" - what I wrote after Shock & Awe ten years ago today

[WilliamPitt]

Now, I Am the Terrorist
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

March 19 2003

The city of Baghdad, founded in 762 A.D. under the name Madinat as-Salam -- `City of Peace' -- is this day a lake of fire. The opening stage of the Bush administration's "Shock and Awe" attack plan began as night fell on Iraq, and lived terribly up to its terrible name. CBS news is reporting that great swaths of residential neighborhoods within Baghdad have been engulfed in flames. One can trust, perhaps, the ability of a cruise missile to hit a bullseye from many miles away. One cannot be so precise in predicting which way the resulting fires will blow.

In the great earthquake in San Francisco in 1906, people were not killed so much by the shaking. They were killed by the firestorm that sucked the air from their lungs and reduced them to ash before they could flee. So it seems to be today in Baghdad.

Baghdad is a city of 5 million people, half of whom are under the age of fifteen, most of whom are too poor to flee. Now, a great many of those people are dead, burned in their homes and on their streets.

The American television media provided all of us with a Dresden-eye view of the attack. Huge mushroom clouds bloomed from the streets as buildings blazed and fell. The thunder of the explosions was so loud that television speakers became distorted with the sound of the concussion. The sky lit up as though the sun was rising. It was a fitting image, for a new day in world history has dawned.

Much has been made of the precision of our vaunted arsenal of bombs and missiles, as if they can go into a building and find the second door on the left before they explode. The truth is far more dire. When a B-2 bomber drops a 2,000 lb. JDAM munition, everyone and everything within a 120 meter radius is instantly killed. Anyone within a 365 meter radius risks severe shrapnel wounds. To be totally safe, one must be 1,000 meters away from the epicenter of the explosion. Imagine how many homes can fit into 1,000 meters, and never mind the firestorm.

American Marines have died securing petroleum facilities, and in a helicopter crash. If Iraqi forces do not surrender soon, American forces will attack Baghdad from the ground. The loss of life among our people will grow exponentially if a Stalingrad-style fight unfolds in Baghdad and Tikrit. On Tom Brokaw's CBS News broadcast, the father of one of the soldiers killed in the helicopter crash held a picture of his son to the camera and shouted, "Take a look, Bush. You killed my only son."

Those who stand against this attack are dunned as "Not supporting the troops." One might suggest the best way to support troops is to see them brought home safely. One might also suggest that support continues after the shooting stops. This does not appear to be on the agenda for the Republican Party. A vote along party lines today in the House Budget Committee slashed $9.7 billion from veterans disability compensation programs, as well as from other programs. These cuts, pushed through the committee by the majority-holding Republicans, are part of the plan to see Bush's new $1.57 trillion tax cut through. Wave that flag, George.

Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld, when asked by a reporter whether the Iraqi people would cheer Americans after this attack, stated that Baghdad's civilians would welcome us. This defies known history in Japan and Germany and Vietnam; those populations, after absorbing saturation bombing, hardened their resistance. American television purported to show Iraqi civilians cheering a soldier who tore down a picture of Hussein, but a Sky News reporter walking Baghdad's streets reported that, to a man, everyone he spoke with spat hatred and derision for this American attack.

On September 11th, I sat in numb horror as the images of carnage unfolded before me on the television. On that day, I was the victim of terrorism, along with every other American. Today, I sit in numbed horror as more carnage unfolds. Hundreds of massive missiles have rained down on a city far away, killing indiscriminately among the young, the infirm, the old and the innocent. My government did this. My nation did this. My leaders did this. Today, I am the terrorist.

So are you.

There is no justification for this attack. Saddam Hussein and his forces had been effectively disarmed by the first Gulf War, by the UNSCOM inspections, and by the more recent UNMOVIC inspections. According to Hussein Kamel, son-in-law to Saddam Hussein whose comments to the UN in 1991 were recently reported in a buried Newsweek story, Iraq was pretty much disarmed of mass destruction weapons even before the first war. The Bush administration, in pushing for this war, has foisted lie after lie after lie upon the American people and the world. The world didn't buy it, but they weren't dependent upon lapdog media sources like ours for their data.

We are the terrorists now, stupid underinformed terrorists who dance to the tune of a corporate media machine that will profit wildly from this attack. NBC, MSNBC and CNBC are owned by General Electric, one of the largest defense contractors on earth. They will be paid handsomely in military contracts because of this, as they always have been. Yet GE gives us the news we need to understand what is happening.

Americans are not often afforded the opportunity to witness a war crime live on television. Today's actions bring to mind a war crime from a generation ago: The shooting of a prisoner by Vietnamese General and American ally Nguyen Ngoc Loan. General Loan put a pistol to the head of this bound prisoner and blew his brains into the street, an image that millions of Americans saw after it had taken place. We are here again today. The poverty of the Iraqi people leaves them bound, unable to escape the wave of steel. We have blown their brains out. We have incinerated them in place. We will continue to do so, and you can watch it from your couch. Today, you are the terrorist.

So am I.

