January 18, 2003

Iraq Tortured

The moment the law squeezes your arm

The instant you trip into the hole of no return

Into another world, beyond the looking glass

The split second when you fall from grace

After which nothing is ever the same

That moment came for Iraq on August 2, 1990

We, the United States, had undermined progressives

Encouraged Saddam Hussein=s hold on power

He was helping our agenda in the Middle East

Maintaining for us its fragile balance of power

But now after a long dispute with Kuwait

He had invaded the small monarchy. A crime?

Yes, like Israel=s invasion of Palestine in 1967

Turkey=s invasion of Cyprus in 1974

Indonesia=s invasion of East Timor in 1975

Like our own invasion of Grenada in 1983

Our own invasion of Panama in 1989

Our intervention in 60 countries since 1945

Our bombing of 24 countries since then

All unpunished by the international community

However, this time, we meant to give a message

Show the world the extent of our impunity

We were an unequaled, supernatural power

And could on a whim punish an errant

Isolate, desolate, torture, annihilate

Torture is the pitting of overwhelming power

Against one helpless designated enemy

It silences. Who wants to risk the same fate?

Who would not betray to avoid such pain?

Who is not terrorized by its awesome devastation?

We invaded Iraq, killing some 100,000

We used depleted uranium, thus prolonging

Our punishment for well over 5 billion years

We destroyed chemical and water treatment plants

And monitored as disease epidemics ravaged

The prisoner must be isolated and starved

For Iraq, sanctions have been our tools

Since 1990, the strict rules we have imposed

Have denied even antibiotics for civilians

Dual use B can an army not also use antibiotics?

Our sanctions have killed 840,000 children

Over 5000 every month B but we are not satisfied

Just as a prisoner=s testicles must be squeezed

So Iraq=s future must be amputated, obliterated

Sanctions continue. Despair must be absolute

The prisoner must be humiliated, degraded

Stripped of his clothes, be under total control

We took possession of Iraq=s airspace

Declaring Ano-fly zones,@ north and south

Bombing them, since 1991, 2-3 times a week

Privacy must be invaded B mouth, vagina, anus

All body cavities to be inspected repeatedly

So have our inspectors (some of them spies)

Thus intruded B now entering private houses

And even palaces, on demand, unannounced

A confession completes the social spectacle

We scoff at Iraq=s 12,000 page declaration

But have whisked it away to blot out evidence

Of our complicity the country=s weapons program

Distributing to others only the redacted version

And all the while we browbeat our victim

ACooperate or your fate will be worse still We will invade, bomb again with depleted uranium

Our electronic surveillance shows your every move

Surrender, for no one will come to your help@

Thus it is that the torturer=s power increases

In the measure that that of his victim shrinks

Appeals to noble causes providing pretexts

AWe must save civilization from Evil@

AWe are not against the people of Iraq@

The essence of torture is its deliberate cruelty

Its willed immorality, its conscious inequity

Iraqis are as defenseless as the prisoner in his cell

And unless we, now unaffected, rally in empathy

What happens to them, will next happen to us

Solidarity shown by those outside the prison

Is the only way to halt the momentum of power

And its propensity, indeed need, to maltreat all

We must cry out against the torture of Iraq

Deny power the aggrandizement it seeks

Iraq is a helpless sore before the world

We must rescue it from its fate

Mobilize our collective conscience

Return it to the fold of humanity

There is no neutrality

Silence is acquiescence

Compassion must prevail.

Notes

Definition

Torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or confession, punishing him for an act he has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating him or other persons.

(From The United Nations Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Torture, 9 December, 1975, Article 1).

History

The United States:

The United States is the overwhelmingly most powerful driving force defining the United Nations policy on Iraq. For this reason, the focus of the poem is the United States.

Torture:

The 1975 United Nations Declaration Against Torture was strengthened and augmented by The 1984 United Nations Conventions against Torture. Neither have been implemented.

Amnesty USA states, in its 1984 Report, Torture in the Eighties, that there have been allegations of the practice of torture by the government in 66 of the 154 member nations of the United Nations.

The United States ratified The 1984 United Nations Conventions Against Torture in 1992.

Depleted Uranium:

Depleted uranium (DU, Uranium 238) is a by-product in the manufacture of nuclear weapons and has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

The United Nations estimates that 60,000 pounds (27,256 kilograms) of DU now lie on Iraq=s landscape. One gram throws off 12,400 alpha particle per second, each of which, if in touch with the human body, can cause cancer or congenital malformations.

Sanctions:

Including adults, sanctions have killed over 1.5 million Iraqis B more than all weapons of mass destruction in the entire history of the world.

Acknowledgment

My poem is based on Kate Millet=s outstanding book, The Politics of Cruelty (See reference below).

References

Arnove, Anthony, Ed., Iraq under Siege B The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War (South End, Cambridge, MA), 2000.

Blum, William

Killing Hope B U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II (Common Courage, Monroe, Maine), 1995.

Rogue State B A Guide to the World=s Only Superpower (Common Courage, Monroe, Maine), 2000.

Caldicott, Helen, The New Nuclear Danger B George W. Bush=s Military-Industrial Complex (The New Press, New York, N.Y.), 2002.

Cockburn, Andrew and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the Ashes B The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein (Harper Collins), 1999.

Free Speech Radio News, WBAI, New York, 01/17/03.

Millet, Kate, The Politics of Cruelty B An Essay on the Literature of Political Imprisonment (W. W. Norton, New York, N.Y.), 1994.

Zunes, Stephen, Tinderbox B U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage, Monroe, Maine), 2003.

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