An important Iraq Anniversary occurred this past week. Many in our community have loved ones who have served our country and the Iraqi people proudly and with honor over the past five years. Many to the point of giving the ultimate sacrifice for country, a friend or Iraqi. Yet, this is not the anniversary I am speaking of.
An Anniversary in January went largely unmentioned, yet the veterans of Desert Storm and the family of those lost were sure to have taken note of its passing. And to have remembered with pride that their efforts freed a people ruthlessly attacked and conquered by a vicious enemy intent on taking their country and their natural wealth as his own.
Yet, this is not the anniversary I am speaking of.
As with all memorable occasions, there are names to remember: Omar Osman and his son, Nadriyeh Mohammed Fattah, there is Osman Mustafa’s Soiba and his niece Rahnasas well as Najiba Mustafa’s father, there is Soiba Muhammed whose two daughters, three sons and husband were killed, there is Mu'min Hama-Arif, who had 24 members of his family killed in the attack, there is Haseeba Muhamed, who had 12 members of her family slaughtered. These are but a few of the over 5,000 people who died.
There are dates that are memorable that commemorate these people, that specify their last days, their last moments, their last breaths. In this case, the date is March 16th. The event was short lived, its initiation taking only as long as it takes for aircraft to fly over a small village. And only the short time it takes for a person to die – starved of air – moments really to seal its memory in history.
These occasions need a place to contain the event, to display to the world the vileness of such things and to harbor for all time the memory of man’s ability to inflict cruel deaths on innocents. In this case, such a place would be named Halabja in a country rich in violence, Iraq.
Tools are needed as well. Tools to inflict death and carnage on a mass scale, to destroy on a mass scale – weapons of mass destruction, one might call them. Such was the case on March 16th.
These tools, these weapons have names: Mustard Gas, Sarin, VX, Tabun, Hydrogen Cyanide. All crafted to kill humans, each in their own unique way.
Mustard Gas is a blister agent. At a point of direct contact with a victim’s skin deep, itching and burning blisters occur. Contact with a persons eyes results in blindness. If breathed, blisters in the victim’s lungs result in the person drowning in their own blood as their lung’s blisters rupture and bleed out.
Sarin is a nerve agent. Sarin disrupts a victim’s nervous system. With the total collapse of the nervous system, victims die within moments typically amid an onslaught of vomiting, urination and defecation. Tabun is another nerve agent but a bit slower acting taking one to two hours to complete the death of the victim, but completing it none the less.
The nerve agent VX begins with a tightness in the victim’s chest. Vomiting follows and suffocation within moments since the victim’s ability to breathe is eliminated.
Hydrogen Cyanide is a blood agent. It is one of the tools used by Hitler during the holocaust to rid Germany of Jews. It works by stopping a cell from exchanging carbon dioxide with oxygen resulting in a victim’s body being suffocated one cell at a time.
Such an event, such a vile attack on humanity, with such horrendous tools and weapons needs someone to permit it, someone to demand it, some one to sanction it, someone to set the time and date. In this case, his name was Saddam Hussein.
And finally, such a horrendous act, to have a complete Anniversary, must have a complete date, an exact point in history to be remembered. In this case such the date is March 16, 1988.
As we pass five years in combat, fighting to save and protect the innocent, let us remember Omar, Nadriyeh, Haseeba and the over 5,000 innocents that died at the hands of a mad man who had, and easily used, weapons of mass destruction to conduct his slaughter. Our military has been doing good and honorable work in Iraq. They are making good progress. They are protecting the innocents. Let us all honor their service and remember that we are blessed to have citizens who have heard the call and answered with their lives and sacred honor.
And, let us remember to say a prayer for the victims of Halabja who died 20 years ago. Let us not forget them.
Putting faces to the holocaust.
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