I think we know the answer. But just to keep things in perspective, it's as well to note two letters to the New Yorker -- in response to Steve Coll's article "Crossing the Line."
Who has crossed the line with some frequency apart from Syria and Iraq?
During the Vietnam War, more than ten million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed across Vietnam, causing untold numbers of people (including U.S. troops) to die or become sick, and hundreds of thousands of birth defects, which continue to this day. Hundreds of thousands of tons of napalm were also used in Vietnam. More recently, the U.S. used depleted uranium munitions in both the Gulf and Iraq Wars, leaving a legacy of death, cancer, and birth defects; white phosphorus was used as a weapon in Fallujah. The U.S. government can deny these facts, and Coll can fail to mention them, but they are there for those who care to look.
Jan Henle--
Coll mentions that the Reagan Administration looked the other way when Saddam gassed the Kurds. In the interest of furthering democratic deliberation, it would be appropriate to mention, as Foreign Policy did last month, that the C.I.A. gave Saddam coördinates so that his gas rockets could strike Iranian troops more accurately.
Robert Shetterly
The use of white phosphorus at Fallujah was hotly contested by the US but accepted fact in elsewhere thanks to fearless reporting. The use of chemical weapons by the US Department of Defense was covered up here at home during the run-up to the reelection of George W. Bush.
