Kuwait Diary

Kuwait Diary -- March 27th, 2003

Day 7 of the 2nd Gulf War
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A week of this war has rolled by. It has been a week of the most fearsome sandstorms that Kuwait residents have seen. Ask anyone here and they will tell you that they have never ever seen storms like these, coming one after another; and specially never in the month of March. Visibility couldn’t have been more than 20 feet while I was driving to work yesterday and the continuous use of fog-haze lights became necessary. It is almost impossible that aircraft would be able to fly and do their duties in this inhospitable weather. But, it didn’t stop the missiles from coming into Kuwait.

Two missiles aimed at Kuwait’s main port at Shuwaikh were intercepted and destroyed. Bits and pieces fell near the Sabah hospital. I wonder how long people are going to hold on to their patience and not panic. This has still not happened, but a mass exodus of expatriates could mean a disaster for much of the civil services, hospital staff, IT staff and most importantly for the oil industry in Kuwait.

After a week of being stationed at its doors, the coalition forces have not entered Basra from where the missile attacks are being launched. Iraqis fighters have been moving in and out of Basra at will and launching guerilla attcks from the city. According to sources knowledgeable on tactical warfare, and I humbly admit that I am not one of them, this war has been on the drawing boards of the American generals for over a year. Today the seniormost of them, General William Wallace said the most astounding thing, that they had not ‘war-gamed’ for the guerilla tactics being used by the Iraqis.

I am astounded that the generals have been naïve enough to have expected Iraqi capitulation after an initial stage of overpowering ‘shock and awe’ bombings. Was every body expecting, with wide Donald Duck eyes, that Iraqi cilivilian populations would come out in large numbers with garlands and flowers in their hands and smiling children on their shoulders, and welcome the occupation forces? If so, then this has been a huge miscalculation. It is not difficult to understand the psyche of a people, brutalized under a dictatorial regime over two decades. A people who are used to ‘freedom’ of thought and action, will probably not have a sense of what is involved here. Add to this a deep seated suspicion of US motives for this war, some patriotic pride in the ‘unexpected’ resistance being shown by the Iraqi army, and the naivette of the war strategists stands exposed. According to the editor of Jane’s publication for airborne warfare, the approaches of the older generals in the US army are at odds with the new thinking of the younger strategists. That, I believe, is the human face of the US army. Welcome to the real world. After some reassessments of ground realities, 300 000 more troops suited to the job at hand, are being sent in. Expectations of a quick and decisive war has gone up in smoke. The mother of battles in Baghdad has not even begun.

Under the cover of the fierce and raging sand storms, when coalition aircraft were temporarily out of action, the Iraqi army broke out of Baghdad and headed south through a route that the coalition forces had not taken in their march. A retired general and a war stategist on CNN, compared this to the charge of the Nazi Wermacht under snow cover in Europe in 1942. The advance of the coalition forces has definitely been slowed down and the resistance shown points out to a war that can prolong itself beyond periods considered initially. Once again, I maintain that with its superior equipment, training and resources, the final outcome is not in doubt, but the realities and uncertainties of war are just about beginning to hit home. I continue to maintain that war is not a ‘superior’ option to solving problems and the embedded uncertainties lead to uncertain outcomes in other spheres that are far removed from the actual battlefield.

In a few quick weeks, many of the international institutions which buttress the world order and maintain stability, have received body blows. Nato is in disarray. The European union, which was trying to get common policies passed, is deeply divided. President Bush’s simple minded good versus evil stance which has told countries that ‘if you are not with us you are against us’, has put many countries in very uncomfortable positions, while bringing other politically irrelevant countries into this fight. For national strategic gains, as Mr Howard Prime Minister of Australia has pointed out to his unwilling people, or the reason the Poles are in this war, or the reasons President Arroya of the Phillipines wants to send her manpower ‘after’ the fighting is over. That this war has exposed double standards is clear to anyone who sees beyond the carpet bombing, tactical assult and the sideshows being trivialized by channels like Fox on prime time TV drumming up popularity ratings.

