Grim, Angry Rites as Falluja Buries Its Dead

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - The urban battlefield of Falluja is disgorging its dead. Slowly.



~snip~


With Marines scouring the largely deserted city house by house and occasionally clashing with remnants of the insurgent force, travel in or out is limited but the Americans have allowed local voluntary organizations to retrieve some bodies.


Two dozen arrived on a truck at the dusty outlying village of Saqlawiya Friday, greeted by a crowd of about 150 men who removed the corpses from military body bags to try to identify them and to bury them in shrouds, according to Muslim custom.


Amid the flies and stench of the blackened and bloated bodies, apparently dead for many days, identification was next to impossible but most appeared to be of men of fighting age and at least one wore an ammunition vest.


U.S. commanders say they do not believe civilians were killed during the offensive begun 11 days ago.


~snip~
more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&ncid=586&e=12&u=/nm/20041119/wl_nm/iraq_falluja_burials_dc

They are ALL civilians you morons!! The resistance is made up of CIVILIANS. Civilians fighting to free their homeland from the iron grip of the occupation.

+, the military will always lie about the non-combatants they waste.

They might be civilians but they're not fighting to free Iraq.

They're frickin terrorists and have killed more Iraqis than US forces.

They will fight back. Its that simple

Thinking in black and white terms is dangerous. For a prime example of how and why, take a look at bushboy.

We invaded and occupied their country. There was no provocation. There was no threat. They had no WMD. They had no cooperative ties with Al Qaeda. Saddam was completely contained and his ability to create WMD and to wage war was diminishing.

"We invaded and occupied their country. There was no provocation. There was no threat. They had no WMD. They had no cooperative ties with Al Qaeda. Saddam was completely contained and his ability to create WMD and to wage war was diminishing."

You're right about the above. You're wrong to assume that that set of facts makes the situation in Fallujah specifically, or Iraq generally, a morally black and white choice.

Does the U.S. invasion justify, for example, the car bomb that killed 38 children a month or so ago? Does it justify the kidnapping and murder of 19 Nepalese civilians? What do the citizens of Iraq think/want? Do the majority want elections? Do they want us out immediately? What do the majority of Iraqis want. They're the voices that have the most meaning, the ones we need to hear.

was the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The US was wrong. The invasion was illegal. Everything that has happened since the invasion has happened because the US took this illegal action.

More and more are making decisions to boycott the elections come Janauary according to DemocracyNOW! If the US was not there would all of the above you questioned/listed be happening? I believe the majority have spoken if only people will listen. :shrug:

From all that I hear the majorities opinion is "Us out we can handle and take care of our own people and our own country!"

I watch Mosaic, Journal, INN, DemocracyNOW! and read DU. All are saying the same thing.

In fact, you know what started the Fallujah cleasning? It was the school that the US military embargoed some time back and the students rose up to protest and the US military shot about 18 of them in cold blood... teachers and students... for protesting. Remember that? This was the start of cleasning 15 years and above males in Fallujah.

<snip>
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: For the last week, I have been thinking of the city of Fallujah, and thinking about Fallujah has not been easy while one reads The New York Times. I looked for an article which would tell me something about the history of resistance in the city of Fallujah. I didn't find it in the Times. I found it in The Guardian in London, and the Guardian piece told me that this resistance began with the massacre of April 28, 2003, when parents and children in a school which had been occupied by American soldiers, had started demonstrating, and 18 of them were killed in cold blood, 60 were injured, and began the resistance to the US occupation in Fallujah. Before that, not a bullet had been fired.
<snip>

Lots more of this interview at the link below:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/18/1515234

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,949124,00.html

I saw the same DemNow show.

Bloodshed and bullets fuel rising hatred of Americans

Ed Vulliamy visits the street in Fallujah where US troops opened fire on the innocent

Sunday May 4, 2003

what happens?-benign neglect at best, lack of sourcing,
not LBN, unacceptable journalism, lack of
creds,and on and on.

