North Korea's War Strategy of Massive Retaliations against US Attacks

An English abstract of a paper by Han Ho Suk
Director, Center for Korean Affairs

1. North Korea Can Engage the US in Total War
North Korea is one of the few nations that can engage in a total war with the United States. The US war planners recognize this fact. For example, on March 7, 2000, Gen. Thomas A Schwartz, the US commander in Korea at the time, testified at a US congressional hearing that "North Korea is the country most likely to involve the United States in a large-scale war."

North Korea, which can and is willing to face up to the sole military superpower of the world, cannot be called a weak nation. Nevertheless, Western press and analysts distort the truth and depict North Korea as an "impoverished" nation, starving and on the brink of imminent collapse. An impoverished, starving nation cannot face down a military superpower. Today few nations have military assets strong enough to challenge the US military. Russia, though weakened by the collapse of the Soviet Union, has enough assets to face up to the US. China, somewhat weaker than Russia, too, has strong military that can challenge the US. However, both Russia and China lack the political will to face down the US.

In contrast, North Korea has not only the military power but also the political will to wage total war against the United States. North Korea has made it clear that it will strike all US targets with all means, if the US mounted military attacks on North Korea. That North Korea's threat is no bluff can be seen from the aggressive actions taken by North Korea since the Korean War armistice, most recent of which is North Korea's attempt to capture an American spy plane. In the morning of March 1, 2003, an American RC-132S spy plane, Cobra Ball, took off from a US airbase in Okinawa, and cruised along the East coast of North Korea collecting electronic signals. The US intelligence suspected that North Korea was about to test a long-range missile and the plane was there to monitor the suspected missile launch.

When the US plane reached a point about 193 km from the coast of North Korea, two MiG-29 and two MiG-21 fighter planes showed up unexpectedly. The North Korean planes approached within 16 m and signaled the US plane to follow them. The US pilot refused to follow the command and left the scene posthaste. The US plane was tailed by the hostiles for about 22 min but let the US spy plane go. There are two key points to be observed here.

First, the hostile planes waited for the US plane at the Uhrang airbase, located about 200 km from the point of air encounter. They knew that the US plane was coming. The North Korean planes flew 200 km to intercept the US plane. Did the US plane see them coming? If it did, why no evasive action? After intercepting the US plane, the hostile planes dogged it for 22 min. Why no American planes for the rescue? The US crew must have informed the base of the danger they were in, but no action was taken by the base. If Kim Jong Il had given the command, the MiGs would have shot down the US plane and returned to their base before the US could have scrambled war planes.

Second, North Korea intercepted an American spy plane flying 200 km from its coast. According to the international norm, a nation's territorial air space extends 19 km from its coast line. The US is the exception and claims air space of 370 km from its coast line; any foreign airplane violating this extended air space is challenged or shot down by the US military.

2. North Korea's Massive Retaliation Strategy
North Korea's war plan in case of an US attack is total war, not the 'low-intensity limited warfare' or 'regional conflict' talked about among the Western analysts. North Korea will mount a total war if attacked by the US. There are three aspects to this war plan.

First, total war is North Korea's avowed strategy in case of US preemptive attacks. The US war on Iraq shows that the US can and will mount preemptive strikes in clear violation of international laws, and the United Nations is powerless to stop the US. Any nation that is weak militarily may be attacked by the US at will. It is reasonable for North Korea to deter US attacks with threats of total war.

Second, North Korea expects no help from China, Russia, or other nations in case of war with the US. It knows that it will be fighting the superpower alone. Nominally, China and Russia are North Korea's allies but neither ally is expected to provide any assistance to North Korea in case of war. Neither nation can or is willing to protect North Korea from attacks by the US, and North Korea alone can and will protect itself from US attacks. This principle of self-defense applies to all nations.

Third, North Korea's total war plan has two components: massive conventional warfare and weapons of mass destruction. If the US mounts a preemptive strike on North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear plants, North Korea will retaliate with weapons of mass destruction: North Korea will mount strategic nuclear attacks on the US targets. The US war planners know this and have drawn up their own nuclear war plan. In a nuclear exchange, there is no front or rear areas, no defensive positions or attack formations as in conventional warfare. Nuclear weapons are offensive weapons and there is no defense against nuclear attacks except retaliatory nuclear attacks. For this reason, North Korea's war plan is offensive in nature: North Korea's war plan goes beyond repulsing US attackers and calls for destruction of the United States.

The US war plan '5027' calls for military occupation of North Korea; it goes beyond the elimination of North Korea's weapons of mass destruction. The US military regards North Korea its main enemy and likewise North Korea regards the US its main enemy. South Korea, too, regards North Korea its main enemy but North Korea does not regard South Korea its main enemy because South Korea is a client state of the United States and has no ability or power to act independent of the US. North Korea's war plan is not for invading South Korea but for destroying the US.

3. North Korea's Military Capability
All nations keep their military capability secret. North Korea is no exception and it is not easy to assess North Korea's military power. The US claims that it knows North Korea's military secrets. The United States collects intelligence on North Korea using a variety of means: American U-2, RC-135, EP-3 and other high-altitude spy planes watch over North Korea 24 hours 7 days a week. The US 5th Air Reconnaissance Squadron has U-2R, U-2S, and other advanced spy planes at the Ohsan airbase in South Korea. In addition, the US has 70 KH-11 spy satellites hovering over North Korea.

In spite of such a massive deployment of intelligence collection assets, the US intelligence on North Korea is faulty at best. Donald Gregg, a former US ambassador to Seoul and a 30-year CIA veteran, has admitted that the US intelligence on North Korea has been the longest lasting story of failure in the annals of US intelligence. Gregg said that even the best spy gadget in the US arsenal cannot read what's on Kim Jong Il's mind. US Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said that North Korea uses underground optical fibers for military communication and that it is nearly impossible to plant human agents in North Korea.

Although North Korea's military secrets are impervious to US spy operations, one can draw some general pictures from information available in the public domain.

a) North Korea makes its own weapons

North Korea has annual production capacity for 200,000 AK automatic guns, 3,000 heavy guns, 200 battle tanks, 400 armored cars and amphibious crafts. North Korea makes its own submarines, landing drafts, high-speed missile-boats, and other types of warships. Home-made weaponry makes it possible for North Korea to maintain a large military force on a shoestring budget. North Korea defense industry is made of three groups: weapon production, production of military supplies, and military-civilian dual-use product manufacturing.

North Korea has 17 plants for guns and artillery, 35 plants for ammunition, 5 plants for tanks and armored cars, 8 plants for airplanes, 5 plants for warships, 3 plants for guided missiles, 5 plants for communication equipment, and 8 plants for biochemical warheads - 134 plants in total. In addition, many plants that make consumer products are designed so that they can be made to produce military items with minimum modification. About 180 of defense related plants are built underground in the rugged mountainous areas of Jagang-do. Several small to medium hydro-power plants serve these plants so that it would be nearly impossible for the US to cut off power to the plants.

b) North Korea has its own war plans

North Korea is mountainous and its coasts are long and jagged. The Korean peninsula is narrow on its waste. North Korea's weapons and war tactics are germane to Korea's unique geography. North Korea has developed its own war plans unique to fighting the US in a unique way. North Korea's military is organized into several independent, totally integrated and self-sufficient fighting units, that are ready for action at any time.

c) North Korean soldiers are well indoctrinated

The US commanders admit that North Korean soldiers are highly motivated and loyal to Kim Jong Il, and that they will fight well in case of war. Karl von Clausewitz said that people's support for war, military commanders' ability and power, and the political leadership are the three essentials for winning war. He failed to include the political indoctrination of the soldiers, which is perhaps more important than the other factors cited.

During the Iraq War just ended, the main cause of Iraq's defeat was the low moral of its soldiers. Iraqi soldiers had no will to stand and fight, and they ran away or surrendered without fight. Iraqi soldiers believed in Allah protecting them and became easy preys to the US military. North Korean soldiers are taught to fight to the bitter end. In September 1996, a North Korean submarine got stranded at Kangrung, South Korea, and its crew abandoned the ship. Eleven of the crew committed suicide and the rest fought to the last man except one who was captured. In June 1998, another submarine got caught in fishing nets at Sokcho and its crew killed themselves. Such is the fighting spirit of North Korean soldiers.

d) North Koreans are combat ready

One cannot fight war without military preparedness. North Korea's regular army is for offensive actions whereas its militias are homeland defense. North Korea's regular army consists of 4 corps in the front area, 8 corps in the rear area, one tank corps, 5 armored corps, 2 artillery corps, and 1 corps for the defense of Pyongyang, South Korea has 19 infantry divisions whereas North Korea has 80 divisions and brigades.

A North Korean infantry division has 3 infantry regiments, 1 artillery regiment (3 battalions of 122 mm rocket launchers and 1 battalion of 152 mortars), one tank battalion of 31 tanks, one anti-tank battalion, one anti-aircraft battalion, one engineer battalion, one communication battalion, one light-infantry battalion, one recon battalion, and one chemical warfare battalion.

North Korea's militias consist of 1.6 million self-defense units, 100,000 people's guards, 3.9 million workers militia, 900,000 youth guard units. These militias are tasked to defend the homeland. The militias are fully armed and undergo military trainings regularly.

i) Artillery

North Korea has 2 artillery corps and 30 artillery brigades equipped with 120mm self-propelled guns, 152mm self-propelled mortars, 170mm guns with a range of 50 km, 240 mm multiple rocket launchers with a range of 45 km, and other heavy guns. North Korea has about 18,000 heavy guns. North Korea's 170mm Goksan gun and 240mm multiple-tube rocket launchers are the most powerful guns of the world. These guns can lob shells as far south as Suwon miles beyond Seoul. The big guns are hidden in caves. Many of them are mounted on rails and can fire in all directions. They can rain 500,000 conventional and biochemical shells per hour on US troops near the DMZ. The US army bases at Yijong-bu, Paju, Yon-chun, Munsan, Ding-gu-chun, and Pochun will be obliterated in a matter of hours.