[malaise]

1. K & R n/t

[Mira]

2. I'm pretty sure I remember your writing this.

I was in deadly shock then, and am still on a new level because of all that has happened, and all that has not.
I know exactly where I stood and how I screamed when shock and awe went down on my TV, and how I was in disbelief that the SOBs had really invaded and started a war.
I was a contributing member on a professional message board then, I was being maligned for my views by all but one of them. Skewered, really. I left them saying I would be proven right, and I have not been back since.

10 long years and so much has been learned, I still feel the blanket of pain and see the total vindication for all you said then, Mr. Pitt. Your prescient writings are good to be re-posted. So little accountability by those responsible, I cannot and will never grasp why this was not investigated, and why they were not tried. Where a mountain of regret should be we have little men attempting to excuse and justify and crawl under rocks leaving slimy trails.
A sad day for me, because I think I am burying my hope for some sort of justice.

Over time through the years we had a member here, bobthedrummer, who beat his drum to bring the culprits to justice. His vigilance and tenacity are on my mind today as well.

[11 Bravo]

3. I remember reading this at the time and literally shouting "Fuckin' A!" at my computer.

It continues to resonate today.

[JanMichael]

4. Guilt by association, either physical or emotional,

with a large institution.

We marched in DC; what a horrible time.

On edit: The largest march we went to is where we met so many DUers....I just remembered that. This thread brought back some DU memories.

[Ian_rd]

5. Everyone now sees that this opinion was correct.

But the expressions of it vary.

"It was an intelligence failure," says the people from the Bush White House and their useful idiots, who "managed" the CIA's intelligence to cater to their needs.

"Everyone was wrong," says the media who gave barely a minimum of time and space to skeptics of the case for war, while browbeating them as anti-American or pro-Saddam.

"But we brought democracy to Iraq," says the Republican base who appears to have banished from their memories the case that was actually made to go to war, and the case they themselves screamed with red faces at skeptics for why this war was vital for our nation's security.

And so all these people would prefer to just not mention it, lest it force an introspection that carries horrible prospect of feeling that they were culpable in their willful ignorance, or at the very least, fooled by liars when there was plenty of opportunity to see the truth.

[WilliamPitt]

6. I said much the same thing in a different thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2533387

[zeemike]

7. Don't you wish you were wrong?

I do, but I know you are not. and was not, wrong when you wrote this.
And it was even worse than you said.
With things like this you hope you are wrong, and fearful of being right...or should be.

[WilliamPitt]

8. Every day.

[TommyCelt]

9. Excellent piece of writing...

I was in denial.

They must have some proof that they are not sharing for security reasons, I thought. They MUST. Because I loved America and America didn't do such things. The EU wasn't backing it except the members we could manipulate. The Pope condemned it as evil. We were going ahead anyway...there were WMD over there and they could reach us and all of our allies. Every bit of logic I had screamed out against this; we'd had crushing sanctions against the country since the Gulf War. The UN inspectors told us they'd worked...even if the odd weapon showed up here or there, Iraq couldn't sustain any kind of warfare with it. Bush hadn't convinced me. Cheney hadn't convinced me. Powell hadn't convinced me.

And I initially bought it, anyway. I bought into it through fear. I kept the pair of shoes I wore running through the debris to escape the streets of lower Manhattan on 9/11. They were still covered with that awful dust (the contents of which I still can't bear to ponder) in my closet; I wouldn't wear them again, but couldn't get rid of them. I stared at those shoes. And I gave my inward assent to the attack.

I was afraid. And I was counting on my government to do the right thing to protect its citizens.

When it became undeniably clear we were destroying an already-destroyed country that couldn't bake bread much less cook up WMD's I was ashamed. And I still am. Now I love the idea of America. But that country no longer exists, in my mind.

[The Wizard]

13. Bush made us

ashamed to be Americans. There is no statute of limitations on war crimes.

[Sadiedog]

10. Oh this brings tears to my eyes

I felt so alone at the time while all around me cheered . It is still difficult to think about. I wish that I could have found like minded people at the time to share my disgust and dismay.

[RC]

11. Now, if more people that acknowledge the lying by the bu$h administration about Iraq, would

apply the same critical thinking to the events of 9/11 itself. How can the bu$h administration's stance be so wrong about Iraq, but their stance on the events about 9/11 be so correct?
Fact: 9/11 itself, was staged, coordinated, by the same people that wanted war in Iraq. What is so hard to get for so many people?
The facts are all there, but many still just accept the bu$h administration official line about 9/11 at face value. Even when it is obvious that the "facts" don't, can't even, fit together and make logical sense. And even defy the laws of physics.

[The Wizard]

12. The American and Iraqi people will be paying

for the Bush cartel's war for profit based on lies for the next three generations. Contractors and the cartel pocketed the money looted from the Treasury and sent it to foreign tax havens and money laundries.
Our only hope is the war criminals will be kidnapped by international law enforcement and rendered to black sites for "enhanced interrogation."
The damaged lives left in the wake of the murderous, treasonous Bush cartel, for the most part, will never be made whole again.
It's almost as if they were relying on the accuracy of the Mayan calendar.
Remember Cheney's retort to criticism of the war, "So."
And Bush commenting on History's evaluation of him, "Who cares, we'll all be dead." On a good day, they're sociopaths.

[WilliamPitt]

14. Up