Empathize w/ the opposition. what would you
do if your state was occupied.
No holds barred.

No it doesn't justify those bombings, but would those bombings have happened if the US had not invaded Iraq, would those children be dead, would kidnappings be as rampant as they have been since the US invasion? I don't think so. But the invasion was the catalyst, the spark that set off this explosion.


It has been reported that while the Iraqi people are glad that Saddam is gone, they wish to now take control of their country. The US installed a puppet government that for the most part will end up being the new Iraqi government, whether the Iraqi people want them or not.

And now that the Interim government has declared that any one who speaks against it's actions in Falluja is assisting terrorists, and that the "free" press must report stories that are positive for the government, all the US is giving the Iraqi people is another Saddam regime, just with a different name.

And even you have to admit, that this the one thing that the Iraqi people don't want.

As the invader/occupier, we are responsible for every
thing that occurs int the occupied area.

Of course the fact that we have broken every convention treaty
going bact to and including the Treaty of Westphalia
which defined nation /states, means that we assume
that we are God and can do as we please.

A paradoxical interpersonal relation (PC)

A mental, psychological or behavioral tangle paroduced by an incongruity – apparent or real – between two different levels of contextual explanation. (IESC)

The effect of double bind is that the adressee cannot decide what is real and may develop pathologies (PC)

As noted by R. Vallée "Double bind are contradictory constraints, "generating unstable behaviours" and belonging to cybernetics of the second order"

http://www.imprint.co.uk/thesaurus/double-bind.htm

The destruction, disorganization, and disintegration of
selected enemy strategic, operational, and tactical systems
will enable rapid, decisive defeat of enemy forces. The
military has used precision-strike to negate enemy
strategic systems, such as electric power grids. In
future campaigns, land forces will have to lead efforts to
defeat opposing operational systems, such
as reconnaissance-strike and distribution of petroleum oils
and lubricants. Land forces will use combinations of
fires, electronic warfare, information operations, and
special forces, supported by air, space, and naval
capabilities. Successful campaigns will require a
moral component to gain support of neutrals, reinforce
the support of friendlies, and break the morale of
opponents.

http://www.leavenworth.army.mil/milrev/English/SepOct02/greer.htm

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Maybe I'm just a fuzzy headed liberal, but I don't root for an Iraqi killing 19 year old Johnny from Pittsburgh any more than I relish marines killing Abu from fallujah. Our Marines do what they are told. They have no choice. It's up the food chain that my anger is focused, and where the true criminals are found.

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The US is responsible for the murder of by some reports 100.000 Iraqis. The US has killed far more Iraqis then the resistance and Saddam combined. These people are fighting to free their nation from the illegal occupation. They are NOT terrorists. They are Iraqi citizens defending what is theirs.

than Saddam killed in the last 13 years.

Mass graves, war crimes, torture, rape and needless civlian deaths are Bush's legacy in I-raq.

since you are a transparent bush supporter, I ask you these questions:

did you vote for Bush because:

1. you hate gays
2. you hate pregnant women
3. you want to exterminate muslims.


why, I think we have a winner on number 3!

such a safe world you live in, yes? Well deny this..



Just three days ago soldiers attacked the home of Fatima Harouz. Her uncle was killed while the family claims there were no resistance in the area.

~snip~
She lays dazed in the crowded hospital room, languidly waving her bruised arm at the flies. Her shins, shattered by bullets from US soldiers when they fired through the front door of her house, are both covered by casts. Small plastic drainage backs filled with red fluid sit upon her abdomen, where she took shrapnel from another bullet.

Fatima Harouz, 12 years old, lives in Latifiya, a city just south of Baghdad. Just three days ago soldiers attacked her home. Her mother, standing with us says, “They attacked our home and there weren’t even any resistance fighters in our area.” Her brother was shot and killed, and his wife was wounded as their home was ransacked by soldiers. “Before they left, they killed all of our chickens,” added Fatima’s mother, her eyes a mixture of fear, shock and rage.

