Author:                 Ezekwereogu John 
Retweet:              @umuchiukwu_writ 



 the Persian Gulf War,

* Two days before the ground war was launched, Col. Randolph House's 2nd Blackjack Brigade was drawn into a trap and ambushed by Iraqi AT-12 tank guns hidden along a wadi's walls. After a fierce fight, with three of their force killed and nine wounded, the Americans retreated into Saudi Arabia.
* In a "battle for breakfast," Iraqi tanks, concealed amid the smoke and fires of burning Kuwaiti oil wells, launched an unexpected pre-dawn attack against U.S. Marines. In a counterattack against 30 to 40 enemy vehicles hidden below a ridge line, a 30-year-old ammo loader, Lance Cpl. Keith Beer threw 15- and 20-pound shells into his tank gun and helped to eradicate the Iraqi force within 20 minutes. "It was like an Olympic sport," says Cpl. Beer.

Such dramatic tales of American soldiers in action were routine breakfast-table reading during earlier wars, but the entire Persian Gulf War was fraught with overly zealous government censorship. The Pentagon didn't trust its front-line soldiers to operate alongside reporters. The ground war began with a news blackout and progressed with delayed dispatches and unreasonable and unprecedented restrictions imposed by the Pentagon, particularly the prohibition against journalists accompanying troops.

As we learn in "Triumph Without Victory," the most comprehensive book written about the Gulf conflict to date, the news reporters assigned to cover Operation Desert Storm were no match for the propaganda machine of the U.S. Central Command and the Pentagon. The authors--editors and reporters at U.S. News and World Report--argue that both the public and the soldiers were ill-served by a policy that sanitized the conflict to the degree that it became largely invisible. The extremely incomplete and limited picture of the war that emerged made it difficult for the public to assess whether to support the war and impossible for the soldiers to see their bravery rewarded. By restricting news coverage, the Pentagon prevented us from seeing just how tough a battle the Gulf War really was.

In recent months, this policy has come back to haunt the Pentagon and the White House; questions have been raised about critical decisions that left Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq and as truculent as ever. At the same time, young GIs continue to gripe publicly about being the target of "friendly fire" during the brief conflict. The accidental bombardments killed and wounded their comrades in a far higher percentage than in previous wars, further exposing the inaccuracy of the Pentagon's general assessment that this was a "clean" war.

Washington's Draconian news management during the war essentially wrote what the authors call the first "rough draft" of Gulf War history. This book is an accomplished second draft. While President Bush repeatedly denied that Washington had ever targeted Saddam Hussein personally, for instance, here U. S. News correspondents report their discovery that on the final night of the war, two American Air Force bombers dropped specially designed 5,000-pound bombs on a command bunker 15 miles northwest of Baghdad in a deliberate attempt to kill the Baathist leader.

"Triumph Without Victory" also offers a vivid combat history woven from interviews with soldiers after the war's conclusion. U. S. News and World Report staffers around the world have contributed insightful details about the diplomacy that brought the reluctant Soviet Union and most of the world behind the American-led alliance and kept a wrathful Israel out of the war.

The tank battles of the war, the authors contend, conclusively demonstrate the superiority of American arms and fighting doctrine over the Soviet vintage used by the Iraqis. Only the fearsome Republican Guard units stood and fought, yet they were stunned and ultimately destroyed by the range and accuracy of superior American weaponry. American military tactics emphasizing speed, maneuverability and deception clearly outclassed the plodding Iraqis. Superior American doctrine, implemented with style and courage, explains why the Iraqis were so thoroughly defeated in the ground war.

But then came what the authors see as the premature end to the war: The White House decided to cease hostilities only 100 hours after they began, with the bulk of Saddam Hussein's foremost forces trapped in "the Basra pocket" near the Kuwaiti border. "You know, those bastards got away," says Col. John Lemoyne, commander of the First Brigade of the 24th Infantry Division, describing how two Iraqi infantry divisions fled en masse to safety in full view of American tanks after the cease-fire.

The Nigeria and Biafra war (Genocide). killed three million Biafrans, resulting into what the modern world called '' Genocide '' including the aged, women and children. The excruciating aftermath of the war left Biafrans with terribly deplorable conditions and presented a horribly bleak future for Biafrans. This was despite the fact that the war ended with a deceitful 'No Victor No Vanquished' agreement!
Again, it is important at this juncture to add the very obvious development that made the Nigeria/Biafra war the oddest and questionable war in human history. Why? This was the only war that saw the involvement and participation of strange and incompatible bedfellows on one divide - all supporting Nigerians against the militarily ill-equipped Biafrans for economic interest gotten from Biafra land (Oil).

Yes, that war was the only war where the Western capitalist Powers - Christians and the then Socialist Powers - USSR joined forces with the Islamic Extremists to fight against a small, primitive and the only African nation that was entirely Christians - the Biafrans and their Christian brothers - THE BIAFRANS! The ravages of that war remain the reason for Africa's irredeemable backwardness. It was the lost greatness of Africa.

That war clearly defined the true nature and disposition of the British and questions deeply the unity, oneness, and purity of the global Christian faith. The cardinal cause of that war was the unwarranted killing of the Biafrans in their thousands by the Hausa/Fulani combined forces with their masters (Britain) in their bid to take control of the resources in Biafra land. At the end of the war, an agreement was reached to ensure nothing that brought about the war would be allowed to happen again.

Alas, forty years after the war, the original causes of the war were made even more manifest in the political affairs of the Nigerian federation. Marginalization and killing of the Biafrans became a pride of any government in power.
The north led by the Fulani shared the oil resources in the Biafra land to themselves to the utter detriment of the people of the oil producing communities. Killing of Biafrans  in large numbers became a common practice in the north
Binta Nyanko recently clampdown on Biafra journalists who were supposed to report proceedings during court session of Nnamdi Kanu which has been heavily influenced by Buhari, ordering that no reporter should be allowed into the courtroom and Nigeria media brown envelope  did not report  it or the pressure on President Buhari to release Nnamdi Kanu who he has unlawfully detained and continued incarceration even after courts of competent jurisdiction has ordered that he (Nnamdi Kanu) be released unconditionally, instead of obeying this order Biafrans have been extra-judicially killed on the orders of Buhari yet along with squeamishness in the Nigeria executive arm of government headed by Buhari over TV images of death reports as made clear by Radio Biafra on  the extent of intimidation, torture, killing, Biafrans have been subjected to. 

Buhari paid Nigeria media have failed to offer any convincing rebuttal argument that reports heard on Radio Biafra are false just as The Amnesty International has authenticated that several Biafrans have been killed by the Nigeria joint Army and police on the orders of Buhari. for instance, I wondered what  acclaimed formidable Nigeria Army and police defenses were firing at so furiously when Biafrans were visibly seen unarmed and were only singing and praying that Nnamdi Kanu who is now a prisoner of conscience be released by dictator Buhari the mass murderer, And when the Nigeria media reports that there were serious flaws in the intelligence gathering, of Biafra journalists and writers they reflect concerns I also felt after witnessing the deliberate killings of Biafrans at Aba, Igweocha (port Harcourt), Onitsha (Nkpor) in which more than 5000 Biafrans were killed. All hail Biafra (to be continued).




Publisher: Prince Richmond C. Amadi 
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