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From: gcf@mydog.UUCP (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: misc.headlines,trial.talk.politics.peace,talk.politics.mideast,alt.desert-storm,alt.conspiracy
Subject: Missing in Action
Message-ID: <9103132214.879@mydog.UUCP>
Date: 14 Mar 91 03:14:23 GMT
Lines: 32

How many Iraqis were killed in the recent Gulf War?  Fifty
thousand, a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand?  Nobody
knows for sure.  One of the reasons is that the United States
has chosen to violate the Geneva Convention in regard to the
Iraqi dead.  According to the Geneva Convention, the party in
control of a given territory after combat is responsible for
making its best effort to find, count, and identify the
casualties of its adversary, including the dead.  The U.S.
command has made it clear that it has no intention of doing so.
Many of the Iraqi dead were simply bulldozed into mass graves
without any attempt to count them, much less identify them, and
with no reports made or asked for.

The American policy is especially ironic when you consider all
the noise that's been made about American MIAs in Vietnam.  The
MIA issue is still the pretext for American refusal to
normalize relations with Vietnam.  One would think people who
were so sensitive about this issue would respect the same
feelings in others, even if they had been the enemy.  One would
think that the fact that these soldiers gave their lives for 
their country could be respected, even if their country was 
wrong.

But it seems these things don't count when you have overwhelming
moral superiority.

Anyway, it's something to think about next time you see one of 
those ugly black MIA flags which have proliferated in the last 
year or two.  Now you know what they mean.  

--
Gordon Fitch  |  gcf@mydog.uucp  | uunet!cmcl2.nyu.edu!panix!mydog!gcf