A doctor standing with us, after listening to Fatima’s mother tell their story, looks at me and sternly asks, “This is the freedom…in their Disney Land are there kids just like this?”

Another young woman, Rana Obeidy, was walking home with her brother two nights ago. She assumes the soldiers shot her and her brother because he was carrying a bottle of soda. This happened in Baghdad. She has a chest wound where a bullet grazed her, unlike her little brother who is dead.

Laying in a bed near Rana is Hanna, 14 years old. She has a gash on her right leg from the bullet of a US soldier. Her family was in a taxi in Baghdad this morning which was driving near a US patrol when a soldier opened fire on the car.

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000122.php

bush* is much worse than saddam ever hoped to be.

we can count on these threads bringing out the knuckleheads!

then what are they fighting for?

When you call them terrorists, does it ease your mind? Does it make you feel like you are on the right side and your country isn't blowing away civilians?

If someone came in and attacked your country, would you fight?

If a foreign army invaded and put your children in danger, you are telling me you wouldn't take up arms and fight them?

Bullshit. They aren't terrorists, they are IRAQIS who are fighting to defend themselves. The did nothing to us, caused us no harm and made no threat to us and we are there, killing them in large numbers, destroying their homes, and laying waste to their country.

How would YOU feel? Add to that feeling the insult of having the other side just blow you off as being a "terrorist." NOW how does it feel?

thread of logic so I'll just do a blanket reply and go from there.

It's a huge assumption to instantly brand me as a loyal Bush supporter that hates America. I was in Iraq in 1990 and 1991 and I've been back to Iraq several times (most recently three times this year) and have Iraqi friends on the ground over there who live with the consequences of the US forces and "freedom" fighters/terrorists on a daily basis. Your spin and/or opinion, or mine, matters not one whit to them as they can see what's happening with their own eyes. They are almost evenly split on the occupation by coalition forces but I don't think any of them hate the United States as much as some of you.

With the exception of small pockets in Iraq, Hussein was largely despised by your average Joe. To state that the US or Bush has killed more Iraqis than Hussein is asinine. The high end number of Iraqi civilian casualties is 100,000. Double that and double it again and you have 400,000. Although I think the number of true Iraqi civilian casualties is less than 100,000 I'll give you four times that for the sake of our discussion.

Hussein has the following to his credit:

- between 150,000 and 340,000 Iraqis
- between 450,000 and 730,000 Iranians
- estimated 1,000 Kuwaiti nationals
- No conclusive figures for the number of Iraqis killed during the Gulf War, with estimates varying from as few as 1,500 to as many as 200,000.
- Over 100,000 Kurds killed or "disappeared".
- No reliable figures for the number of Iraqi dissidents and Shi'ite Muslims killed during Hussein's reign, though estimates put the figure between 60,000 and 100,000. (Mass graves discovered following the US occupation of Iraq in 2003 suggest that the total combined figure for Kurds, Shi'ites and dissidents killed could be as high as 300,000). - - Approximately 500,000 Iraqi children dead because of international trade sanctions introduced following the Gulf War

Civilians are going to die in any war. It's always tragic. The collateral deaths attributed to war have gone down markedly with the advent of more accurate war technology but that doesn't help the guy who's daughter has just been maimed or killed.

As a final note, you people that advocate the death of US soldiers so that you can gloat over a policy failure are disgusting and spineless. When an sniper targeting coalition forces and hiding in a mosque is executed at point blank range you are full of rage and not without reason. With few exceptions I fail to note your ability to work up any rage over the execution of hostages by Zarqawi followers. At least try to be more consistent.

after all that blustery writing, you fail to explain why we are STILL KILLING IRAQIS.

You say it's a huge assumption to brand you as a bush supporter that hates America, then you go on to MAKE THE VERY SAME ASSUMPTION ABOUT US:

"They are almost evenly split on the occupation by coalition forces but I don't think any of them hate the United States as much as some of you."

