The Gardens of The Devil, Still Sowing Death
The first time I saw one, my first instinct was to pick it up. It shone in the sunlight, bright green, something new and fresh amid the dry grass of the south Lebanon hills. The little cluster bomblet seemed to have been made to hold in the hand. No wonder the little children died.
Israel rained more than a million bomblets into the orchards and fields of southern Lebanon in 2006 – after the ceasefire to the 34-day Israel-Hizbollah conflict had been announced. So far, post-war, they have killed more than 40 men, women and children. Some of the mine disposal men and women who turned up in Lebanon found that the cluster bombs had themselves been dropped on minefields left behind by the Israelis in 2000.
And these minefields, in somecases, had been laid over old Palestinian minefields. And some of these minefields – and here the 20th century’s most titanic war threatens us yet again – had been inadvertently placed over carpets of mines dug into Lebanon’s red earth by French Vichy forces in 1941, as they awaited British and Free French invasion from Palestine.
As usual, the Second World War turns out to be the foundation for so many of the Middle East’s present-day horrors. In Tripoli, they publish a “White Book” on Libya’s legacy from the 1939-45 war, the tens of thousands of mines buried in the sands around Tobruk and Benghazi by the Italians and Germans, the British and the Australians and New Zealanders and South Africans.
“The Italians lay mines,” says the caption beneath a photograph of Berti’s engineers placing landmines in the desert. “The British lay more mines. The Germans lay more and more mines. Then they leave but the mines are still there!”
Twenty years after the war – when at least 800 Libyan farmers and family members had already been blown up by mines – an Italian journalist was describing the continuing carnage during mine-clearance.
“These mines are so sensitive that a light footstep is enough to make them jump into the air like a grasshopper – all we found of the two men were a few rags of flesh and clothing.”
Egypt calls its own Second World War minefields “the Gardens of the Devil”, and they run from El Alamein to Mersa Matruh, east of the Libyan border. Add to these the vast minefields laid by Egyptian and Israeli forces in the eastern deserts in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 – the Israelis have maps of 5.5 million landmines they planted in Sinai and the surrounding area after 1967 – and you have a good idea how deadly, how poisonous the sands remain.
As the Egyptian Mail pointed out last month, we in the West remember the dead of Alamein every year. But who remembers the dead of Egypt? And just for the record, although the British and Italians and Germans have all forwarded their ancient minefield maps to the Egyptians – and although the Egyptian army cleared 2,976 mines between 1983 and 1999 – there remain about 17.6 million landmines beneath the Egyptian coastal strip, according to the country’s clearance organisation.
Since 1982 alone, 700 Egyptians have been killed by them and another 7,600 wounded. And while they die, our survivors grow older. When I wrote about the film Atonement a few weeks ago – with its graphic five minute tracking shot of the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation beaches, and the landmine destruction of Balham Tube station – I little realised how many memories it would awake.
A lady from Scotland wrote to tell me how as a child during the Blitz she “regularly slept down the Underground – I missed the landmine which dropped in the Balham High Street, the resultant flood drowned many people (including Cecilia in Atonement). I recall the Tube station being closed for a long time to clean (out) the bodies. I also remember seeing the tide mark high on the wall afterwards”.
More dramatic was a letter from 90-year-old former Second Lieutenant Hal Crookall, a Dunkirk veteran in the East Yorkshire Regiment. In my article, I noted how the first sight of the Dunkirk beaches in the film provoked my cry of “Fuck me!”– and how these were the first words to be uttered by a young corporal in the movie a few seconds later. So imagine my shock – and the smile that spread over myface – when I read the following words from Mr Crookall.
“Most of the men from my platoon were dockers from Hull. We had been left behind to fight rearguardactions, and had to make our own way towards the beach, which we did largely by following the noise made by the Navy’s guns and the shells screeching over our heads, and the noise of the Stuka bombers attacking the beaches. When we did finally find our way on to the beach and came over the sandhills to see the scene, most of my chaps said in broad Yorkshire: ‘Fooking ‘ell!’ which in some cases was abbreviated to ‘King-ell!’.”
In 1943, Second Lieutenant Crookall was wounded in – of all places – the Libyan desert. Not by a mine – he and his soldiers placed sandbags in the bottom of their Bren carrier to prevent the mine blasts hurting them – but by a German shell splinter which penetrated the vehicle’s 3/8 inch plating and smashed into Crookall’s arm. He was invalided out of his infantry division, posted around the Middle East and ended up in Damascus.