I was horrified by the images of food aid being brought in by British troops at Umm Qasr. It was quite out of control. These soldiers may know how to fight, but they were completely at sea when humanitaruan aid had to be distributed. The multitudes fell on the packets like a pack of wolves tearing a carcass away. The strong won. The weak, the children, those who needed food and water most, stood by hungry and afraid. Will the meek ever inherit the earth? Pres Bush doesn't want to hear about the United Nations, but I now clearly see that it is only that organization that can do justice to the task of distribing food, medicines and aid to the needy. Ultimately, the American people will be judged by this.

In an interdependent globalized war, everyone is affected whether you are in the war or not. I am directly affected by this war because I live in Kuwait from where most of the attacks are being launched. Personally, I don’t give a damn about Saddam Hussein. I am indirectly affected because I call India my home. Since, September 11th, when more than 350 Indians died with Americans and people from countries around the world in the attack on the New York Twin Towers (though initially, after the performance by Paul McCartney in Central Park, a lot of Americans thought that the only other country to have been affected was Britain!), the Indian government has been a staunch supporter of the US government. The trouble is, the Indian government also has good relationships with every Arab nation as also Israel, a fact not always liked by some Arabs. More than 8 million Indians work in the Middle East, close to a million in Kuwait alone. India’s 120 million Muslims generally oppose the war, but the Indian government has been careful to disregard this voice and support America.

This week 24 Hindus were killed in Indian Kashmir by crossborder terrorists, terrorism which General Musharraf, Pakistan’s military strongman and US ally, says that he ‘morally’ and logistically supports. One of the ways to destroy these terrorist camps (well documented by the BBC and the international media) is through pre-emptive strikes. But guess what, the US has been constantly urging the Indian government to solve the problem through diplomacy, even though the problem has gone on for many more years than the Iraq issue. I agree with this view, but the actions of Messrs Bush and Blair is flying in the face of this advise. Clearly these are double standards. Thus on one hand, it is well acknowledged that the war in Iraq has no links whatsoever with the original war on terror, but there are double standards on the real war on terror which countries around the world are facing. What about principles? Am I supposed to teach my kids that the use of force is not only acceptable, but indeed is the preferred option.

We heard more on the ‘contracts’ issue today. It has been mentioned in this journal that oil fire-fighters from Kuwait had gone into southern Iraq with the coalition forces. Indeed, they have managed to control 3 out of the 7 oil fields set on fire by the Iraqis. As predicted by the New York Times, weeks ago, the US company Halliburton was today awarded the contacts to fight oil fires in Kuwait, a contract worth a billion dollars. Readers would recall that this is the company of which Dick Chenney was the former CEO.

I had to clarify to an American friend on Writing.com today, that I was not anti-American. It is wholly understandable that there are patriotic feelings that come to the fore when one sees troops and the national forces fighting a war on foreign soil. There are brothers, sisters and children fighting out there. Now that the war has begun, Americans ‘should’ be patriotic. That is the right thing to do. But it is the contention of many around the world, that the brothers, sisters and children need not have gone to fight this war, if other options had been given a chance. It is also a fact on the dust-bowl of history, that most Germans supported the Nazis, going into the 2nd world war, with a rush of German pride and patriotism. One may recoil from this comparison, but then emotions such as patriotism, guilt etc are a smokescreen that must be cleared to see the real motivations behind going to war. This war as any war, will be filled with unspeakable horrors, killings, destruction in the inferno of madness that no amount of tears will wash away. If you’ve seen the movie Deer Hunter,…. see it again.

Finally I am left this week with a déjà vu, with the image of a man from the ’70’s protest movement, the voice of Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam) singing ‘Peace Train’. He used no accompaniments, no guitars, drums and percussion. Backed up only by the deep resonant voices of a group of South African singers, Cat Stevens sang about peace and love and humanity. I was moved. Listening to that song from the past in its new avatar, yes, I was moved.