We hate the United States? Good try. Oh I hate the people running it right now, that's for sure. And I hate their decision to attack and invade a country that did nothing to us, caused us no harm and didn't threaten us. And I hate that we are still killing Iraqis for no good reason, and still losing US servicemembers, again, for no good reason.

Also, you aren't actually trying to say you've polled every Iraqi there as to how they feel are you? I hope you aren't.

By the way, who did you vote for on November 2 and why?

Preferably links to reputable sites.

And what were you doing in Iraq? In the military? Working for Halliburton? CIA?

See, that's why we pegged you as a Bush* bootlicker: you fail to draw a distinction between disagreeing between the policies and tactics of this occupation and the people who carry out those policies.

This is an attitude I've seen from Republicans many, many times before. The overall idea behind it is that you can't be against the "war" without also being against the soldiers fighting it.

Nothing at all could be further from the truth than this. See, we here at DU are smart enough to realize that the soldiers fighting this "war"- and I use the term very loosely- have nothing to do with the decision made to fight it. They have nothing at all to do with the policies of this war. They have no say in where they are sent or what they are ordered to do.

*We* realize this, but you apparently do not.

"As a final note, you people that advocate the death of US soldiers so that you can gloat over a policy failure are disgusting and spineless. When an sniper targeting coalition forces and hiding in a mosque is executed at point blank range you are full of rage and not without reason. With few exceptions I fail to note your ability to work up any rage over the execution of hostages by Zarqawi followers. At least try to be more consistent."

a) We want this occupation to end. If it does not, more US soldiers will die. Can I be any more clear than that?

b) You must have missed the big, long thread regarding that soldier who "murdered" the sniper. Why, I do believe there was a big debate here over whether it was justified or not- which should imply that at least some od us were wondering if it was justified.

c) The lack of outrage is because we knew it would happen if we continued our occupation of Iraq. It's hard to be angry about somethig we all predicted would happen. Even Joe Biden predicted what's now going on- publicly- but of course he wasn't listened to all that well.

By the way, I do believe I heard the phrase "we can support the troops but not the President" when Clinton was in office, and you never heard any of us calling people who disagreed with his policies "America haters". So where, exactly, did that idea that we hate America come from?

Why, it was the republicans. Imagine that!

... that I'm talking to them individually?

I've been reading this board for about 8 months. It's not an obsession and it's not every day but I've seen a few lunatics that defintely do hate the United States and don't try to hide that fact.

Just for reference kgfnally, now I am talking to you.

1. You want the occupation to end. Noble goal. You should continue working towards that.

2. I didn't miss the thread about the sniper. I wonder whether it was justified or not as well. Again, I didn't brand everybody but there were more than a couple who gave no benefit of the doubt to the Marine. I really don't expect to know the entire truth but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

3. Your lack of outrage may be easily explained by your post but not everybody. Shortly after I started reading this board we had four US contractors burnt and strung up from a bridge in Fallujah. There were a few that just couldn't contain their joy over the desecration of the capitalists.

Nobody pays attention to the boring guy but you remember the assholes.

there are always assholes. In fact some of those nasty hate-the- troops posts might very well have been done by disruptors. It's a common technique to make DU look bad.

As a moderator of this forum, I can assure you that any post that even hints at wishing bad fortune or harm to the troops or any American citizen, is removed. I have even posted warnings about civil discussions. All the mods will lock threads that get nasty.

One of the rules for removing posts on DU is a broad brush accusation of a certain group. Don't broad-brush DU.

Just when it's safe to be free from Saddam, comes a puppet government that is no better, if not worse, than Saddam's regime. They are occupied and invaded by a foreign power, that makes the situation worse. And the only salvation the Iraqis need is the last thing the U.S. government wanted, an Islamic fundamentalist government, one that Osama bin Laden would have wished for. So the Iraqis are in a hopeless situation here.

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want to see that here.
I you dissent from the norm here be prepared to defend yourself.
There are quite a few with great ideas.

is going to cause us to lose more american soldiers.

the "insurgents" are going to step up their efforts and they're going to hit american forces where they're the most vulnerable. and the ones who'll be killed will often be in support roles -- not the front-line guys, like the marines who murdered the guys in the mosques. they'll be guys from your hometown and mine who got screwed because they're in the guard.

