Behind Enemy Lines

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.