The US army in Korea is equipped with Paladin anti-artillery guns that can trace enemy shells back to the guns and fire shells at the enemy guns with pin-point accuracy. However, it takes for the Paladins about 10 min to locate the enemy guns, during which time the Paladins would be targeted by the enemy guns Gen. Thomas A Schwartz, a former US army commander in Korea, stated that the US army in Korea would be destroyed in less than three hours.

ii). Blitz Klieg

North Korea has tanks, armored cars, and self-propelled artillery for blitz klieg. North Korea has one tank corps and 15 tank brigades. The tank corps has 5 tank regiments, each of which has 4 heavy tank battalions, 1 light-tank battalion, one mechanized infantry battalion, 2 self-propelled artillery battalions.

US tanks are designed to operate in open fields. In 1941, Rommel of Germany defeated British troops in North Africa with tanks. The largest tank battle was fought at Kursk in 1943, in which the Soviets defeated Germans. In 1973, Egypt defeated Israeli tanks with anti-tank missiles. All of these tank battles were fought in open fields. The Gulf War and the recent war in Iraq saw US tanks in open fields. American and Western tank commanders do not know how to fight tank battles in rugged terrains like those of Korea. Tank battles in Korea will be fought on hilly terrains without any close air cover, because North Korean fighters will engage US planes in close dog fights.

North Korea has developed tanks ideally suited for the many rivers and mountains of Korea. These tanks are called "Chun-ma-ho", which can navigate steep slopes and cross rivers as much as 5.5 m deep. North Korea's main battle tanks - T-62s - have 155 mm guns and can travel as fast as 60 km per hour. The US main tanks - M1A - have 120 mm guns and cannot travel faster than 55 km per hour. North Korean tanks have skins 700 mm thick and TOW-II is the only anti-tank missile in the US arsenal that can penetrate this armored skin.

North Korea began to make anti-tank missiles in 1975 and has been improving its anti-tank missiles for the past 30 years. North Korea's anti-tank missiles are rated the best in the world and several foreign nations buy them. The US army in Korea relies on 72 AH-64 Apache attack helicopters to kill North Korean tanks. Each Apache has 16 Hell-Fire anti-tank missiles. As shown in the recent Iraq war, Apaches are fragile and can be easily shot down even with rifles. North Korea has about 15,000 shoulder-fired anti-air missiles ("wha-sung") and Apaches will be easy targets for wha-sung missiles. On December 17, 1994, a wha-sung missile brought down an American OH-58C spy helicopter which strayed north of the DMZ.

North Korea has 4 mechanized corps and 24 mechanized brigades. Each brigade has 1 tank battalion (31 tanks), 1 armored battalion (46 armored cars), 4 infantry battalions, one 122mm battalion (18 guns), one 152 mm battalion (18 guns), one anti-aircraft battalion (18 guns), anti-tank battalion (9 armored cars with anti-tank missiles and 12 anti-tank guns), one armored recon company (3 light armored cars, 7 armored cars, and 8 motor-cycles), one mortar company (6 mortars), one engineer company, one chemical company, and one communication company. The US army has A-10 attack planes to counter North Korea's mechanized units. In case of war, the skies over Korea will be filled with fighters in close dog-fights and the A-10s would be ineffective.

The bulk of North Korea's mechanized and tank units are positioned to cross the DMZ at a moment's notice and run over the US and South Korean defenders. The attackers will be aided by SU-25 attack planes and attack helicopters. In addition, North Korea has 600 high-speed landing crafts, 140 hovercrafts, and 3,000 K-60 and other pontoon bridges for river-crossing. North Korea has 700,000 troops, 8,000 heavy guns, and 2,000 tanks placed in more than 4,000 hardened bunkers within 150 km of the DMZ.

iii. Underground Tunnel Warfare

North Korea is the world most-tunneled nation. North Korea's expertise in digging tunnels for warfare was demonstrated during the Vietnam War. North Korea sent about 100 tunnel warfare experts to Vietnam to help dig the 250 km tunnels for the North Vietnamese and Viet Gong troops in South Vietnam. The tunnels were instrumental in the Vietnamese victory.

North Korea's army runs on company-size units. Tunnel warfare is conducted by independent company-size units. Tunnel entrances are built to withstand US chemical and biological attacks. Tunnels run zig-zag and have seals, air-purification units, and safe places for the troops to rest. It is believed that North Korea has built about 20 large tunnels near the DMZ. A large tunnel can transport 15,000 troops per hour across the DMZ and place them behind the US troops.

iv. Special Forces

North Korea has the largest special forces, 120,000 troops, in the world. These troops are grouped into light infantry brigades, attack brigades, air-borne brigades, and sea-born brigades - 25 brigades in total. These troops will be tasked to attack US military installations in Korea, Japan, Okinawa and Guam.

North Korea has the capacity to transport 20,000 special force troops at the same time. North Korea has 130 high-speed landing crafts and 140 hovercrafts. A North Korean hovercraft can carry one platoon of troops at 90 km per hour. Western experts pooh-pooh North Korea's ancient AN-2 transport planes as 1948 relics, but AN-2 planes can fly low beneath US radars and deliver up to 10 troops at 160 km per hour. North Korea makes AN-2s and has about 300 in place. In addition, North Korea has hang-gliders that can carry 5-20 men each for short hops.

North Korea has developed special bikes for mountain warfare. Special forces use these bikes for fast deployments on mountains. Switzerland is the only other nation that has bike-mounted special forces trained for mountain warfare. The rugged terrains of the Korean Peninsula are ideally suited for special forces operations. North Korea's special forces will attack US targets in Japan, Okinawa, and Guam as well. Japan's self defense units are being reorganized to counter this threat.

How good are North Korea's special forces? In September 1996, a North Korean submarine was stranded near Kang-nung and the crew were forced to abandon the ship and land on South Korea. The sub had two special forces agents who had finished a mission in South Korea and were picked up by the sub before the sub ran into a rock. The two men fought off an army of South Korean troops and remained at large for 50 days, during which they killed 11 of the pursuers.

4. Weapons of Mass Destruction
a. Missile Readiness
North Korea is a nuclear state along with the US, Russia, China, the Great Britain, France, India, Pakistan, and Israel. North Korea has succeeded in weaponizing nuclear devices for missile delivery. North Korea has operational fleets of ICBM and intermediate-range missiles equipped with nuclear warheads. I have written on this subject previously and will not replicate the details here.

It was May of 1994, nine years ago, when the US military planners had first realized that North Korea had the bomb and devised nuclear attack plans under William Perry, the then US Secretary of Defense. Perry had estimated that North Korea would have about 100 nuclear warheads by 2000. Dr. Kim Myong Chul, an expert on Kim Jong Il's war plans, has recently confirmed that North Korea has more than 100 nukes including hydrogen bombs.

North Korea can produce about 100 missiles a year. It began to make missiles in 1980 and has about 1,000 missiles of various types in place, about 100 of which have nuclear warheads. These missiles are hidden in caves and underground launching pads. At present, the US has no fool-proof defense against North Korean missiles, and in case of war, North Korean missiles can do serious damages: several hundreds of thousands of US troops will die, and scores of US bases and carrier battle groups will be destroyed. The Patriot anti-missile missiles are deployed in South Korea but as shown in the recent Iraq war, the Patriots are not 100% accurate or reliable even under ideal conditions.

b. Biochemical Warfare

North Korea has a large stockpile of biochemical weapons. Each Army corps has a chemical company and each regiment has a chemical platoon. In the May 1994 nuclear crisis, Perry warned North Korea that the US would retaliate with nuclear weapons if North Korea used chemical weapons on US troops.

North Korean troops and citizens are well-prepared for bio-chemical attacks.

5. North Korea's Defense Against US Attacks
a. Fortification

North Korea began to build fortifications in 1960s. All key military facilities are built underground to withstand American bunker-buster bombs. North Korea has 8,236 underground facilities that are linked by 547 km of tunnels. Beneath Pyongyang are a huge underground stadium and other facilities. About 1.2 million tons of food, 1.46 million tons of fuel, and 1.67 million tons of ammunition are stored in underground storage areas for wartime use.

Most of the underground facilities are drilled into granite rocks and the entrances face north in order to avoid direct hits by American bombs and missiles. The B-61 Mod 11 is the main bunker buster in the US arsenal. A recent test showed that this buster could penetrate only 6 meters of rock. The latest GBU-28 laser-guided bunker-buster can penetrate to 30m. North Korean bunkers have at least 80 m of top-cover of solid rocks. North Korea has many false caves that emit heats that will misdirect unwary GBU-28/37 and BKU-113 bunker-busters.

The US military targets enemy command and control centers based on the doctrine of chopping off "the head of the snake." With the top commanders eliminated, the rank and file would be demoralized, leaderless and would surrender. North Korea's extensive underground fortification makes this strategy unworkable. In addition, the underground facilities make US spy planes and satellites impotent.

b. Air Defense

North Korea has a large number of ground-to-air missiles. It has SA-2 and SA-3 missiles against low-flying enemy planes, and SA-5 missiles for high-altitude planes. SA-5 missiles have an effective range of 250 km. SA-5 missiles can hit enemy planes flying over the middle of South Korea.

North Korea has reengineered US shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles captured in Vietnam, and designed its own missile, wha-sung. North Korea began to manufacture wha-sung missiles in 1980. Wha-sung comes in two models: SA-7 that has an effective range of 5 km and SA-16 with 10 km range. North Korea has more than 15,000 wha-sung missiles in place.

