Iraq: Military Victory, Moral Defeat

By Thomas C. Fox, Sheed & Ward, Kansas City, MO, 1991. 192pp. List: $9.95; AET: $7.95 for one, $9.95 for two.

Reviewed by Grace Halsell

Thomas C. Fox's book on the US-led war to eject Iraq from Kuwait is a clear statement of a highly critical view of US motivation and means. He believes the United States dispatched its forces to destroy an important Arab nation—the cradle of civilization—staged huge victory parades when the deed was done, and then went back to life as usual.

His, to date, minority view compels him to issue loud trumpet calls to Americans: look at what we have done, look what we are doing. What is most noteworthy, perhaps, is not that he is shouting so loudly at us, through this book, but that so few others have as yet expressed similar views.

Fox, editor of the National Catholic Reporter, began his journalism career in Vietnam writing for that publication and later also for The New York Times and Time magazine. Married to a Vietnamese, Fox says his book is "grounded in the Vietnam War and the sufferings of Vietnamese refugees."

From the outset of the Gulf war, he writes, it was clear the US public would be blindfolded. "We had seen the system rehearsed in Grenada and practiced in Panama. This was to be a war without death, without corpses, without blood spilled, bones broken, eyes blinded, minds shattered. How rightly the commanders referred to the 'war theater.' Theater was what we would get."

By denying the press freedom to cover the war, Americans did not see the agony of Iraqi human suffering. Once a camera captured the image of a bird covered with oil from an oil slick-and viewers saw the bird flapping its wings, struggling to free itself from the polluted waters. "As a result of US censorship, many ended up feeling more empathy for that single bird than for any of the thousands upon thousands of Iraqi men, women and children who were wounded or killed during the bombings of their country."

At least in the case of Vietnam, US viewers saw death and destruction on their TV screens, but Pentagon censorship in the Gulf war resulted in "a celebration of US technology, a living arms bazaar. Star Wars, laser-guided bombs down ventilation holes in Iraqi command buildings. Most impressive. The gleeful message: buy US or die."

Fox writes that he felt an increasing sense of loneliness and isolation with the round-the-clock bombing of a Third World nation while US flags were hoisted in shopping malls and in front of homes across America. He speaks of one Kansas peace activist who said he did not have the courage to fly his flag upside down, an internationally understood sign of distress.

In his rush to destroy Iraq, Fox writes, "Bush had not thought through the possible consequences of his policies and did not seek advice from academics familiar with the Middle East. Bush's bombs were setting into motion a complex chain of events almost certain to produce long-term bloodshed. " Since the publication of the book, we have seen the truth of his statement: millions of Kurds and Shi'i Muslims made homeless by the upheaval of war.

US policies in the Middle East, writes Fox, "have never stressed justice.... In the Middle East, oil has been king. And the American government wants to maintain control of the court."

The American people so blindly followed Bush into war that this provoked Fox to wonder, "Could this be what it was like to be a German during World War II? " Were the American people, he asks, "as cut off from the ability to see ourselves as the outside world saw us as the Germans were during World War II?"

As for Bush, his plans for Iraq presumably "included the destruction of a greater part of the nation and the killing of 100,000 or more Iraqis. " Indeed the figures, which are not yet in, have ranged from 100,000 to 500,000 killed.

Clearly, the Americans were deceived on key issues: "There was no evidence that Iraq planned to invade Saudi Arabia." Moreover, Americans were told that invading Iraqis unplugged infant incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital—which proved to be false. Additionally, Bush and the Pentagon claimed a high accuracy of US bombings, highlighted by "smart bomb" videos. Americans were not being told, however, that of the 88,500 tons dropped on Iraq and Kuwait, 70 percent were missing their targets.

Fox concludes that Americans changed the Middle East—but they do not yet know the nature of that change. The parades and cheering "cover the deeper truth that will one day emerge: though it was a military victory, we have suffered a grave moral defeat."

Grace Halsell is a Washington, DC-based journalist and the author or 10 books.