“My wound practically finished me off as a violinist,” he told me this week. “But I was in Damascus when Josephine Baker arrived to give a concert to the Free French and she asked me to accompany her. Then I played again.” After the war, Crookall returned many times to the Middle East, a guest of Ali Ayoubi, the son of a Syrian president, he says – I think he would have been the son of the Syrian prime minister. “My father had two bodyguards,” Crookall remembers Ali telling him. “(President)Assad has about 10,000!” In Libya and in Egypt, of course, the people of the desert have no bodyguards. The foundation of their lives remains the war that was fought before they were born andwhich is still killing and maiming them, just as it maimed Second Lieutenant Crookall 65 years ago. I suppose the moral can only be expressed in a cliché. In the Middle East, the Second World War has not ended.
Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for The Independent.
© 2008 The Independent
Even the First World War has not ended. That was the war in which Britain and France carved up the Arab Middle East out of the Ottoman Empire and into “mandates” (colonies) for themselves rather than letting the Arabs have independence immediately. And it was the war in which the Balfour Declaration announced Britain’s promise to create a “national homeland” for the Jewish people in Palestine. Ironically, the British slammed the door on Jewish immigration to Palestine in the late 1930s, just when they really, really needed to get out of Europe fast.
Capitalism can make a bomb that lasts for thirty years but can’t make a refrigerator that lasts five. The Masters of War continue to kill Clean-Cut Kids.
Hoa binh
Robert Fisk is in the same league as Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. When I see his name I read that article first. Thank you, Common Dreams, for featuring these giants of modern literature!
May God forgive America for the imperialist policies that will insure the destruction of a once powerful nation.
Who would Jesus use cluster bombs on?
Now try to imagine the reverse of this. Lebanon shoots a million cluster bomblets into Isreal. We would have never heard the end of it, the outrage would have benn deafening. As it is only us people who get their news through the internet even know about it. They would have said this is the act of a [terrorist state]. It is the act of a terrorist state, Isreal and the US.
Robert Fisk was one of the guys who were right about everything he said prior to and during this current imperial war of agression we have going. Does he have a forum an the national airwaves like all the people who were continuously wrong. Hell no, it gives a clue as to who is manipulating the publics news.
Yes, industrial strength death. How do you like it readers of commondreams?
A bomb with literally more bang for the buck, how can it go wrong?
The United States is becoming the country whose main export is death.
Isn’t it time to end each and every one of your support for this absurdity.
You so called progressives who would vote for ralph nader in the next election.
Are you not closet republicans?
Can you possibly not get it that a vote for ralph, with its two seconds of satisfaction
for your upholding your or so important values, isn’t this just a copout. The point of
this whole election isn’t about who gets elected. It’s about whether we, the people,
can come together. Simple as that. Can we get together to back someone like obama,
who at least got his start on the streets and not with a silver spoon in his mouth.
He’s not a certainty to back real democracy but at least he understands the concept.
Therefore, i throw my humble support behind this man and his promises.
I remind him that the majority of his support comes from people who are against war.
These folks DO NOT support mercenaries staying in iraq. And it doesn’t support these
same Blackwater mercenaries coming home so they can police “us.” When we renounce
violence, we renounce Blackwater and the rest of their Dark Horde, purveyors of industrial
strength death.
I voted for Ralph in two elections. I love his honesty and his support for disenfranchisement
of our “corporate brothers and sisters” in the political process. He’s right on. Corporations
are fictional entities and in no way can we the people be equal to them. They’ve got too much
money which equates with political clout. Obama is at least making noises that he understands
this which is obvious to most here. Do not vote for ralph this november. Your vote will be a vote
for John McCain or his feminine clone, Hillary. Let’s take a risk and vote for Obama, and with this
vote, agree to become part of the process, without which, democracy cannot happen.
America first, not Israel.
Suffer the children leaving no child behind.
Cluster bombs for children paid for by our congress.
And now, as I write, a new and improved Holocaust in Gaza paid for by our congress.
Life is much too short to ever vote for either corporate war party again.
There’s some VERY good comments above, -thankyou for those. Likewise, the article by R.F. is, -as usual, truly excellent.
What a shame we, - (and ace writers like Mr Fisk) have to spend our time highlighting / focussing on such issues…
There are many brilliant stars in the Progressive diadem, -those who far outshine the ‘dark-hole-stars’ elsewhere, -those beings who are committed to causing only death, seperation, hatred and chaos on this little blue planet.