In addition to the missiles, North Korea has 12,000 anti-aircraft guns, including 37mm twin-barrel guns, 23 mm automatics, 57mm, 87mm, and 100mm heavy guns. These are mostly manually operated and thus not subject to electronic warfare.

c. Coastal deferens.

North Korea's coastlines are long and jagged. Coastal guns are placed in fortified tunnels along the coastline. North Korea has six ground-to-ship missile bases. North Korea has anti-ship missiles of 95km range, and of 160km range. The latter are for hitting US carrier battle groups over the horizon. North Korean anti-ship missiles can hit ships anchored at Inchon on the west and Sokcho on the east.

America's main defense against anti-ship missiles, the Arleigh Burke class Aegis destroyers are ineffective outside 20-50 km from missile launch pads.

d. Sea Battles

North Korea has two fleets - the West Fleet and the East Fleet. The West Fleet has 6 squadrons of 320 ships and the East Fleet has 10 squadron of 460 ships. The navy has a total manpower of 46,000. North Korean ships are sheltered from US attacks in about 20 bunkers of 200-900 m longs and 14-22 m wide. North Korean ships are small and agile, designed for coastal defense. North Korean ships carry 46km range ship-to-ship missiles and 22-channel multiple rocket launchers.

The main enemy of the North Korean navy will be US carrier task forces. The Russian navy has developed a tactic to deal with US carriers task forces: massive simultaneous missile attacks. In addition, Russia has developed the anti-carrier missile, "jun-gal", that can destroy a carrier. China has developed similar tactics for destroying US carriers. On April 1, 2003, North Korea test-fired a high-speed ground-to-ship missile of 60km range. A US carrier task force of Nimitz class has 6,000 men, 70 planes, and a price tag of 4.5 billion dollars. Destroying even a single career task force will be traumatic.

A carrier is protected by a shield of 6 Aegis destroyers and nuclear attack submarines. An Aegis destroyer has an AN/SPY-1 high-capacity radar system that can track more than 100 targets at the same time. An Aegis can fire about 20 anti-missile missiles at the same time. Thus, a career force can track a total of 600 targets at a time and fire 120 anti-missile missiles at the same time. The anti-missile missiles have about 50% success under ideal conditions. In actual battle situations, the hit rate will be much lower and the best estimate is that the Aegis shield can intercept at most 55 incoming missiles. Therefore, a volley of about 60 missiles and rockets will penetrate the Aegis shield and hit the career.

North Korea acquired OSA and KOMAR high-speed missile boats in 1968, and began to build its own missile boats in 1981. It has more than 50 missile boats, each equipped with 4 missiles of 46km range and multiple rocket launchers. In addition, North Korea has about 300 speed boats, 200 torpedo boats and 170 other gunboats. In case of war, North Korea's small crafts and submarines will swarm around US career task forces and destroy them.

North Korea has 35 submarines and 65 submersibles. These crafts are equipped with torpedoes and will be used to attack US careers. They will also lay mines and block enemy harbors. North Korea has a large supply of mines. North Korean submarines are small but they are equipped with 8km rocket launchers and 70km anti-ship missiles, and they could do some serious damage to US careers..

e. Air Combats

North Korea has three air commands. Each command has a fighter regiment, a bomber regiment, an AN-2 regiment, an attack helicopter regiment, a missile regiment, and a radar regiment. Each command can operate independently. North Korea has 70 airbases, which are fortified against US attacks. Underground hangars protect the planes and have multiple exits for the planes to take off on different runways. North Korea has several fake airfields and fake planes to confuse US attackers.

It is said that North Korea's planes are obsolete and no match for US planes. North Korea has 770 fighters, 80 bombers, 700 transports, 290 helicopters, and 84,000 men. In case of war, North Korean planes will fly low hugging the rugged terrains and attack enemy targets. US planes are parked above ground at bases in Korea, Japan, Okinawa and Guam, and make easy targets for missile, rocket and air attacks. When war breaks out, North Korean missiles, rockets and heavy guns will destroy the 8 US airbases in South Korea, and any plane in the air would have no place to land.

North Korea's fighter planes are ill-equipped for air-to-air combats at long distances. but they can hold their own in close-quarter air combats. MiG-21 fighters from Bongchun and US F-15 from Ohsan would meet in less than 5 min, assuming they took off at about the same time. In about 5 min, hundreds of MiG21s and F-15s would be swirling in the skies over Korea. Ground-to-air missiles and air-to-air missiles would have hard time telling friends from foes. F-15Es are equipped with a radar system that lock on at 180 km for large objects and 90 km for small objects. Sidewinder missiles have an effective range of 16km, AMRAAM missiles of 50km, and Sparrow of 55km.

Korea is 100 km wide and 125 km long, and so US air-to-air missiles would be of limited use and effectiveness, because North Korean MiGs would approach the US planes in close proximity and commingle with US planes, and air-to-air missiles will become useless and machines guns will have to be used. MiG19s have 30mm guns, MiG21s have 23mm guns, and F-14s have 20mm Valkans. North Korean pilots are trained to hug the enemy planes so that air-to-air missiles cannot be used. In contrast, US pilots are trained to lock on the enemy at long distance with radar and fire missiles. US planes are heavily armed with electronics and less agile than the light, lean MiGs that can climb and turn faster than the US planes.

F-14s are about 3.3 times heavier than MiG21s, and F-150Es are about 3.6 times heavier. MiG21s are 16.6 m long whereas F-14s are 19.1 m and F-15Es 19.43 m long. MiG21s cab climb to 18km, whereas F-1A can climb to 15.8 km and F-16 to 15.2 km. MiGs get upper hands in close-range dogfights in which agility matters. In Vietnam, US planes were forced to jettison auxiliary gas tanks and bombs in order to engage MiGs. F-150 E planes will carry BLU-113 bunker busters that weigh 2,250 kg each in the next war in Korea. Loaded with such a heavy bomb, F-15s will become easy targets for North Korea's MiGs. US fighter-bombers will be protected by F-15C fighter escorts.

MiG21s are North Korea's main workhorse. The MiG21 debuted in 1965 in Vietnam and proved itself as an effective attack fighter. In 1999, North Korea bought 40 MiG21s from Kazakhstan. During the Vietnam War, MiG17s shot down dozens of American planes. North Korea sent more than 200 pilots to fight in the Vietnam War. They were tasked to defend Hanoi and shot down scores of US planes. North Korea sent 25 pilots to Syria during the 3rd Arab-Israeli war of 1966, and 30 pilots to Egypt and Syria during the 4th Arab-Israeli war of 1973. In 1976, North Korea sent more than 40 pilots to Syria.

f. Electronic Warfare

The United States excels in electronic warfare and no nation comes anywhere near the US capability. North Korea began developing its own electronic warfare methods in 1970. It is believed that North Korea has advanced electronic warfare ability. It has numerous counter measures for US electronic warfare. During the recent war in Iraq, the US dropped e-bombs that disabled the Iraqi electronic devices. North Korea relies heavily on non-electronic command and control means, and hence US e-bombs will have limited impacts in North Korea.

North Korea trains about 100 hackers a year and has computer virus battalions in place. These hackers are capable of interrupting US communication networks. In a war game conducted in 1991 by US war planners, North Korea came out the victor with and without nuclear weapons. Kim Jong Il has no doubt that his army can beat the US army.

6. US Military Defeats in the Past
Military power dictates the outcome of war. In assessing the next war in Korea, the military power of the opponents must be examined objectively. Until now, North Korea's military power has not been properly studied. In general, Western experts tend to underestimate North Korea's military strength. Politicians in America and South Korea play down North Korean threats for political reasons.

It has been said that North Korean army is large in numbers but their equipment are obsolete, and hence it is a weak army. The US war planners assess North Korean army using computer simulations of war in Korea. US war plan for the recent Iraq war was refined using more than 40 computer-simulated wars in Iraq. The computer simulation models use weapon system features among other factors to determine the outcome.

It is true that the advanced weapons were instrumental in the US victory in the Gulf War, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. On the other hand, the US army was defeated by ill-equipped foes in Korea and Vietnam. The latter two wars show that superior weapons do not always lead to a victory. North Korean and Chinese forces in Korea and the Vietnamese forces fought with superior tactics and stronger fighting fighting spirits.

In the next war in Korea, the US army will face an enemy much more determined and better equipped than the army in the Korean War of 1950-53.

The United States in the General Assembly

by Stephen R. Shalom;
April 22, 2003

Two decades ago, conservative columnist George Will wrote "it is bad enough we pay for the United Nations; surely we do not have to pay attention to it."[1] Since that time, US payments to the United Nations have become much less reliable, but US readiness to ignore the world organization is as great as ever. US behavior in the Security Council, where it tried to bully, bribe, and spy upon other Council members to endorse its illegal war against Iraq has been much discussed, but the US record in the General Assembly has received very little coverage. It is a record that is worth looking at, however, for it reveals an astounding level of imperial arrogance.

The UN General Assembly, in its 57th session, running from September 2002 to the present, passed a total of 306 resolutions. Most of these, 235 of them, were passed without a vote; one other resolution involved a vote, but was passed unanimously. The remaining 70 resolutions were contested, meaning that there was at least one abstention or negative vote. Data regarding these 70 resolutions is shown in the table at the end of this article.

On 11 of these 70 contested resolutions, the United States voted with the majority - that is, voted in the affirmative. Some of these votes were nearly unanimous. On a resolution endorsing a report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (57/9), only North Korea voted no. On a resolution dealing with the law of the sea (57/141), only Turkey voted no. On a resolution supporting conventional arms control on the regional and subregional level (57/77), only India voted no. And on a resolution appealing to states to offer scholarships to Palestinian refugees for higher education (57/120), Israel was the lone abstainer (and no one voted in the negative).

