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Issue: February, 1991

. . .I can't imagine going twelve thousand miles to kill and be killed without knowing why. . . . . .Hope you come home in one piece. Hope you leave everyone you meet in one piece. It seemed like the least I could do is tell you why I couldn't support you.

Editors: This address - P. O. Box 1990, etc. - is for real, and you might want to encourage readers to use it. Michael - 12/90.

December, 1990

To:
Any Northern California Serviceperson
P.O. Box 1990
Newark, NJ 07150

Hello!

It's cold at the moment in Northern California—results of an arctic cold front that has the Grapevine at Interstate 5 closed in Southern California. Several Bay Area homeless people died last night and more will die tonight. I've always disliked cold more than heat. My worst memories of the military are of the four winter months I spent in Adak, Alaska. Somehow the cold nights of the desert seem less bearable than the hot days—assuming you are in the desert. How is it for you?

Christmas for us—my wife Marianne and I—means traveling to see the relatives—Mom on Christmas Eve and then the kids in Spokane, Washington where it's really cold! Marianne likes to do the tree and stuff, but with all the kids long grown and gone there's really no one else around to enjoy it.

Marianne works for a coalition of Alameda County homeless and hunger advocates and providers. I have my own one-person countertop and plastic laminate (Formica) business. We both spend much of our free time supporting underdogs, helping victims help themselves. Marianne began a crisis line for victims of rape and domestic violence years ago in Mendocino County; I have been actively supportive of various and sundry liberation struggles over the years. For the past several years we have been actively supporting Palestinian liberation, in part because it is the one struggle most people seem most willing to ignore. Our latest project is the posting of billboards in Bay Area BART (public transit) stations discussing the billions of dollars of aid we—U.S. taxpayers—have sent Israel over the past 23 and asking "Isn't it time we stopped?" BART started to post the ads (they were paid for) but then covered them over after getting heat from congresspeople, mayors and the like. Now the ACLU has agreed to take the case.

Both of us are somewhat aware of the privileges of our white skin and middle class accidents of birth. Perhaps the most bizarre accident of birth is my own of a Jewish mother, "entitling" me to both U.S. and Israeli citizenship, Palestinian land, a split-level ranch-style home and a comfortable job, all fully paid for by U.S. taxpayers!

Another thing that has always amazed me is what a captured foreign invader could say to a person invaded. Like how would I have explained my invasion of Viet Nam, or wherever, umpteen thousand miles from my home? What explanation would satisfy you if you were to capture such an invader in your backyard? Have you thought about that? I'm sure you have. I can't imagine going twelve thousand miles to kill and be killed without knowing why.

Our Palestinian support work has exposed us to Arabs, Arab and Islamic culture and, of course, the Middle East, although we've never travelled there. That area has such a rich history, although I suspect it tends to escape you in the sand. In any case, let us share a couple of facts with you about the region.

Kuwait did not exist until the British literally stole it in 1963 or '65, installed the present ruling family and made it a separate state. For thousands of years it has been a province of Iraq. Like most of the neighboring emirates (created in essentially the same manner), Kuwait is oil rich and population poor. That is lots of oil and few people, because, in fact, Kuwaitis are all very rich, indeed. I doubt that any Kuwaiti citizen is less than a millionaire. The Emir alone is worth $150 BILLION! Do you remember the green and yellow "BP" gas stations going up over the past several months in place of Mobil stations? The Emir owns BP (British Petroleum), all of it.

Of course millionaires don't do their own work, let alone their own fighting. Evidence the hundreds of thousands of oilworkers, maids and other foreign workers who streamed out of Kuwait following the Iraqi invasion. Guest workers in Kuwait outnumbered Kuwaiti citizens by a substantial margin. Egyptians numbered more than one million of the workers, and most of them, I believe, have stayed. Interestingly, more Egyptians are found in the Iraqi armed forces than you'll find allied with Desert Shield.

Just today (December 23rd already; the Niners just lost to the Saints), the Emir ordered Kuwaiti students in the U.S. back to Saudi Arabia. I doubt that they're going to do any of their own fighting. Their continued extravagant presence in the U.S. was probably a source of embarrassment.

Eqbal Ahmed is a Pakistani peace activist and professor at an American university in the East. He walked with Mahatma Gandhi in the 1940s and spoke on the U.C. Berkeley campus a couple of weeks ago, pointing out some things about the Gulf situation that hadn't occured to me. Oil, he said, is denominated in dollars, even though dollars have steadily declined in value for twenty-five years now, especially in relation to the yen, the franc, the mark and even the pound. So why would anyone want to take dollars for something when they could take the yen, the franc, the mark, etc.? They don't. The Gulf sheiks, kings and emirs don't want to take dollars for that oil; they have to take dollars or find themselves on the streets. You see, they all, every one of them, owe their positions to the power of the U.S., Britain, etc., because you are there to keep them in power! And the price of that power, of course, is doing what the U.S. says.

What price are we willing to pay to keep the Emir in power? Obviously, your life and the lives of all your follow servicepeople and the lives of countless Iraqis and whoever else happens to get innocently in the way. But all of you are cannonfodder. What about the cost that counts, the real cost—money?

In November Congress forgave Egypt something in excess of $7 billion in debt. That was the only way to get Egypt to sign on. Syria's Hafez Assad has been a long standing foe of Saddam Hussein, but even he had a price-control of Beiruit and Northern Lebanon. Turkey and Jordan are getting billions to compensate them for the loss of customary Iraqi trading revenue. And the Soviet Union and China got billions (largely via Saudi Arabia and Japan) for not vetoing the U.S. "use of force" measure in the United Nations. In short, Bush gave away the store, the barn, the cow and the back forty—the whole shebang—for the appearance of international support. But for all of that, the only troops who will go in with you when that order is given are the British.

Domestic support for a Gulf conflict is evenly divided—and that's before the first body bag comes home. A few servicepeople locally have refused orders to go. Bush knows he cannot drag on a war beyond two or three weeks, and Saddam knows he need only hang on for three or four weeks of war before you have to pull out. Now none of you guys have seen any serious combat since 1974 or so, whereas all of the Iraqis you're up against have been through eight recent years of it. It's not that you can't do what your CINC wants, but between the odds and Murphy's Law . . .

Alternatives? Saddam has repeated his willingness to withdraw while retaining some face-saving token piece of Kuwait, provided he could get sufficient guarantees that he would not be attacked anyway. Bush has refused such a compromise because, I believe, he has every intention of attacking Saddam, irrespective of the Kuwaiti business. Bush and especially Israel have every intention of using this opportunity to get rid of Saddam. (A relative of a friend who captains a C-5 told me that one of the very first units he flew over there was Graves Registration.) Congress would be more outspoken in its opposition, I believe, if it were not for the Israeli lobby of which it is deathly afraid.

Enough politics! What's your big hassle at the moment? Sand? Fleas? Sex? Booze? Sanitation? Clean clothes? Camels? Are you seeing any camels? What do you talk about? Any of the things in this letter? I mean what is there to do out there?

Good luck to you. Hope this letter has been of some help. Hope you come home in one piece. Hope you leave everyone you meet in one piece. It seemed like the least I could do is tell you why I couldn't support you. Hope to hear from you.

Best regards,

Michael Poulin
Oakland, CA

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