Someone above raises a spiritual note (”who would Jesus cluster bomb?”) and I think it’s valid to bring that thought to this discussion.
Though personally not of any religion, I do feel that there is a spiritual side to this issue. Our supposed ‘Great Architect’ apparently gave this wee planet to humanity (and the other species) so we could live, and thrive, and act as caretakers to the magnificent creation.
- And maybe do a little of that fun ‘procreation’ stuff along the way!
But somehow along the path, some of our race got very, VERY garbled and twisted, en route to *now*.
~ They have somehow got so filled up with hatred for those of their own species, that they spend their benighted days focussed on ever-newer and more diabolical ways to hurt and slaughter those of their own race.
Though not of any religion, I am strongly convinced of two fundamentals:
1. Those who act like this are VERY far from any ‘god’, - they are in fact, in league with the denizens of Hades. They have chosen (extremely unwisely) to each become a latter-day Judas unto their fellows and their Maker. Gaining an inch of paltry sand at the expense of losing one’s soul is hardly a recommended moral or spiritual pursuit.
2. Those who act in this way have got some *very* nasty surprises in store, - like when they discover that they will have to spend countless lives repaying for every last drop of blood spilt, -every last tear they have occasioned, every last kid blinded, raped or maimed, and also atone to every wife / mother / brother / sister / father blown into little bloodied bits by their devilish folly.
A ‘difficult’ karmic load, and the hellish ‘pay-back time’ is not something to be sneezed at, –it’s all too real, as they will soon enough discover…
Countries which use such munitions should be forced to remove them after any conflict and pay compensation to all those injured or killed by them.
But, of course, that would only happen in a world that understood the meaning of the word: Justice!
www.dangeroucreation.com
The US-Israeli axis of evil.
We stride the earth, and death follows us wherever we go. You can follow our path by the trail of the broken and dead bodies we leave in our wake.
I mistakenly posted earlier on wrong thread - ooops
And the USS Cole has been deployed off the coast of Lebanon to deliver more of the same to Hezbollah ares and the Gaza strip if they don’t ‘knuckle” under.
I wonder what RF says about our gunboat diplomacy.
Let’s not overlook the significance of the USS Cole being involved.
Randolfski,
I can’t vote for the scum-bags that the Dem. put up It’s Ralph or Cynthia, And you know what? John McCain was the only one of the three to tell the truth about Iraq, we will be there a hundred years, Clinton or Obama won’t be bring the troops home ant time soon, The last president who went against the war machine had his brains blown out on national television.
“The first time I saw one, my first instinct was to pick it up. It shone in the sunlight, bright green, something new and fresh amid the dry grass of the south Lebanon hills. The little cluster bomblet seemed to have been made to hold in the hand. No wonder the little children died.”
Robert Fisk’s extensive knowlwedge of both the history and languages of the Middle East ought to be mandatory requirements for all correspondents reporting from there. Fisk has lived in Beirut for years and knows both the issues as well as the people throughout the Middle East. His informed eloquence is a treasure to read.
randolfski,
When your beloved Obama becomes president you are either going to be:
1. Profoundly disappointed when he continues the murderous imperial program without even missing a step; or,
2. Going along with your hero - as did so many liberals when Slick Willy Clinton Bombed and starved Iraq and Serbia, While he screwed the working man at home.
President O’Bama, 2009: “Let’s be honest here. For everyone on the left who supported my campaign, I want to give back, I really do. I want to ban land mines and cluster bombs, and a whole lot more.
But the reality is that political coalitions are delicate things and we will have to compromise with the business and military communities, compromise being the name of the game, so we have to forget about the mine ban, we have to forget about ending the occupations, we have to forget about single payer healthcare, we have to forget about habeas corpus, we have to forget about our privacy rights, we have to forget about campaign finance reform, and everything else.
The best we can do is keep America strong, spread hope to every corner of America, let our values speak to the world, pay to play, pray and stay true to ourselves. God Bless America!!!”
I just want to mention as a previous poster to this article did what an excellent writer Robert Fisk is. You learn so much history reading his journalism, there is so much breadth and depth. For sure: Fisk is the first article I’ll read among a typical day’s offerings on Common Dreams. Glad they have him here!
