Twenty-five years ago: Remembering the night “Operation Desert Storm” was launched on Iraq

Global Research, January 17, 2016

‘Operation Desert Storm’, the massive air and missile aggression on Iraq was launched on January 17, 1991 at 2:30 a.m. local time.

That night as we were watching the TV, the programme was suddenly interrupted and we saw pictures of the Baghdad sky illuminated with what seemed to be anti-aircraft fire;  we realized with horror that the war on Iraq had started. We stayed up all night, terrified, watching with dismay how beautiful Baghdad, the city of One Thousand and One Nights, was being massively bombarded.

Our thoughts and prayers were for our relatives and friends and for all Iraqis who could not escape from this hell. How many would die under the bombs and missiles which were falling ‘at random’ on residential areas all over Baghdad and other Iraqi cities?

I still shudder when remembering that awful night and all the other terrible nights of the ‘First Gulf War’, there was no possibility to communicate with our loved ones in Iraq, the U.S.’s first targets had been the telecommunication centres and electrical grid on which they had dropped Tungsten bombs. Iraqis were completely isolated, alone, desperately alone…in the dark…in the chaos, amidst the destruction caused by these brutal attacks from the air.

We watched in dismay how the beautiful country that many generations of Iraqis had worked so hard to build and develop was being destroyed. We watched with horror how the American and British ‘boys’ cheered whenever their bombs hit some ‘target’, killing Iraqis. No doubt that George Bush was enjoying it too, ‘bringing Iraq back to pre-industrial era’.

USAF F-117 : vampire in the Iraqi sky

USAF F-117 : vampire in the Iraqi sky

Many Americans thought it was right to attack Iraq, they had no qualms that the country’s civil infrastructure was being purposely destroyed and that many thousands of Iraqis were dying. They believed the coalition troops were attacking Iraq to ‘liberate’ Kuwait* and to prevent an Iraqi attack on the zionist entity.

Some westerners who had never met an Iraqi and who could not even locate Iraq on the map, were filled with hatred towards the Iraqi people, because they had been told ‘how Iraqi soldiers were taking premature babies out of incubators in Kuwait’ !!! (1) and some other terrible stories fabricated by the western media,. Others were so gullible that they really believed there was such a thing as the ‘Iraqi Super canon’!!!

The western media were the accomplices of the warmongers, continuously diffusing their lies and propaganda. According to Fair,the US media allowed less than 1% of their space to those who were opposed the war. Day after day they repeated George Bush’s mantra: ‘about establishing a New World Order’ and many people in the west believed that the destruction of Iraq was worthwhile to establish this so-called ‘New World Order’.

Seventeen years have passed, but the pain and outrage I felt that night have not diminished, neither has my resentment towards all those who participated in this criminal aggression on Iraq.

George Bush, Dan Quayle, James Baker, Dick Cheney, William Webster, Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf and many others who share responsibility in attacking and destroying Iraq still remain to be judged for crimes against peace, for war crimes, for crimes against humanity and for other criminal acts committed in violation of the Charter of the United Nations, in violation of the international law, in violation of the Conventions of Geneva and The Hague, in violation of the Charter of Nürenberg and in violation of the laws regulating armed conflicts. By waging this illegal war on Iraq George Bush also violated the Constitution of the United States.

Bush’s imperialist ‘New World Order’ was based on the capitulation and submission of the people in the Middle East, principally on the surrender of oil-rich Iraq.

On this sad seventeenth anniversary of the launching of the criminal aggression on Iraq my thoughts are with all Iraqi patriots who are fighting to free their country from the foreign occupiers.

On this day, one of the beautiful Irish patriotic song comes into my mind (I have substituted the name Ireland with Iraq)

Come the day and come the hour

Come the power and the glory

We have come to answer

Our Country’s call

From all the provinces of Iraq

Iraq, Iraq,

Together standing tall

Shoulder to shoulder

We’ll answer Iraq’s call

Hearts of steel

And heads unbowing

Vowing never to be broken

We will fight, until

We can fight no more

From all the provinces of Iraq

(1) It was the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador in the US who made these false accusations in front of the cameras, pretending to be a Kuwaiti nurse who had witnessed these barbaric acts!!!