On the other 59 contested resolutions, 84 percent, the United States either abstained or voted no. Sixteen times the U.S. was joined in its no vote or abstention by at least 10 other countries, but much more often - 43 times, comprising 61 percent of all the contested resolutions -- Washington's abstention or no vote was part of a small minority. On 29 occasions the United States either cast the lone negative vote or else had as its voting partners only Israel and/or a few tiny Pacific island nations. The Pacific islands were usually Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, and sometimes Palau as well. The Marshall Islands (population 74,000), Micronesia (population 136,000), and Palau (population 19,000) are all in a "compact of free association" with the United States, rely heavily on US financial assistance, and are totally dependent on the US for their defense. Micronesia and Palau house US military bases.[2]

On what sorts of issues did the United States buck the Assembly's consensus?

Resolution 57/11 called for the lifting of the US embargo against Cuba; there were only three negative votes: the United States, Israel, and the Marshall Islands.

Resolution 57/49 called for cooperation between the United Nations and the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization; Washington cast the sole negative vote.

Resolution 57/57 expressed its opposition to an arms race in space; the United States, Israel, and Micronesia were the only no votes.

Resolution 57/58 called for nuclear weapons states to reduce their non-strategic nuclear arsenals; the United States joined with the UK and France in voting no. Resolution 57/59 urged a nuclear-free world; the six no votes all came from nuclear weapons states: the United States, Britain, France, India, Pakistan, and Israel.

Resolution 57/62 aimed to uphold the authority of the 1925 Geneva Protocols banning the use of chemical and biological weapons. The resolution called upon states which had signed the Protocols with reservations to withdraw their reservations. The only non-affirmative votes were the abstentions from the United States, Israel, and Micronesia. (The United States signed the Protocols with reservations.)

Resolution 57/71 called simply for the General Assembly to continue studying the question of missiles and their implications for world peace and security. The United States, along with Israel and Micronesia, voted no. Resolution 57/65 endorsed further consideration of the relationship between disarmament and development. Only the United States voted no. Resolution 57/73, which advocated a nuclear-weapons free southern hemisphere, received negative votes only from the United States, Britain, and France. Resolution 57/78 laid out a path to total nuclear disarmament - earning negative votes only from the United States and India. The United States, Israel, and Micronesia voted no on resolution 57/97, which dealt with nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. On resolution 57/100 on the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, the United States cast the sole no vote.

On four other resolutions dealing with nuclear weapons (57/79 on disarmament, 57/84 on reducing the nuclear danger, 57/85 on the legality of nuclear weapons, and 57/94 on the prohibition of nuclear weapons), the United States was one of several dozen nations to vote no. And on resolution 57/56, calling for international arrangements to assure non-nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, the United States was one of 55 abstainers.

The United States was also one of two dozen abstainers on resolution 57/74 urging the signing and ratification of the land mine convention (a convention Washington has refused to accept).

More than a dozen resolutions dealing with Palestine were contested, with the United States and Israel joined by a few Pacific island nations generally pitted against the opinion of the world. These were by no means extreme resolutions. For example, 57/110 called for the peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, with a two-state solution, the principle of land for peace, and an end to "all acts of violence including military attacks, destruction and acts of terror." 57/125 urged the application of the Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in time of war to the occupied territories. 57/198 affirmed the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people. 57/188 demanded that Israel apply to Palestinian children the rights of the child and the Geneva conventions. 57/126 restated the view that the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories were illegal and demanding the cessation of settlement activity (a view consistent with Security Council resolution 465 from 1980, which had been adopted unanimously, including the affirmative vote of the United States). Washington voted no on each of these General Assembly resolutions.

Resolution 57/112 called for Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights -- Syrian territory conquered in 1967 -- in the context of a comprehensive peace. Negative votes were cast only by the United States, Israel, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands.

Resolution 57/190 urged states to sign the Convention on the Rights of the Child and for signatories to withdraw their reservations to the Convention. The vote was 175-2-0, with only the United States and Micronesia dissenting. Resolution 57/226 called upon states to give adequate priority in their development strategies and expenditures to the right of their citizens to food. Washington cast the sole negative vote. The United States, along with Israel and Palau, were the only countries to vote no on resolution 57/227 which called for states to allow freedom of travel and the freedom of foreign nationals to remit funds to their relatives in their countries of origin.

The United States was one of seven nations voting against continued UN support for the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (resolution 57/175).

Resolution 57/199 adopted and urged acceptance by all states of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The Protocol provided for international visits to make sure that prisoners were not being tortured. There were only four negative votes: from the United States, Micronesia, Palau, and Nigeria.

Resolution 57/132 reaffirmed the right of peoples of non-self-governing territories to self-determination and to dispose of their resources in their best interest. Only the United States, Israel, and the Marshall Islands voted no. 57/139 endorsed UN efforts to disseminate information about decolonization; the United States, Israel, Micronesia, and the UK cast the four negative votes. The United States, Britain, and Micronesia voted no on 57/140, which called for the implementation of the declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples.

That development is a basic right was affirmed in resolution 57/223, which also noted that the lack of development was no excuse for abridging other internationally recognized rights. The United States, along with Australia, Micronesia, and Palau, voted no.

The United States had many supporters in its negative votes against resolutions promoting a democratic and equitable international order (57/213), reaffirming people's right to peace (57/216), and warning of the dangers to human rights posed by globalization (57/205).

All told, on the 70 contested resolutions, the United States voted affirmatively 11 times, abstained 10 times, and voted no 49 times. Thus, the United States cast negative votes on 70 percent of the contested resolutions. No other nation rejected the international consensus as often. Israel voted no 38 times (54 percent), Micronesia 36 times (51 percent), the Marshall Islands 23 times (33 percent), Canada 11 times (16 percent), Sweden 8 times (13 percent), and Brazil 0 times.

These data do not tell the whole story of the US role in the General Assembly, of course. In many cases, resolutions which were adopted without a vote had involved votes on particular parts of the resolution.

So for example, resolution 57/189, adopted without a vote, expressed the Assembly's concern about the discrimination against girl children and violations of their rights. But before the text was adopted as a whole, operative paragraph 1 was put to a vote. That paragraph stated:

1. Stresses the need for full and urgent implementation of the rights of the girl child as guaranteed to her under all human rights instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, as well as the need for universal ratification of those instruments;

The retention of the paragraph was approved by a vote of 168 in favor to 2 against (the United States and the Marshall Islands) with 1 abstention (Israel).[3]

Resolution 57-215, also adopted without a vote, condemned forced disappearances. The resolution made reference to the International Criminal Court; the US sought to remove this wording, but the Assembly by a lop-sided vote (166-1-9) retained it, with only the United States voting no.[4]

* * *

The US Declaration of Independence acknowledged the need for "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." The United States government today shows no such respect. To be sure, the views of the entire world should not matter if one is right. But in its consistent rejection of justice, peace, and international cooperation, Washington's General Assembly voting record is not right, but shameful.

Notes
Quoted in Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Loyalties, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984, p. 94.
CIA World Factbook, 2002
General Assembly Press Release, Dec. 18, 2002, GA/10124.
GA/10124.

Iran Embeds Badr troops in Iraq’s Shiite centers,
Races US for control

DEBKAfile Special Report

April 22, 2003,
The first great pilgrimage to Karbala that Iraqi Shiites were permitted to make in almost 30 years, starting Tuesday, April 22, may prove the defining event in the US-Iran contest for influence over Iraq’s majority Shiite community. The freedom to commemorate the 7th century death in battle of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, was a mark in America’s favor. However, the striding pilgrims arrived with banners calling on the Americans to leave Iraq. Some also demanded an Islamic state to replace the Saddam regime. The three-day event in which a million or more dancing, chanting worshippers form processions around self-flagellating ecstatic youths will sorely test American skills in maintaining order without angering crowds inflamed by competing imams, especially at the ceremonies’ climax on Wednesday, April 23.

DEBKAfile’s sources in Baghdad and Tehran report that the Iranians raised the military stakes by pouring thousands of Al Badr Brigades troops into Iraq on Sunday and Monday, in advance of the pilgrimage and in breach of its understandings to Washington. One column of 3,000 men, heading south from Kurdistan, seized control of sections of the strategic town of Baqubah in the Diyala region only 50 km northeast of the Shiite al Azamiya and Saddam City districts of Baghdad. Baqubah also straddles the main Baghdad-Iran routes. A second Badr Brigades contingent of 3,000 to 4,000 crossed from Iran into Iraq near the southeastern town of Al Amarah and advanced into al Kut, where it split into three sub-units, one each for Nasiriyah, Najef and Karbala.

The troops in southern Iraq are in civilian clothes and drive civilian vehicles, much like armed militiamen, while in Baquba they sport Iranian Revolutionary Guards camouflage uniforms and move around in Iranian army vehicles.

The Badr Brigades are in fact an undercover elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. They are made up of foreign elements, mostly Iraqi and Afghan Shiites. The Badr Brigades thrust into Iraq this week was in effect an Iranian military movement timed to coincide with the Karbala celebration and spearhead the rise of local Iraqi Shiite militias in Iraq’s heartland region against the American military presence. Some 70 percent of Iraq’s estimated 12,000 Shiites inhabit the area between Karbala and Najef in the south and Baquba in the north, including Baghdad.

According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, Iran, in addition to moving Badr Brigades units into Iraq’s Shiite centers, made a further three tactical moves:

1. It pumped thousands of trained, well-armed guerrilla fighters through Basra and Al Amara into the Najef and Karbala regions to mingle with the pilgrims and manipulate the mood of the crowds from within.

