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Opinion

Shock and Awe

By Douglas Lummis


開戦へのカウントダウン

イラクの「大量破壊兵器」を問題にする米国が、 史上空前の先制攻撃への準備を着々と進めている。

The U.S. government, under the leadership of President George W. Bush, has begun a campaign against weapons of mass destruction. This is splendid news.

Weapons of mass destruction have cast a dark shadow over the lives of all of us at least since 1945. For more than half a century we have lived in fear; fear of gas attacks and germ attacks, yes, but far more than these: the fear of bombs and missiles falling from the sky.

Now the U.S. government is taking steps to reduce this fear. It is going to destroy the threat posed by the government of Iraq's Saddam Hussein which, the United States says, possesses weapons of mass destruction.

Because the United States has said Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, there is no possible evidence that can prove it to be wrong. If Iraq says it has them, then it is guilty. If it says it doesn't have them, then it is lying. If the U.N inspection team finds such weapons, then Iraq is guilty. If it doesn't find any, that only proves that Iraq has deviously hidden them. Iraq has these weapons by definition. Evidence has nothing to do with it.

But don't worry, the U.S. government (with the help of the government of Japan) is going to go ahead and take care of this problem.

Recently, CBS News leaked the U.S. war plans. On the first day of the pre-emptive attack, 300 to 400 cruise missiles will be used to assault Iraq. That will be more than all the missiles launched during the 40 days of the first Gulf War. On the second day, another 300 to 400 missiles will be launched. And so on, day after day.

A Pentagon official was quoted as saying, "There will not be a safe place in Baghdad." He continued, "The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before."

Does this mean that this attack will be more destructive than the World War II fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo, or the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? That's what they are saying. Harlan Ullman of the U.S. National Defense University, where this strategy was developed, is quoted as saying that the destructive effect of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which took days and weeks to be felt, will hit Baghdad in only a matter of minutes.

This strategy is called "Shock and Awe." The idea is to overwhelm the enemy so totally that they would give up in a few days. In the first minutes of the war, all Iraqi military headquarters are to be destroyed.

"You also take the city down," said Ullman. "By that, I mean you get rid of their power, water. In two, three, four, five days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted."

If "Shock and Awe" works as planned, it will turn out to be the most devastating attack since Yahweh rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, as recorded in the Old Testament. Apparently the U.S. government hopes that by carrying out this kind of attack it can persuade the world that it is serious in its opposition to weapons of mass destruction.



Shukan ST: Feb. 28, 2003

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