*Kuwait: an invention of the British Foreign Office ‘around an oil well ‘ to deny Iraq access to the sea and so limit its influence in the Gulf and maintain it under British dependence.


Defying the Sanctions: A Flight to Iraq
January 2001
[written 8 months before 9-11]



Killing Iraq







Picking Up the Pieces




The Silent Cries of Children





The Foreign Minister Speaks




The “Realities”







The war on Yugoslavia and the U.S. regime change model — the real face of American “diplomacy”

“The lethality of American ‘diplomacy’ and the uncountable costs that can be incurred from resisting Washington’s will.”

From Sputnik, March 25, 2014
By Andrew Korybko

The 16th anniversary of NATO’s War on Yugoslavia gives cause to reflect on what American ‘diplomacy’ is really all about.


This tragedy exposed the true face of American ‘diplomacy’ as a duplicitous front for pursuing predetermined geopolitical ends. The war wasn’t so much about a ‘humanitarian intervention’ (the reality surrounding which was grossly exaggerated by the Western media) as it was the establishment of a pro-Western proxy state in the heart of the Southern Balkans.

The War on Yugoslavia also marked a turning point where the US began ramping up its aggression all across Eurasia and perfecting the first actual version of Hybrid Warfare.

Uncle Sam’s Sins

The US did a lot of horrible things during its War on Yugoslavia, but here’s three of the most audacious:

Supporting Terrorism:

The so-called ‘Kosovo Liberation Army’ (KLA), the armed wing of Albanian nationalists fighting in the Serbian province of Kosovo, was deemed a terrorist organization by the Yugoslav authorities. UNSC Resolution 1160, which was supported by the US, even condemned the group for its terrorist activity and urged it to immediately halt such actions. Be that as it may, the KLA served an decisive role in destabilizing Serbia, and was thus not only supported by the US throughout the conflict, but its leader Hashim Thaci was even recognized by Washington as the province’s ‘Prime Minister’ afterwards.

Lying to the World:

The US tried to convince the world that the Albanians in Kosovo were experiencing genocide at the hands of the Serbs, but this was nowhere near the reality on the ground. Although some Albanians were certainly killed during their violent uprising against the federal government, Serbs were too, and neither demographic experienced the ‘tens of thousands’ of deaths that the State Department evoked as the US’ excuse for bombing Yugoslavia.

Tens of thousands of more people have died during Mexico’s drug war in recent years, for example, but America’s southern neighbor has yet to experience a ‘humanitarian intervention’.

Bombing Civilian Infrastructure:

The US-led NATO bombing campaign killed hundreds of civilians and destroyed apartment buildings, farms, schools, hospitals, churches, and bridges. The Pentagon’s explanation for such horrors (when it chose to address them) was that its ‘precision-targeted munitions’ malfunctioned, but the surviving victims refused to believe this.

BONUS: Bombing China And Getting Away With It:

The US hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade (officially recognized as the sovereign territory of the country, as is any state’s embassy abroad) on 7 May, 1999, killing 3 people and injuring about 20 others. One need only imagine the militant response from the Pentagon if the shoe was on the other foot.

The Foreign Policy Toolkit

The War on Yugoslavia represented the first testing ground for the application of the US’ integrated regime change strategy, however sloppily applied. It combined the following characteristics that would later be developed and perfected in forthcoming conflicts:

Unconventional War:

In order to stir up chaos and create a pretext for an ultimatum and eventual military intervention, the US supported the KLA during its terrorist war in the Serbian Province of Kosovo.


The US gave President Milosevic the ultimatum to pull all Yugoslavian police and army forces out of Kosovo Province or face the pulverizing consequences.