2. The infiltrators delivered weapons, explosives and cash to pro-Iranian Iraqi leaders, arming them to fight pro-American or even moderate elements in the Shiite community.

3. They sent into Iraq the rabble-rousing Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, deputy head of the Supreme Assembly of the Iraqi Revolution, SAIRI, and brother of its leader, Ayatollah Muhammed Bakir al-Hakim, from Tehran where they live. He arrived with a group of fighters to stir into action the scores of clandestine anti-Saddam SAIRI cells believed to consist of between 1,500 and 2,500 militants.

Intelligence reports from the field point to Abdul Aziz al-Hakim’s men as having murdered Majid Khoei in the Najef mosque on April 10. The young, long-exiled Iraqi Shiite cleric had been designated as main American conduit to Iraq’s Shiite leaders.

The al-Hakim brothers are doubly dangerous to US plans for a democratic, multi-ethnic and stable Iraq. In the first place, behind their political-religious front, they command substantial military strength. DEBKAfile’s sources in earlier reports exposed French attempts to persuade the Iraqi Ayatollah to deploy his fighting units in Iraq against the US military presence. The second problem is the plausible formula he preaches that the US will find it very hard to debunk. His thesis in a nutshell is this: The best political course for Iraq is the parliamentary system of one-man, one-vote, without a sectarian agenda. The future government in Baghdad should uphold religious values rooted in Islam, the Sharia should be the main source of legislation. But the rights of all religious minorities will be respected.

On the face of it, what could be more democratic? The ayatollah welcomes a free general election no less than the Americans. And no wonder. Since the Shiites account for some 60 percent of the Iraqi population, the election results are a foregone conclusion: the Shiites will take over government in Baghdad by perfectly democratic means, displacing the Sunnites who ruled under Saddam Hussein and setting up a pro-Iranian, anti-American administration.

Many of the banners carried by the pilgrims thronging Karbala were prepared in advance and distributed by SAIR. They all carried the same message: The Americans must leave, No foreign rule for Iraq. We want an Islamic state. (For Islamic, read Shiite).

Tehran clearly seized on the Karbala pilgrimage as its opening for a mighty shove against the American presence in Iraq. No one is willing to predict whether the confrontation will pass quietly or degenerate into armed clashes with the potential for spreading to other parts of the country, including Baghdad itself.

The US-UK military command under US General Tommy Franks appears calm in the face of this potential. Troops of the US 82nd Airborne Division are watching over security from a distance, mainly keeping an eye on the 70-km long pilgrimage route between Karbala and Najef. However, military sources have discovered that coalition forces deployed between Basra and Baghdad have been quietly placed on the ready, in case of trouble erupting on Wednesday. Washington has also forwarded a grave caution to Tehran with a demand to withdraw the Badr Brigades troops from Baquba and Karbala and keep them out of Baghdad.

How the American forces stand up to these Iranian and pro-Iranian provocations among the Shiite pilgrims in the latter part of this week will strongly affect the outcome of the developing US-Tehran standoff; it will even shape Washington’s posture on Iran, Syria and the militant Shiite Hizballah’s home base in Lebanon.

A Skewed History of Asia of Paul Wolfowitz

by TIM SHORROCK

[posted online on April 17, 2003]

Washington, DC

On the Sunday before US troops seized the city of Baghdad, Paul Wolfowitz went on television to sell his vision for a future Middle East. A free Iraq, he said, would serve as a democratic beacon for the region just as Japan was the model for Asia. "The example of Japan, even in countries that had bitter memories of the Japanese, inspired many countries in East Asia to realize that they could master a free-market economy, that they could master democracy," he told Fox News Sunday.

Wolfowitz, who was President Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, is turning history on its head. Japan was not the inspiration for the democratic upsurge that swept through East Asia in the 1980s. Instead, it was the junior partner to the United States during the cold war, when Washington created an alliance of anticommunist dictators who supported American foreign policy while repressing their own people. Those policies didn't inspire democracy in Asia; if anything, they helped to stifle it.

The symbiotic relationship between Washington and Tokyo was forged in 1948, when the United States "reversed course" in its occupation of Japan to focus on the containment of communism. Almost overnight, US policy shifted from punishing Japanese bureaucrats and industrialists responsible for World War II to enlisting them in a global war against the Soviet Union and China. The shift was symbolized by Nobusuke Kishi, who was prime minister from 1957 to 1960. Kishi was minister of commerce and industry in the wartime Tojo Cabinet and labeled a "Class A" war criminal for helping run Japan's colonial empire in Manchuria.

"The part of Japanese imperialism which was made powerless after the defeat in the war wanted, of course, to revive itself," Muto Ichiyo, a Japanese writer who worked closely with the US antiwar movement in the 1960s, once explained to me. "But they knew perfectly well that the situation had changed. They knew also that fighting against America again would be both impossible and purposeless. So they adopted a very clear-cut strategy: Japan will concentrate on the buildup of the economic base structure of imperialism, while America will practically rule Asia through its military forces."

Japanese industry profited handsomely by supplying the Pentagon with steel, munitions and even napalm when the United States fought wars in Korea and Vietnam. Then, as Washington propped up South Korea's Park Chung Hee, the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos and Indonesia's Suharto with vast quantities of military aid, Japan kept their economies alive with financial aid and investments from Mitsui, Sumitomo and other big corporations. Japan's collaboration with Washington was carefully hidden from the Japanese public but greatly appreciated by American leaders, as shown from newly declassified documents stored in the National Archives.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, then national security adviser, met with Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka to discuss Japan's role in post-Vietnam Asia. Nixon, according to a White House transcript, told Tanaka that he "realized that Japan has a special problem with respect to playing a military role in the Pacific and Asia." But "Japanese economic influence could be decisive in many areas," he added. "It is in our interest that there be a strong, vigorous Japanese economy, so that Japan could play a vital role in Southeast Asia."

Tanaka was happy to oblige, telling Nixon that Japan "should cooperate with the Southeast Asian nations and the ROK [Republic of Korea] in providing both aid and investment." In South Korea, which Nixon and Tanaka agreed was "essential" to Japan's security, he said Japanese aid would "create a situation in which disaffected South Korean elements are not tempted to serve North Korean interests." Tanaka's promises pleased Nixon, who "hoped to see not just a United States policy, but a US-Japan policy for Asia."

In Wolfowitz's rosy view of history, the millions of Koreans, Filipinos and Indonesians who rebelled against their authoritarian governments were following in Japan's footsteps. That is false. In reality, democratic activists in those countries endured torture, imprisonment and military repression imposed by governments backed by the Pentagon, financed by Japan and tolerated by Wolfowitz and other American officials in the name of US national security.

On April 7, Wolfowitz told the Washington Post that he "met quite a few dictators up close and personal in my life." Indeed he has. It was under Wolfowitz's watch at the State Department that Reagan invited South Korean military dictator Chun Doo Hwan to the White House in February 1981, nine months after Chun murdered hundreds of demonstrators in Kwangju. And it was Wolfowitz, who was US ambassador to Indonesia during the 1980s, who urged Congress to look beyond the "important and sensitive issue of human rights" to acknowledge "the strong and remarkable leadership of President Suharto."

A more accurate analogy between postwar Asia and US policy today would be the United States installing friendly leaders in Baghdad willing to do US bidding in the Middle East, and subservient, pro-US governments providing the economic underpinning to the new US imperialism. Then, after decades of US-imposed "democracy," the Iraqi people would rise up to forge their own future. That's how long it took Asians to reject the idea that democracy doesn't grow out of the barrels of American guns.

When Britain Invaded Iraq... in 1921

Jonathan Glancey
Saturday April 19, 2003
The Guardian

Gas, chemicals, bombs: Britain has used them all before in Iraq

No one, least of all the British, should be surprised at the state of anarchy in Iraq. We have been here before. We know the territory, its long and miasmic history, the all-but-impossible diplomatic balance to be struck between the cultures and ambitions of Arabs, Kurds, Shia and Sunni, of Assyrians, Turks, Americans, French, Russians and of our own desire to keep an economic and strategic presence there.

Laid waste, a chaotic post-invasion Iraq may now well be policed by old and new imperial masters promising liberty, democracy and unwanted exiled leaders, in return for oil, trade and submission. Only the last of these promises is certain. The peoples of Iraq, even those who have cheered passing troops, have every reason to mistrust foreign invaders. They have been lied to far too often, bombed and slaughtered promiscuously.

Iraq is the product of a lying empire. The British carved it duplicitously from ancient history, thwarted Arab hopes, Ottoman loss, the dunes of Mesopotamia and the mountains of Kurdistan at the end of the first world war. Unsurprisingly, anarchy and insurrection were there from the start.

The British responded with gas attacks by the army in the south, bombing by the fledgling RAF in both north and south. When Iraqi tribes stood up for themselves, we unleashed the flying dogs of war to "police" them. Terror bombing, night bombing, heavy bombers, delayed action bombs (particularly lethal against children) were all developed during raids on mud, stone and reed villages during Britain's League of Nations' mandate. The mandate ended in 1932; the semi-colonial monarchy in 1958. But during the period of direct British rule, Iraq proved a useful testing ground for newly forged weapons of both limited and mass destruction, as well as new techniques for controlling imperial outposts and vassal states.

The RAF was first ordered to Iraq to quell Arab and Kurdish and Arab uprisings, to protect recently discovered oil reserves, to guard Jewish settlers in Palestine and to keep Turkey at bay. Some mission, yet it had already proved itself an effective imperial police force in both Afghanistan and Somaliland (today's Somalia) in 1919-20. British and US forces have been back regularly to bomb these hubs of recalcitrance ever since.