No one has yet captured the breath of the horror that the United States exports in the name of political, economic, and christian dominion. The self delusion and thin veneer of moral superiority trumps the dominant reality of moral depravity that lies below the surface. We are the Trojan Horse of Death, the Great Satan, the enabler of evil. We have willingly become the darkness. The soul of this nation born of genocide remains unredeemed.
We are in the process of answering the question, “Can intelligent life develop on a petri dish the size of the Earth?”
At present, I would not give good odds, there is, in any case, little sign of it up to now.
“All the bombs are in the hands of terrorists!!!”
since1492 March 1st, 2008 12:40 pm
“Capitalism can make a bomb that lasts for thirty years but can’t make a refrigerator that lasts five.”
The bastards used to do that. I still own a 1975 GE 18.8 cu. in. side-by-side that don’t look real pretty but hums along very nicely. It is not one of those eco-nice low-energy 5 yr throwaways but how many refrigs have you bought in 33 years? And yes, GE is also an arms merchant, a seller of war but in ‘75 they made a durable refrig. Now every is planned obsolescence. They are not built to recycle but they are built to fall apart. Except for Bombs. Of course, when they apply the same values they use in the commercial market, everything they make will be contructed not to work. That way they get to make more.
Peace.
Robert Fisk is without doubt the most knowledgeable and best writer working in the Middle East. I’m well into his “THE GREAT WAR FOR CIVILIZATION” a must read if you really want to understand what is happening and how it got that way.
As for the US’s military-industrial complex, by far the largest purveyor of death and destruction known to humans, it rules the roost in our country and has every since WW II. Obama won’t stop that but he may slow it down long enough for the rest of us to figure out what to do next.
In, I believe it was the CA debate, he said, and I paraphrase, it is time for the USA to change its foreign policy and focus on diplomacy first not the use of the military. That remark struck home because that is exactly what is needed, brilliant diplomacy for peace.
I am reminded of a futurist, who’s name is lost in mists of time, who once told me that we sent the wrong secretaries and associates to Vietnam. Instead of sending the Secretary of Defense and Military Chiefs we should have sent the Secretary of Commerce and the CEO of Sears (Wal-Mart today). The end result bears witness to how right he was back in 1977.
That same statement is true today about the Middle East if we could only think as real friends instead of greedy capitalists. Ah, but then I have always been a dreamer.
I too am wading my way through “The Great War For Civilization” and agree that it is well worth the read and time. (1000 plus pages for those who have not seen it and every bit of it worth reading).
As I remember Fisk saying at a speech in Oakland, “What the Middle East is about is mostly injustice”. That injustice is both there own and our doing and has been going on for centuries–no actually for millenia. It is the ultimate tar baby into which we have stuck ourselves.
Capitalism can make a bomb that lasts for thirty years but can’t make a refrigerator that lasts five. The Masters of War continue to kill Clean-Cut Kids.
Hoa binh, THAT is a classic!
Gotta keep feeding the hungry, consciousless, immoral machine. Shoulda listened and heeded Ike in ‘61 Farewell.
Robert Fisk is , as always, a gem of a journalist as reflected in this piece. We need more journalists with a conscience.
I didn’t know there were landmines still left over from WWI and WWII. Most people only know about Angola, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
Seventeen and a half MILLION still remain in Egypt? That’s astounding… a fact that will help convince people that these weapons truly are despicable.
The U.S. government’s argument is that these are “defensive” weapons, and we must keep them in the arsenal to protect South Korea from North Korea.
What rubbish. The cluster bomb is in no way a defensive weapon, and Korea will never be reunited while the land mines remain in the ground.
For those of us who are interested in voting based on FACTS rather than emotionalism, I must repeat the plea: Go to the voting records and ACTIONS of the candidates!!!
For an excellent history of mid east conflict, see Robert Fisk’s 3 part series “Beirut to Bosnia: Muslims and the West”. The Discovery Channel made and promptly buried this series, but you can see it on google video.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2545407262514496562
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5904743936230037024
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8253829488847929990
From Friends Committee on National Legislation:
Quote of the Week: U.S. Government Needs Cluster Bombs
“The United States shares in the humanitarian concerns that have been raised about cluster munitions but is opposed to any ban on them because of their demonstrated military utility… The U.S. is concerned that any criminalization of cluster munitions would harm NATO and coalition joint operations and interoperability, and could adversely affect humanitarian missions by militaries.”
~ U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Janine Burns

A sample of why we need to struggle for P E A C E !!!