Conventional Intervention:

The destabilization came to a dramatic climax when NATO launched its ‘humanitarian intervention’ against Yugoslavia, which ultimately led to its fragmentation and destruction.

Color Revolution:

American intelligence services and Gene Sharp’s teachings organized and directed the Bulldozer Revolution of October 2000, which has since been acknowledged as the first Color Revolution.

Nowadays, the methods above have been perfected and patterned in the following order:

1. Ultimatum:

The US gives an explicit/public or implicit/behind-the-scenes ultimatum to a targeted country or leader. If they refuse and a ‘palace coup’ can’t be pulled off, then the next step is initiated.

2. Color Revolution:

This ‘street coup’ attempt seeks to oust the targeted country’s leadership through the carefully constructed façade of ‘people’s power’, whereby the international media is fed the misleading impression that the majority of a country’s citizens are revolting against their government. Other than the ultimatum or conventional coup, it’s the most cost-effective tool for regime change.

3. Unconventional War:

The third step can be evoked in the midst of the second one before turning into its own full-fledged destabilization when the Color Revolution fails. It capitalizes off of some of the social infrastructure built during the street coup attempt, and then arms the participants and encourages them to commit to terrorism and insurgency in overthrowing their government. Foreign mercenaries can also be involved.

4. Conventional Intervention:

While the previous two steps typically involve a deep level of covert commitment, the final step purposely brings the external destabilizer’s actions into the open by initiating an open war. This is the most expensive form of regime change, but is always clothed in grand ‘humanitarian’ or ‘democratic’ rhetoric to hide its true intent.

Where Are They Now?

Let’s take a look at the most notable example of each stage of the US’ regime change template and see how these countries have since coped with the Hybrid War waged against them:

Steps 1-2: Ukraine

The implicit ultimatum against President Yanukovych was that he had to sign the EU Association Agreement, and when he delayed doing so at the last minute, a Color Revolution was unleashed against him. In some ways, the urban terrorism of EuroMaidan even fulfills the requirements for Step 3.

Nowadays, the country lies in ruin and bankruptcy, and the oligarchs (Poroshenko and Kolomoiskyi) are poised to fight a fratricidal war amongst themselves at the expense of more Ukrainian lives.

Steps 1-3: Syria

President Assad refused to allow a gas pipeline from pro-American Qatar to transit Syrian territory en route to the Mediterranean, preferring instead to opt for the Friendship Pipeline with Iraq and Iran. As a punishment, Syria was thus dragged into the theater-wide ‘Arab Spring’ Color Revolutions spearheaded by the US, but when the people resolutely stood by their democratically elected leadership and secular authorities and refused to allow the street coup to succeed, an Unconventional War was unleashed on the country.

As it stands, the most notorious terrorists from every corner of the world have infested the country, slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people and turning entire cities to rubble in their four-year-long rampage.

Steps 1-4: Libya

Muammar Gaddafi refused to fully integrate his country into the EU-led ‘Union For the Mediterranean’, instead choosing to remain an observer member. Despite having surrendered Libya’s weapons of mass destruction during an earlier ultimatum in 2007, Gaddafi’s reluctance to move forward with Euro-Mediterranean integration made him a marked man.

The US-organized ‘Arab Spring’ Color Revolutions subsequently targeted him in 2011, and events in the country quickly spiraled into Unconventional Warfare as terrorists surged into the main cities and started killing civilians and government representatives.

NATO decided to commence a bombing campaign against the country shortly thereafter under a false ‘humanitarian intervention’ pretext, which consequently destroyed the state’s social and physical infrastructure and turned it into the fearsome terrorist battleground that it is today.

Remember, these above-cited tragedies would not have been possible had it not been for the US’ War on Yugoslavia and the ‘perfection’ of the regime change techniques that were first applied there. It is for this reason that the memory of 24 March should serve as a somber reminder each year of the lethality of American ‘diplomacy’ and the uncountable costs that can be incurred from resisting Washington’s will.