Winston Churchill, secretary of state for war and air, estimated that without the RAF, somewhere between 25,000 British and 80,000 Indian troops would be needed to control Iraq. Reliance on the airforce promised to cut these numbers to just 4,000 and 10,000. Churchill's confidence was soon repaid.

An uprising of more than 100,000 armed tribesmen against the British occupation swept through Iraq in the summer of 1920. In went the RAF. It flew missions totalling 4,008 hours, dropped 97 tons of bombs and fired 183,861 rounds for the loss of nine men killed, seven wounded and 11 aircraft destroyed behind rebel lines. The rebellion was thwarted, with nearly 9,000 Iraqis killed. Even so, concern was expressed in Westminster: the operation had cost more than the entire British-funded Arab rising against the Ottoman Empire in 1917-18.

The RAF was vindicated as British military expenditure in Iraq fell from £23m in 1921 to less than £4m five years later. This was despite the fact that the number of bombing raids increased after 1923 when Squadron Leader Arthur Harris - the future hammer of Hamburg and Dresden, whose statue stands in Fleet Street in London today - took command of 45 Squadron. Adding bomb-racks to Vickers Vernon troop car riers, Harris more or less invented the heavy bomber as well as night "terror" raids. Harris did not use gas himself - though the RAF had employed mustard gas against Bolshevik troops in 1919, while the army had gassed Iraqi rebels in 1920 "with excellent moral effect".

Churchill was particularly keen on chemical weapons, suggesting they be used "against recalcitrant Arabs as an experiment". He dismissed objections as "unreasonable". "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes _ [to] spread a lively terror _" In today's terms, "the Arab" needed to be shocked and awed. A good gassing might well do the job.

Conventional raids, however, proved to be an effective deterrent. They brought Sheikh Mahmoud, the most persistent of Kurdish rebels, to heel, at little cost. Writing in 1921, Wing Commander J A Chamier suggested that the best way to demoralise local people was to concentrate bombing on the "most inaccessible village of the most prominent tribe which it is desired to punish. All available aircraft must be collected the attack with bombs and machine guns must be relentless and unremitting and carried on continuously by day and night, on houses, inhabitants, crops and cattle."

"The Arab and Kurd now know", reported Squadron Leader Harris after several such raids, "what real bombing means within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out, and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured, by four or five machines which offer them no real target, no opportunity for glory as warriors, no effective means of escape."

In his memoir of the crushing of the 1920 Iraqi uprising, Lieutenant-General Sir Aylmer L Haldane, quotes his own orders for the punishment of any Iraqi found in possession of weapons "with the utmost severity": "The village where he resides will be destroyed _ pressure will be brought on the inhabitants by cutting off water power the area being cleared of the necessaries of life". He added the warning: "Burning a village properly takes a long time, an hour or more according to size".

Punitive British bombing continued throughout the 1920s. An eyewitness account by Saleh 'Umar al Jabrim describes a raid in February 1923 on a village in southern Iraq, where bedouin were celebrating 12 weddings. After a visit from the RAF, a woman, two boys, a girl and four camels were left dead. There were many wounded. Perhaps to please his British interrogators, Saleh declared: "These casualties are from God and no one is to be blamed."

One RAF officer, Air Commodore Lionel Charlton, resigned in 1924 when he visited a hospital after such a raid and faced armless and legless civilian victims. Others held less generous views of those under their control. "Woe betide any native [working for the RAF] who was caught in the act of thieving any article of clothing that may be hanging out to dry", wrote Aircraftsman 2nd class, H Howe, based at RAF Hunaidi, Baghdad. "It was the practice to take the offending native into the squadron gymnasium. Here he would be placed in the boxing ring, used as a punch bag by members of the boxing team, and after he had received severe punishment, and was in a very sorry condition, he would be expelled for good, minus his job."

At the time of the Arab revolt in Palestine in the late 1930s, Air Commodore Harris, as he then was, declared that "the only thing the Arab understands is the heavy hand, and sooner or later it will have to be applied". As in 1921, so in 2003.

jonathan.glancey@guardian.co.uk

Israeli report clears Israeli troops over Rachel Corrie's death

by Conal Urquhart in Jerusalem
Monday April 14, 2003
The Guardian

An Israeli army investigation into the death of Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist, has concluded that its forces were not to blame for her death. It accused Corrie and other members of the International Solidarity Movement of "illegal, irresponsible and dangerous" behaviour.

Corrie, 23, was crushed to death by an army bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza, as she protested against house demolitions.

The investigation, led by the chief of the general staff of the Israeli Defence Force, found that Israeli forces were not guilty of any misconduct. The result of the investigation comes as Tom Hurndall, 21, from London lies in hospital with severe brain damage after being shot in the head on Friday by an Israeli soldier as he tried to help a Palestinian woman and her children.

Mr Hurndall was also a peace activist working with the ISM. He was shot in a different area of Rafah while wearing the same kind of bright orange vest as Corrie when she died. Yesterday his family arrived from London to visit him in hospital in the southern Israeli town of Beersheva.

The army report obtained by the Guardian says Corrie: "was struck as she stood behind a mound of earth that was created by an engineering vehicle operating in the area and she was hidden from the view of the vehicle's operator who continued with his work. Corrie was struck by dirt and a slab of concrete resulting in her death. "The finding of the operational investigations shows that Rachel Corrie was not run over by an engineering vehicle but rather was struck by a hard object, most probably a slab of concrete which was moved or slid down while the mound of earth which she was standing behind was moved."

However, Joe Smith, 21, from Missouri who witnessed Corrie's death said that the army's description bore little resemblance to what he saw. "Rachel was kneeling 20 metres in front of the bulldozer on flat ground. There was no way she could not have been seen. We only maintain positions that are clearly visible. "She had been doing this all day but this time the driver did not stop. Once she had fallen under the bulldozer, the driver stopped when she was under its middle section and reversed," he said.

The report also says that the army was patrolling no man's land by the border zone, searching for explosives. But according to Mr Smith, Corrie believed that they intended to demolish the house where she had been staying. The report points out that Rafah is an extremely dangerous place where Israeli troops regularly come under attack from guns and explosives.

A spokesman for the Israeli Defence Force said yesterday that while it did not accept any responsibility for Corrie's death, it was going to change its procedures to prevent future accidents. He said that the level of command of similar operations would be raised and civilians in the area would be dispersed or arrested before operations.

In addition, observers would be used and CCTV installed on the bulldozers to compensate for blindspots which the IDF believe contributed to Corrie's death.

Tom Wallace, a spokesman for the ISM, said that the army's investigation had been far from credible and transparent as it had promised. "The conclusions are outrageous. If they found that the driver was not culpable what did they find to explain this? How could they find a driver who had run someone over in a slow and deliberate manner in no way responsible?" he said.

Corrie's parents, Craig and Cynthia, from Washington, had called on the US state department to investigate the death of their daughter.

They were unavailable for comment yesterday.

Remembering Rachel Corrie

Thursday March 20, 2003
The Guardian

Millions remember a Chinese man standing in front of a tank in Beijing in 1989. I am ashamed to say that I never knew his name. This week a young American woman was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer as she stood with arms outstretched, trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian Arab house in the Rafah refugee camp. I know her name: Rachel Corrie (Rachel's war, G2, March 18). She was 23 years old. George Bush has been silent about her death, but she should be remembered as representing the best of America. He will be remembered as representing the rest.
Bill Speirs
General secretary, Scottish TUC

No one reading Rachel Corrie's emails can fail to be moved by the death of a brave young woman whose life was crushed from her as she tried to protect Palestinian homes from destruction. Every day Palestinian lives, no more or less important than Rachel's, are lost in similar ways. Their homes are bulldozed and their land stolen as they are herded into small areas, in what is fast becoming a giant open-air prison.

It is more vital than ever that internationals continue to travel to the Palestine territories to show we support the right of refugees to return to their homes and to exercise their right to democratic statehood.
Chris Dunham
International Solidarity Movement
contact@ism-london.org


While weightier issues obviously preoccupy people at the moment, I wondered what press reports we might read if a 23-year-old US peace activist had been killed by an Iraqi bulldozer while trying to prevent it destroying people's homes.
Joseph Cocker
Leominster, Herefordshire

Rachel Corrie died under a bulldozer for her beliefs

Now her reputation is being blogged to death

John Sutherland
Monday March 31, 2003
The Guardian

So many bodies lie mouldering in the sand this last fortnight that Rachel Corrie's mangled corpse is probably already forgotten. She was the American student bulldozed into the dirt while trying to prevent the destruction of Palestinian houses. G2 published a selection of her emails. Whether or not one agreed with her and the International Solidarity Movement to which she belonged, Rachel emerged as a woman prepared to put her body where her mouth was.

Barely had her body cooled than Rachel was promoted on the Palestine National Authority website as a heaven-sent martyr ("Israel killed another Angel").

Martyrisation demands retaliatory demonisation. Having been bulldozed to death, Rachel was duly blogged to death. The front-page news stories came out on March 17. By the next day, sites such as the aptly-named SharkBlog (hosted by Stefan Sharkansky) were in full mephitic flow. The Shark himself led the charge with a riff on "The Prime of Miss Rachel Corrie", casting her as Mary MacGregor, the idiot girl in Muriel Spark's novel. She had committed "suicide by bulldozer" as deliberately as her Palestinian buddies with their body bombs.

Accompanying emails were less literary. J Lichty, for example, posted his opinion that, "This deluded harpie did not want peace, she did not want human rights, she wanted victory. Victory for the enemies of America, victory for the enemies of the Jews, victory for the enemy of civilisation."

Jack Rich emailed his assent to this analysis: "Yeah, you've got it exactly right: this poor dupe sacrificed her life so that her poseur profs back home might preen for the cameras."

