Uncritically praising and fondly remembering a famous person when they die, as is being done now in all the mainstream media after the death of former president George H.W. Bush and was done recently when Senator John McCain died, is an insidious form of national propaganda. I’m sure it’s done in the name of “respect for the dead,” but isn’t respecting the nameless folks whose deaths were caused by these powerful men more important? It is to me, though I realize that as an anti-war far-leftist, I probably represent a small minority. Still, I think we all could stand to be more thoughtful about our history.

Bush was undoubtedly a “good person” as an individual, but in public life he was a privileged millionaire Republican, who represented the interests of other members of the corporate elite and continued and initiated destructive US foreign policies, which try to control the world for that elite’s benefit. During his year as CIA director under President Ford (1976-77), for example, he actively supported the murderous and repressive Operation Condor operations of right-wing military dictatorships in Latin America.

Operation Condor, as noted in Wikipedia, was “a US–backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and the assassination of opponents, officially implemented in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America. The program, nominally intended to eradicate communist or Soviet influence and ideas, was created to suppress active or potential opposition movements against the participating governments’ neoliberal economic policies, which sought to reverse the economic policies of the previous era. Officially, the targets were armed revolutionary groups, but the governments broadened their attacks against all kinds of political opponents and their families. The Argentine ‘Dirty War,’ part of this phenomenon, resulted in approximately 30,000 being kidnapped, tortured, and killed. All in all, the dictatorships and their intelligence services were responsible for tens of thousands of killed and missing people in the period between 1975 and 1985. Victims included dissidents and leftists, union and peasant leaders, priests and nuns, students and teachers, and intellectuals.”

Bush, Sr. didn’t initiate US cooperation with and aid to Operation Condor – that was the arch-war-criminal Henry Kissinger – but he continued it with no apparent qualms. Wikipedia says “the United States provided key organizational, financial and technical assistance to the operation into the 1980s, sponsoring and collaborating with intelligence organizations in Condor countries. Evidence shows that it was aware of the relevant coups and planning of human rights violations before they occurred and did not step in to prevent them.”

As president, Bush was responsible for the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the Gulf War (August 2, 1990 – February 28, 1991). Both of these military actions, in the American backyard of Central America and the oil-rich Middle East – key areas of US control – were initiated to remove former US puppets becoming too independent/no longer serving their purpose: Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein. Noriega ended up in prison and the US was able to install a new puppet in Panama, but Saddam Hussein wasn’t ousted until Bush’s son, George W., launched a new and much more costly military action, the 2003-2011 Iraq War.

What was the cost of the Panama invasion? Wikipediasays that “the US reported 23 servicemen killed and 324 wounded, with Panamanian casualties estimated around 450. Described as a surgical maneuver, the action led to estimates of civilian death from 200 to 4,000 during the two weeks of armed activities. The United Nations put the Panamanian civilian death toll at 500, the United States gave a figure of 202 civilians killed, and former US attorney general Ramsey Clark estimated 4,000 deaths. The number of US civilians (and their dependents) working for the Panama Canal Commission and the US military, who were killed by Panamanian Defense Forces, has never been fully disclosed.

On December 29^th, the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution calling the intervention in Panama a ‘flagrant violation of international law and of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of’ Panama. A similar resolution in the Security Council was vetoed by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.

The urban population, many living below the poverty level, was greatly affected by the 1989 intervention. As pointed out in 1995 by a UN Technical Assistance Mission to Panama, the bombardments during the invasion displaced 20,000 people. The economic damage caused by the intervention has been estimated between 1.5 and 2 billion dollars.”

How about the Gulf War (Desert Shield and Desert Storm)? According to Wikipedia, “the increased importance of air attacks from both coalition warplanes and cruise missiles led to controversy over the number of civilian deaths caused during Desert Storm’s initial stages. Within Desert Storm’s first 24 hours, more than 1,000 sorties were flown, many against targets in Baghdad. The city was the target of heavy bombing, as it was the seat of power for Saddam and the Iraqi forces’ command and control. This ultimately led to civilian casualties. In one noted incident, two USAF stealth planes bombed a bunker in Amiriyah, causing the deaths of 408 Iraqi civilians who were in the shelter.

The Iraqi government claimed that 2,300 civilians died during the air campaign. According to a Project on Defense Alternatives study, 3,664 Iraqi civilians were killed in the conflict. A Harvard University study predicted tens of thousands of additional Iraqi civilians deaths by the end of 1991 due to the ‘public health catastrophe’ caused by the destruction of the country’s electrical generating capacity. ‘Without electricity, hospitals cannot function, perishable medicines spoil, water cannot be purified, and raw sewage cannot be processed,” the report said. The US government refused to release its own study of the effects of the Iraqi public health crisis.

An investigation by Beth Osborne Daponte estimated total civilian fatalities at about 3,500 from bombing, and some 100,000 from the war’s other effects. Daponte later raised her estimate of the number of Iraqi deaths caused directly and indirectly by the Gulf War to just over 200,000.

A United Nations report in March 1991 described the effect on Iraq of the US-led bombing campaign as ‘near apocalyptic,’ bringing Iraq back to the ‘pre-industrial age.’

The exact number of Iraqi combat casualties is unknown, but is believed to have been heavy. Some estimate that Iraq sustained between 20,000 and 35,000 fatalities. A report commissioned by the US Air Force estimated 10,000–12,000 Iraqi combat deaths in the air campaign, and as many as 10,000 casualties in the ground war.

The US Department of Defense reports that US forces suffered 148 battle-related deaths (35 from friendly fire). A further 145 Americans died in non-combat accidents. The UK suffered 47 deaths (nine from friendly fire, all by US forces), France nine, and the other countries, not including Kuwait, suffered 37 deaths (18 Saudis, one Egyptian, six UAE, and three Qataris).

Many returning coalition soldiers reported illnesses following their action in the war, a phenomenon known as Gulf War syndrome. Common symptoms were reported chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and gastrointestinal disorder. Infants born to male veterans also had higher rates of heart valve and kidney defects. Many have cited the use of depleted uranium in armaments as a contributing factor to a number of major health issues in veterans and surrounding civilian populations, including birth defects and child cancer. In 2004, Iraq had the highest mortality rate due to leukemia of any country.”