Originally published in Outside's December 1991 issue

During the occupation of Kuwait, Iraqi soldiers often defecated in the finest rooms of the finest houses they could find. It was a gesture of hatred and ignorance and contempt. Then, in retreat, the Iraqis literally set Kuwait on fire. There was no strategic significance to this, no military advantage for the retreating Iraqi troops. Blowing the oil wells—nearly all the oil wells in the country—was the environmental equivalent of crapping on the carpet.

Because fierce desert winds would carry smoke and soot at least 500 miles in any direction, Iraqi children would breathe carcinogens along with the children of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Iraqi farmers would likely suffer acid rain. These Iraqi troops, under Saddam Hussein, had done something that no other animal on earth does: They had fouled their own nest.

The conflagration in Kuwait is madness made visible, madness with possible global consequences.

I had spent the Fourth of July and the two following weeks dashing around the burning oil fields of Kuwait in company with photographer Peter Menzel, attempting to assess the extent of the madness. But this day, toward the end of our stay, was set aside for a long, leisurely drive. The madness, we felt, had soiled us just as surely as the soot and the purple petroleum rain that fell from the drifting black clouds. This rain created lakes of oil that covered acres of desert, and when these lakes caught fire the smoke was thick and blinding, so that directions to various wells had to be quite specific as to roadside landmarks: "Turn left at the third dead camel."

I myself particularly wanted to forget the three dead Iraqi soldiers I had had every reason not to bury. They were still out there in the desert, near the Saudi border. The wind covered them with sand. And then, after a time, it uncovered them.

So: Why not spend the day in pursuit of recreational diversion? Peter and I would climb Mount Kuwait. Go to the beach. See the emir's gardens. Maybe even take in a drive-in movie. Think about things a bit.