"What was she protecting?" asked Mickey: "Terrorists and a building used to make bombs to murder innocent civilians; she should burn in hell for an eternity." (The theology, as elsewhere, implies Christian fundamentalism rather than Judaic zealotry).

On another site, Rachel's parents were blackguarded by blog. It was they "who more than likely taught her these bizarre values; they must have been members of the same pot-smoking hippie commune as John Walker Lindh's mom and dad".

Pictures had accompanied the news reports of Rachel's death, megaphone in hand, standing in front of the menacing bulldozer. A pose inescapably reminiscent of Tiananmen Square. Another picture showed her fallen in front of the murderous blade. Questions were asked as to whether the images had been "manipulated".

Two days later a contrary photograph of Rachel appeared, first in the Seattle Times (the article accompanying it has since been removed). It depicts her snarling, shawled and in a Palestinian street demonstration, tearing up a paper US flag. The provenance given for the photograph (a mysterious snapper called "Khalil Hamra") led nowhere. Where, then, had it come from? Paranoia suggested the Israeli secret service, which monitors such events. This picture also looked, to some expert eyes, doctored.

None the less, the damage was done. Americans are hypersensitive about desecration of the Stars and Stripes. Rachel was not a human shield protecting innocent Palestinians but a traitor and a terrorist sympathiser. It didn't help that her mother announced that "Rachel was opposed to this war on Iraq."

The insult to the flag provoked an even more savage blogguarding campaign. "Tom", for example, who declared that, "Anyone who would burn an American flag deserves to be bulldozed to death!!! Hopefully the US government will aim some bulldozers at the next group of war protesters, those anti-American motherfuckers."

What have we come to? The speed with which this kind of devil's advocacy can now (thanks to the net) be mounted, its sheer unbridled violence and its moral irresponsibility are, to the thoughtful mind, more frightening than any of those WMDs for whose (dubious) existence Britons are, at this moment, laying down their lives. Stop the world: I want to log off.

RACHEL CORRIE'S WAR - Her emails

Tuesday March 18, 2003
The Guardian

This weekend 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a bulldozer as she tried to prevent the Israeli army destroying homes in the Gaza Strip. In a remarkable series of emails to her family, she explained why she was risking her life

February 7 2003

Hi friends and family, and others,

I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what's going on here when I sit down to write back to the United States. Something about the virtual portal into luxury. I don't know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me - Ali - or point at the posters of him on the walls. The children also love to get me to practice my limited Arabic by asking me, "Kaif Sharon?" "Kaif Bush?" and they laugh when I say, "Bush Majnoon", "Sharon Majnoon" back in my limited arabic. (How is Sharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon is crazy.) Of course this isn't quite what I believe, and some of the adults who have the English correct me: "Bush mish Majnoon" ... Bush is a businessman. Today I tried to learn to say, "Bush is a tool", but I don't think it translated quite right. But anyway, there are eight-year-olds here much more aware of the workings of the global power structure than I was just a few years ago.

Nevertheless, no amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can't imagine it unless you see it - and even then you are always well aware that your experience of it is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli army would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and the fact, of course, that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown. I have a home. I am allowed to go see the ocean. When I leave for school or work I can be relatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting halfway between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint with the power to decide whether I can go about my business, and whether I can get home again when I'm done. As an afterthought to all this rambling, I am in Rafah: a city of about 140,000 people, approximately 60% of whom are refugees - many of whom are twice or three times refugees. Today, as I walked on top of the rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers called to me from the other side of the border, "Go! Go!" because a tank was coming. And then waving and "What's your name?". Something disturbing about this friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much, to some degree, we are all kids curious about other kids. Egyptian kids shouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from the tanks when they peak out from behind walls to see what's going on. International kids standing in front of tanks with banners. Israeli kids in the tanks anonymously - occasionally shouting and also occasionally waving - many forced to be here, many just agressive - shooting into the houses as we wander away.

I've been having trouble accessing news about the outside world here, but I hear an escalation of war on Iraq is inevitable. There is a great deal of concern here about the "reoccupation of Gaza". Gaza is reoccupied every day to various extents but I think the fear is that the tanks will enter all the streets and remain here instead of entering some of the streets and then withdrawing after some hours or days to observe and shoot from the edges of the communities. If people aren't already thinking about the consequences of this war for the people of the entire region then I hope you will start.

My love to everyone. My love to my mom. My love to smooch. My love to fg and barnhair and sesamees and Lincoln School. My love to Olympia.

Rachel

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February 20 2003

Mama,

Now the Israeli army has actually dug up the road to Gaza, and both of the major checkpoints are closed. This means that Palestinians who want to go and register for their next quarter at university can't. People can't get to their jobs and those who are trapped on the other side can't get home; and internationals, who have a meeting tomorrow in the West Bank, won't make it. We could probably make it through if we made serious use of our international white person privilege, but that would also mean some risk of arrest and deportation, even though none of us has done anything illegal.

The Gaza Strip is divided in thirds now. There is some talk about the "reoccupation of Gaza", but I seriously doubt this will happen, because I think it would be a geopolitically stupid move for Israel right now. I think the more likely thing is an increase in smaller below-the-international-outcry-radar incursions and possibly the oft-hinted "population transfer".

I am staying put in Rafah for now, no plans to head north. I still feel like I'm relatively safe and think that my most likely risk in case of a larger-scale incursion is arrest. A move to reoccupy Gaza would generate a much larger outcry than Sharon's assassination-during-peace-negotiations/land grab strategy, which is working very well now to create settlements all over, slowly but surely eliminating any meaningful possibility for Palestinian self-determination. Know that I have a lot of very nice Palestinians looking after me. I have a small flu bug, and got some very nice lemony drinks to cure me. Also, the woman who keeps the key for the well where we still sleep keeps asking me about you. She doesn't speak a bit of English, but she asks about my mom pretty frequently - wants to make sure I'm calling you.

Love to you and Dad and Sarah and Chris and everybody.

Rachel

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February 27 2003

(To her mother)

Love you. Really miss you. I have bad nightmares about tanks and bulldozers outside our house and you and me inside. Sometimes the adrenaline acts as an anesthetic for weeks and then in the evening or at night it just hits me again - a little bit of the reality of the situation. I am really scared for the people here. Yesterday, I watched a father lead his two tiny children, holding his hands, out into the sight of tanks and a sniper tower and bulldozers and Jeeps because he thought his house was going to be exploded. Jenny and I stayed in the house with several women and two small babies. It was our mistake in translation that caused him to think it was his house that was being exploded. In fact, the Israeli army was in the process of detonating an explosive in the ground nearby - one that appears to have been planted by Palestinian resistance.

This is in the area where Sunday about 150 men were rounded up and contained outside the settlement with gunfire over their heads and around them, while tanks and bulldozers destroyed 25 greenhouses - the livelihoods for 300 people. The explosive was right in front of the greenhouses - right in the point of entry for tanks that might come back again. I was terrified to think that this man felt it was less of a risk to walk out in view of the tanks with his kids than to stay in his house. I was really scared that they were all going to be shot and I tried to stand between them and the tank. This happens every day, but just this father walking out with his two little kids just looking very sad, just happened to get my attention more at this particular moment, probably because I felt it was our translation problems that made him leave.

I thought a lot about what you said on the phone about Palestinian violence not helping the situation. Sixty thousand workers from Rafah worked in Israel two years ago. Now only 600 can go to Israel for jobs. Of these 600, many have moved, because the three checkpoints between here and Ashkelon (the closest city in Israel) make what used to be a 40-minute drive, now a 12-hour or impassible journey. In addition, what Rafah identified in 1999 as sources of economic growth are all completely destroyed - the Gaza international airport (runways demolished, totally closed); the border for trade with Egypt (now with a giant Israeli sniper tower in the middle of the crossing); access to the ocean (completely cut off in the last two years by a checkpoint and the Gush Katif settlement). The count of homes destroyed in Rafah since the beginning of this intifada is up around 600, by and large people with no connection to the resistance but who happen to live along the border. I think it is maybe official now that Rafah is the poorest place in the world. There used to be a middle class here - recently. We also get reports that in the past, Gazan flower shipments to Europe were delayed for two weeks at the Erez crossing for security inspections. You can imagine the value of two-week-old cut flowers in the European market, so that market dried up. And then the bulldozers come and take out people's vegetable farms and gardens. What is left for people? Tell me if you can think of anything. I can't.

If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held captive with 149 other people for several hours - do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just years of care and cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes to make things grow and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a similar situation, most people would defend themselves as best they could. I think Uncle Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I think I would.

You asked me about non-violent resistance.

When that explosive detonated yesterday it broke all the windows in the family's house. I was in the process of being served tea and playing with the two small babies. I'm having a hard time right now. Just feel sick to my stomach a lot from being doted on all the time, very sweetly, by people who are facing doom. I know that from the United States, it all sounds like hyperbole. Honestly, a lot of the time the sheer kindness of the people here, coupled with the overwhelming evidence of the wilful destruction of their lives, makes it seem unreal to me. I really can't believe that something like this can happen in the world without a bigger outcry about it. It really hurts me, again, like it has hurt me in the past, to witness how awful we can allow the world to be. I felt after talking to you that maybe you didn't completely believe me. I think it's actually good if you don't, because I do believe pretty much above all else in the importance of independent critical thinking. And I also realise that with you I'm much less careful than usual about trying to source every assertion that I make. A lot of the reason for that is I know that you actually do go and do your own research. But it makes me worry about the job I'm doing. All of the situation that I tried to enumerate above - and a lot of other things - constitutes a somewhat gradual - often hidden, but nevertheless massive - removal and destruction of the ability of a particular group of people to survive. This is what I am seeing here. The assassinations, rocket attacks and shooting of children are atrocities - but in focusing on them I'm terrified of missing their context. The vast majority of people here - even if they had the economic means to escape, even if they actually wanted to give up resisting on their land and just leave (which appears to be maybe the less nefarious of Sharon's possible goals), can't leave. Because they can't even get into Israel to apply for visas, and because their destination countries won't let them in (both our country and Arab countries). So I think when all means of survival is cut off in a pen (Gaza) which people can't get out of, I think that qualifies as genocide. Even if they could get out, I think it would still qualify as genocide. Maybe you could look up the definition of genocide according to international law. I don't remember it right now. I'm going to get better at illustrating this, hopefully. I don't like to use those charged words. I think you know this about me. I really value words. I really try to illustrate and let people draw their own conclusions.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me. This is not what I meant when I looked at Capital Lake and said: "This is the wide world and I'm coming to it." I did not mean that I was coming into a world where I could live a comfortable life and possibly, with no effort at all, exist in complete unawareness of my participation in genocide. More big explosions somewhere in the distance outside.

