On Genocide

Felicity Arbuthnot

It is the first genocide of the 21th century. Poor Iraq and Iraqis. The silence of the world pushes me to lose faith in humanity.” (Anonymous)

Incredibly it is twenty two years to the day since the telephone rang in the early hours and a friend said:

“They are bombing Baghdad.”

It was not only Baghdad, of course, Iraq was being systematically destroyed, from ancient southern Basra to haunting, historic Mosul in the north – in the West destruction was such that it was not even noticed by the outside world that about seventy miles of Iraq had been entirely illegally donated to Jordan, the border was simply “moved.” Kuwait, bordering of Iraq’s southern border benefited similarly illegally.

Then Secretary of State James Baker’s vow to: “reduce Iraq to a pre-industrial age” was being minutely executed over what was to become a forty three day blitz, which morphed…