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Related: About this forumFallujah: Obama’s Newest Headache
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/01/09/fallujah-obama-newest-headache.htmlFallujah: Obamas Newest Headache
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 09.01.2014 | 00:00
Guernica in the Spanish civil war, My Lai in the Vietnam War, Guantanamo Bay in the war on terror these have been powerful symbols. The siege of Fallujah in May 2004 stands out in the Iraq War as the bloodiest battle that the United States fought since the Vietnam War. The US Marines suffered 40 deaths in the siege, while Iraqi civilian casualties were in the hundreds. The US forces reportedly used F-16 warplanes to blitz residential areas in Fallujah with cluster bombs. The majority of prisoners were executed
As the US Marine Corps announced a ceasefire and withdrew in May 2004, mosques proclaimed the victory of insurgents and Fallujahs transformation began as a sort of Islamic mini-state with Sharia law. So, in the fall of that year, in late October, the US military returned with another major offensive with aerial attacks and precision-guided missiles followed by a full-blooded assault by the Marines backed by artillery and armor in early November Operation Phantom Fury.
This is how CNNs Karl Penhaul reported on November 9: «The sky over Fallujah seems to explode as U.S. Marines launch their much-trumpeted ground assault. War planes drop cluster bombs on insurgent positions and artillery batteries fire smoke rounds to conceal a Marine advance». According to Washington Post, white phosphorous grenades and artillery shells were used to create «walls of fire» in the city. Doctors later reported seeing melted corpses. No one knows the casualty figures; as of November 18 US military claimed 1200 insurgents had been killed and 1000 captured
A Guardian report said over 70 percent of the citys homes were destroyed along with sixty schools and sixty-five mosques and shrines. There has been anecdotal evidence of large increases in cancer, infant mortality, etc. among the survivors, triggering speculation that there was use of depleted uranium leading to environmental contamination.
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Fallujah: Obama’s Newest Headache (Original Post)
unhappycamper
Jan 2014
OP
global1
(25,270 posts)1. Or Is It George W. Bush's Old Headache?......nt
unhappycamper
(60,364 posts)2. IIRC, Obama kept us in Iraq until the clock ran out.
He's doing the same thing in Afghanistan.