Re: "One Minute to Midnight. . . "

from George Capaccio Capaccio@3b.com

George Capaccio returned from Iraq in January. This was his ninth trip since 1997. While there, he worked with the Iraq Peace Team, organized by Voices in the Wilderness. He and his wife Nancy will be going back as soon as possible

Dear Editor, Sydney Morning Herald,

I have just finished Mr. McGeough's article entitled "One Minute to Midnight. . . " referring to the impending invasion of Iraq. Oddly enough, I discovered this article on Common Dreams (February 22, 2003), a politically progressive website. Even more oddly, the writer was himself in Baghdad. It would appear that Mr. McGeough is somewhat rapt in awe by the firepower soon to be wielded by the United States and its "coaltion of the willing." For Mr. McGeough, the city of Baghdad is a place of "deadly canyons" perilously awaiting the troopers to come.

As one who has been to this city numerous times, I find Mr. McGeough's characterization of Baghdad somewhat lacking in perspective, to be kind. Baghdad, for those of your readers who have never been there, is a city of 5 million or more human beings. Let me repeat that in case Mr. McGeough wasn't listening: a city of 5 million human beings. In other words, people. It is also a place of breathtaking beauty and equally breathtaking poverty. And the people who dwell in this city are now living in dread of the catastrophe that is about to befall them--a catastrophe that will result from the firing of over 800 cruise missiles in the first two days of war.

Only those people who have the resources will be able to flee to safety. The rest will huddle in their homes praying for the bombing and the fighting to end, praying that one of those cruise missiles doesn't mistakenly land in their neighborhood bringing instant death and destruction; praying that George Bush will not destroy the electricity grid with his new E bombs; praying they will continue to have clean water to drink; and that if one of them is injured the nearest hospital will have its generators working and will have adequate dressings, sutures, and anesthesia.

Of course, this hardly matters to Mr. McGeough who finds retired general Barry McCaffrey "one of the cockier supporters of great US expectations." Missing from Mr. McGeough's account of the great former general is his role in the mass murder of retreating Iraqi soldiers along the "Highways of Death" from Kuwait to Basra in 1991. Under his command, thousands of soldiers were butchered in what one pilot called a "turkey shoot." And yet for Mr. McGeough, the good general is merely a cocky supporter of what is sure to be far worse than a "turkey shoot." McCaffrey says the US 3rd Infantry will drive their tanks "down the street with a 120mm gun and fire rounds into a lower floor and bring the building down."

Since Mr. McGeough has not provided us with a fitting response to the general's remark, I will take the liberty to so by adding that there are people who live in those buildings. Apparently, this too is of no concern to the general nor to Mr. McGeough. But it is of monumental concern to me. Some of those people might belong to families I know and love. Some of them might be members of the Iraq Peace Team who plan on staying in what Mr. McGeough's calls an "urban rats maze" to assist in any way possible the victims of this cowardly, unjustified, and criminal war.

Perhaps Mr. McGeough, if he is still residing in the "rat maze," might deepen and enlarge his perspective by spending less time on retired generals and defense analysts and more time with ordinary Iraqi families. In other words, people, as in human beings, much like Mr. McGeough.

Sincerely, George Capaccio Arlington, MA USA Capaccio@3b.com

Page created February 27, 2003 by Charlie Jenks.