When I come back from Palestine, I probably will have nightmares and constantly feel guilty for not being here, but I can channel that into more work. Coming here is one of the better things I've ever done. So when I sound crazy, or if the Israeli military should break with their racist tendency not to injure white people, please pin the reason squarely on the fact that I am in the midst of a genocide which I am also indirectly supporting, and for which my government is largely responsible.

I love you and Dad. Sorry for the diatribe. OK, some strange men next to me just gave me some peas, so I need to eat and thank them.

Rachel

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February 28 2003

(To her mother)

Thanks, Mom, for your response to my email. It really helps me to get word from you, and from other people who care about me.

After I wrote to you I went incommunicado from the affinity group for about 10 hours which I spent with a family on the front line in Hi Salam - who fixed me dinner - and have cable TV. The two front rooms of their house are unusable because gunshots have been fired through the walls, so the whole family - three kids and two parents - sleep in the parent's bedroom. I sleep on the floor next to the youngest daughter, Iman, and we all shared blankets. I helped the son with his English homework a little, and we all watched Pet Semetery, which is a horrifying movie. I think they all thought it was pretty funny how much trouble I had watching it. Friday is the holiday, and when I woke up they were watching Gummy Bears dubbed into Arabic. So I ate breakfast with them and sat there for a while and just enjoyed being in this big puddle of blankets with this family watching what for me seemed like Saturday morning cartoons. Then I walked some way to B'razil, which is where Nidal and Mansur and Grandmother and Rafat and all the rest of the big family that has really wholeheartedly adopted me live. (The other day, by the way, Grandmother gave me a pantomimed lecture in Arabic that involved a lot of blowing and pointing to her black shawl. I got Nidal to tell her that my mother would appreciate knowing that someone here was giving me a lecture about smoking turning my lungs black.) I met their sister-in-law, who is visiting from Nusserat camp, and played with her small baby.

Nidal's English gets better every day. He's the one who calls me, "My sister". He started teaching Grandmother how to say, "Hello. How are you?" In English. You can always hear the tanks and bulldozers passing by, but all of these people are genuinely cheerful with each other, and with me. When I am with Palestinian friends I tend to be somewhat less horrified than when I am trying to act in a role of human rights observer, documenter, or direct-action resister. They are a good example of how to be in it for the long haul. I know that the situation gets to them - and may ultimately get them - on all kinds of levels, but I am nevertheless amazed at their strength in being able to defend such a large degree of their humanity - laughter, generosity, family-time - against the incredible horror occurring in their lives and against the constant presence of death. I felt much better after this morning. I spent a lot of time writing about the disappointment of discovering, somewhat first-hand, the degree of evil of which we are still capable. I should at least mention that I am also discovering a degree of strength and of basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of circumstances - which I also haven't seen before. I think the word is dignity. I wish you could meet these people.

Maybe, hopefully, someday you will.

Rachel Corrie Deserves Justice

by Charley Reese
Monday, April 21, 2003

Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old American girl who was murdered by the Israelis. She was standing on a large mound of earth trying to stop an Israeli bulldozer from smashing the house of a Palestinian doctor in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli bulldozer plowed right over her and then backed up, further crushing her frail, young body. Of course, the Israelis claim it was an accident. But there are photographs, taken by her companions as it was happening, that clearly show she was perfectly visible to the bulldozer driver. You can see them on the Internet.

The question for us is, are we going to seek justice for this idealistic American girl, or are we going to allow the spineless, corrupt government in Washington to accept, without investigation, the Israeli excuse, as it always does? It just so happens that Israel has apparently decided to drive out international observers. The Israelis killed Rachel; they shot another international observer in the face and a third one in the head — all within the past few weeks. These are not "militants." They are idealistic young people trying in a nonviolent way to protect Palestinians from Israeli violence.

The Guardian, a British newspaper, printed a number of Rachel's e-mails to her family (strange how gutless the American press is when it comes to Israel). They are a very sad read. She told her mother she had nightmares about bulldozers and tanks, and in one prophetic paragraph said: "When I come back from Palestine, I probably will have nightmares and constantly feel guilty for not being here ... coming here is one of the better things I've ever done. So when I sound crazy, or if the Israeli military should break with their racist tendency not to injure white people, please pin the reason squarely on the fact that I am in the midst of a genocide."

Speaking of the Palestinians, with whom she was living, she wrote: "I know that the situation gets to them — and may ultimately get them — on all kinds of levels, but I am nevertheless amazed at their strength in being able to defend such a large degree of their humanity — laughter, generosity, family time — against the incredible horror occurring in their lives and against the constant presence of death.

"I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. ... I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my co-workers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel."

Well, this lovely young girl will never have a chance to dance or have boyfriends. Her death, of course, went minimally noticed by a news media so adamantly determined to play the three monkeys (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil) when it comes to Israel. After all, merely telling the truth will get you labeled an anti-Semite.

What the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians is a crime against humanity, and our government is an accessory because the politicians in Washington are too damned gutless to criticize Israel. I read another e-mail a year or so ago from a young American girl working in Ramallah with a children's theater group. When she presented her American passport to an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint, he wiped his bottom with it and sneered, "This is what we think of your American passport."

I've begun to think, however, that there is no cure for stupidity and cowardice. Palestinian children will stand in front of a tank and bounce a stone off the turret, but Americans, living in the land of freedom, will say, "Well, I agree with you, but I'm afraid to say anything." Afraid of what? Being slandered? Getting death threats? Take it from me, they don't hurt one bit.

Freedom isn't worth a damn if you're afraid to use it.

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Rachel's last mail

Thursday March 20, 2003
The Guardian

On Tuesday we ran a series of emails from Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist killed by an Israeli army bulldozer. Here we publish her final exchange with her father

March 11, 2003

Rachel,

I find writing to you hard, but not thinking about you impossible. So I don't write, but I do bore my friends at lunch giving vent to my fear. I am afraid for you, and I think I have reason to be. But I'm also proud of you - very proud. But as Don Remfert says: I'd just as soon be proud of somebody else's daughter. That's how fathers are: we're hard wired not to want our children, no matter how old they are, no matter how brave they are, and no matter how much good they are doing, to be subject to so much threat or even witness to so much suffering. You may say (have said) that it is wrong for me to stick my head in the sand; but I say I am only trying to (or just wishing I could) stick your head in the sand - and that's different. Hard wired. Can't be changed on that aspect of the issue.

I love you, and please take care!

Dad
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March 12, 2003

Hi papa, thank you for your email. I feel like sometimes I spend all my time propagandising mom, and assuming she'll pass stuff on to you, so you get neglected. Don't worry about me too much, right now I am most concerned that we are not being effective. I still don't feel particularly at risk. Rafah has seemed calmer lately, maybe because the military is preoccupied with incursions in the north - still shooting and house demolitions - one death this week that I know of, but not any larger incursions. Still can't say how this will change if and when war with Iraq comes.

Thanks also for stepping up your anti-war work. I know it is not easy to do, and probably much more difficult where you are than where I am. I am really interested in talking to the journalist in Charlotte - let me know what I can do to speed the process along.

I am trying to figure out what I'm going to do when I leave here, and when I'm going to leave. Right now I think I could stay until June, financially. I really don't want to move back to Olympia, but do need to go back there to clean my stuff out of the garage and talk about my experiences here. On the other hand, now that I've crossed the ocean I'm feeling a strong desire to try to stay across the ocean for some time. Considering trying to get English teaching jobs - would like to really buckle down and learn Arabic. Also got an invitation to visit Sweden on my way back, which I think I could do very cheaply. I would like to leave Rafah with a viable plan to return, too.

One of the core members of our group has to leave tomorrow, and watching her say goodbye to people is making me realise how difficult it will be. People here can't leave, so that complicates things. They also are pretty matter-of-fact about the fact that they don't know if they will be alive when we come back here. I really don't want to live with a lot of guilt about this place - being able to come and go so easily - and not going back. I think it is valuable to make commitments to places so I would like to be able to plan on coming back here within a year or so. Of all of these possibilities I think it's most likely that I will at least go to Sweden for a few weeks on my way back - I can change tickets and get a plane from Paris to Sweden and back for a total of around 150 bucks or so. I know I should really try to link up with the family in France but I really think that I'm not going to do that. I think I would just be angry the whole time and not much fun to be around. It also seems like a transition into too much opulence right now - I would feel a lot of class guilt the whole time as well.

Let me know if you have any ideas about what I should do with the rest of my life. I love you very much. If you want you can write to me as if I was on vacation at a camp on the big island of Hawaii learning to weave. One thing I do to make things easier here is to utterly retreat into fantasies that I am in a Hollywood movie or a sitcom starring Michael J Fox. So feel free to make something up and I'll be happy to play along.

Much love Poppy.

Rachel