Felicity Arbuthnot: Sandy, Obama's "Good Storm"!

Cathy Breen from Voices for Non Violence was late to hear of Hurricane Sandy and of its impact on the Manhatten community where she lives. She was in Najav, in southern Iraq, where, as the rest of the country, the electricity is intermittent to non existent, nearly ten years after the invasion which wrought its final near extinction. When she finally hooked up to the outside world, her host laughed, remarking without malice: Maybe we can send them some of our electricity. In the fleeting window of cyber opportunity an email arrived from a friend in Basra, Iraq's beautiful, battered second city. Electricity was on his mind too. In the summer the high humidity and temperatures which can exceed 120f (50c) lack of electricity neither cools temperatures or temperaments. As winter approaches the desert chill envelopes. Electricity and clean water had not, apparently, been part of US policy for the city, where the first planning priority on crossing the border from Kuwait in March 2003, was to secure the oil installations. Hurricanes and their destruction are, of course, an Act of God. Destroying the entire infrastructure of nations, in bombardments and invasions are acts of men and women, planned with malice to the last detail. In 1991, the attack on Iraq included the destruction of the power grid, with a detailed blueprint to destroy Iraq's water system meticulously executed. Both accomplished the embargo, rendering reconstruction impossible. Iraqi ingenuity cannibalized bits here and there and electricity wobbled on and off for the twelve years, until the invasions further decimation. Then the lights largely went out all together. Repair wherewithal for the water system was blocked, banned, embargoed, and as electricity, re bombed on an ongoing basis, Thyphoid and Cholera, virtually eradicated by 1989, again stalked Iraq's children, now, "post liberation" described by UNESCO as endemic.