In a disturbing case of hypocritical Western propaganda tripping over its own
distortions, the Associated Press recently reported that Turkish troops and warplanes have
crossed into Northeastern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels presumably taking refuge there
(AP, 4/7/99). Any honest observer will be mesmerized by the juggling act of ignorance
involved in reporting this story. The same "respectable" news service which
consistently fails to mention that the "no-fly zones" over Northern and Southern
Iraq are a flagrant violation of international law, has now forgotten they exist at all,
at least while the omission is momentarily convenient.
Ostensibly established to protect ethnic minorities in those regions from Iraqi
military assaults, the no-fly zones are more often used to justify periodic air assaults
against unspecified Iraqi targets referred to as "air defense positions" and
whatnot. Actually, it isn't true that the no-fly zones themselves are against
international conventions. I honestly can't find anything in the laws of global conduct
against drawing a line on a map and telling a sovereign nation it cannot fly airplanes
within its own borders. What is illegal is violating a sovereign nation's airspace
to patrol such a zone. It took Malaysia, backed by Russia and China on the Security
Council, to point this fact out just this year. But never mind, neither Washington nor the
media, nor seemingly the United Nations, has any concern for the illegality of
unilaterally drawing and enforcing no-fly zones. After all, they are intended to protect
the Kurds, and protecting poor minorities is high on the Western agenda, as the current
Kosova debacle demonstrates.
In any case, the reality of the situation is that when US and British fighters scoping
out the no-fly zones, supposedly looking for wandering units of the "formidable"
Iraqi air force, are fired on by Iraqi troops under orders to defend Iraqi airspace, the
logic of Western doublespeak dictates that US forces are then free to rain death upon the
soldiers defending their homeland as well as other seemingly indiscriminate targets in the
area. And this is happening with startling regularity over Iraq.
The truth is, reports of Iraqi "violations" of these US-imposed no-fly zones
are rare. There is an occasional air encounter between US and Iraqi jets, but in reality
the patrols are successful both in preventing Iraqi air maneuverability and in providing
the perfect excuse to continue attacking Saddam's forces and other targets.
And now we find out that the only state violating the no-fly zones, other than the US
and UK, is Turkey, a favored US client. Like Iraq, the Turkish government is trying to
extinguish the threat of Kurdish rebellion and independence within its borders. But Turkey
is going much farther. The extermination campaign has so far been quite brutal, quite
thorough -- as one might expect from such a campaign. And, as reported by the Associated
Press, it has led well inside Iraqi territory, inside the northern no-fly zone, with
Kurdish guerillas hiding in the mountains there and Turkish warplanes "pounding"
them from above.
There is no word yet on whether US patrols have opened fire on American-made Turkish
fighters for violating the occupied airspace, but it's probably safe to expect the answer
is no. I'll leave it up to the reader to ponder the level of self-deception -- or
downright dishonesty -- required by news sources which simultaneously (1) refuse to
mention the illegality of patrolling "no-fly zones" and (2) failing to state
that Turkish violations of the touted no-fly zones are (a) taking place and (b) being
accepted by the forces we're being told are there to protect Kurds from oppression.
And while we are on the subject, let's evaluate the efficacy and legitimacy of the
no-fly zones. There can be no question that they are illegal, imposed unilaterally as they
have been by the US/UK alliance, without UN approval. And there really should be no
illusion that the real motivation behind the zones' existence is the protection of huddled
Kurds under attack from a vicious Iraqi air force that can't seem to scramble so much as a
handful of jets even outside the zones. If humanitarian interests were really a factor in
US policy, we wouldn't be simultaneously backing genocide against Kurds across the border
in Turkey, nor the slaughters of so many other peoples around the globe.
But one question remains: is the net effect of the no-fly zones -- ie protection of
Kurds at least from Iraqi bombs, if not Turkish ones -- something we can stand behind? It
is probably true that, to some extent, Kurds in Iraq would be under more severe attack
from Saddam's military were it not for US/UK occupation of significant airspace. Indeed,
the no-fly zones were established just after the 1991 Gulf War, when Kurdish refugees were
being massacred from the air. Noam Chomsky and others severely and generally critical of
US policy toward Iraq have come out in favor of the no-fly zones, of course citing
protection of Kurds and Shi'ites, while not falling for notions of humanitarian motives.
"I think the no fly zones that the US was pretty much forced to institute by popular
pressure are legitimate, in principle," writes Chomsky, basing his statement on the
premise that he believes the zones still offer actual protection to otherwise defenseless
peoples. This is a plausible, not altogether irrational conclusion.
However, we need to look at this situation in the context of an ongoing, virtually
one-sided war between the US/UK and the demonized Iraqi people. With many thousands of
Iraqis dying monthly as a result of war and sanctions, any US policy or action which
serves to justify that attack is itself unjustifiable. In fact, during an incident this
year, eleven Iraqi civilians were killed when a stray missile fired from a US warplane hit
a populated area near Basra during an enforcement of the southern no-fly zone. So while it
isn't obvious that lives are being saved, they are definitely being lost as both direct
and indirect results of the occupied airspace policy.
Since it is not a certainty that Iraqi forces would attack Kurds living in the no-fly
zones were they to be lifted, though we can be quite sure that as long as the zones exist,
Iraq will continue to defend its airspace with futile, indeed counterproductive results.
And as those results include the continuation of the insane US war on Iraqi people, we
must in good conscience oppose the no-fly zones and their enforcement.
Brian Dominick is a freelance journalist and community organizer living in Syracuse,
NY, where he works with the Let Iraq Live! Action Coalition among other groups.