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they are failing miserably in Iraq. The world knows it. Most ameriKans like our visitor upthread are blind to the failure.

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So let's not fall into the mistake of rooting for death either way...45 y/o Bill from New Jersey just wants to get home to his wife and kids, he didn't ask to go to Iraq, he had no choice, he can't feed his kids from jail....we need to always put a human face on war. From Both sides. If only * would actually mean it when he claims to want a "culture of life"...

During this Iraq fiasco I have seen pictures of many 45-year-old Bills from Chicago take shots and do kills they could have just as easily passed up. And this "culture of life" you speak of seems to me to be more pronounced in the enemy than in the invaders. And this baloney about doing what the higher ups tell you to do is nothing more than a real nice way of avoiding one's responsibily as a human being. When these men face their God, Buddha, Mohammed, whatever and tell them "Oh, I was just doing what I was told to do..." I don't imagine it will play real well. But, I could be wrong.

you did two years in Viet Nam and didn't just lay down your arms and say "no"? Look, I appreciate your service, but you would know as well as anyone what a soldier can and can't do, as a practical matter, under these circumstances. I just don't care to hear folks rooting for anyone, our troops included, to be killed.

one day I accidentally killed a girl who ran into my line of fire, near Chulai. It changed me: from that day on I was more careful and would not fire if there was a knowing chance civlians would be killed. Your appreciation for my sevice notwithstanding, I want the US defeat to be devastating, and whatever that entails to make that happen is not good--but okay. Our country is now being led by a group of fascists warmongers. And these warmongers can be defeated only one way.....By a horrible defeat at a cost of lives. That is the only thing Joe and Sally from Topeka will understand. They can have all this moral superiority but if they see or hear about too many GI's getting killed, they will vote the Neocons out of power. And NOW, unforunately, because of the vapid Democrats nothing else will work.

"That is the only thing Joe and Sally from Topeka will understand. They can have all this moral superiority but if they see or hear about too many GI's getting killed, they will vote the Neocons out of power. And NOW, unfortunately, because of the vapid Democrats nothing else will work."

This is exactly what it will take to end this endless war, enough deaths till everyone knows someone killed in the war, and/or the cranking up of the draft, so that Joe and Sally feel directly threatened by the fact that little Tommy is nothing but cannon fodder to the Chimp King and his cabal.......

That's fucked up

...Going back to Vietnam...Would you have wished to be killed to "make a point"?

bystanders, then absolutely! But it would have taken many many people making such points, which is what eventually happened.

during Viet Nam but NOooooooooo, our military industrial complex needs to rape American citizens of their tax dollars while invading a country to rob it of it's oil. Did you know Nam has oil? hummmmm

"
THE VIETNAM INVASION

Herbert Hoover, later to become President of the United States did a study that showed that one of the world's largest oil fields ran along the coast of the South China Sea right off French Indo-China, now known as Vietnam.
- Denny, Ludwell, We Fight of Oil, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1928."
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/vietnam.html

I thought Vietnam taught us this lesson...

Oh wait, all the guys in charge didn't go to Vietnam. Except Colin Powell and they seem to have his nuts in a jar somewhere.

something I have incredibly mixed feelings about. I've found myself wishing the same thing. I feel really guilty about it.

In a dispatch posted at 6:40pm Mecca time, the
Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent reported that US troops
got residents of the as-Saqlawiyah area on Monday and
Tuesday to collect bodies of civilians killed on the outskirts of
the al-Jawlan neighborhood in al-Fallujah’s northwest and
to take them to as-Saqlawiyah for burial. The US troops
insisted on going along with the as-Saqlawiyah residents
from the moment they left their town and all along the route
as they loaded and transported the bodies back for interment
in as-Saqlawiyah. US troops also searched all the
residents who were to go to transport the bodies, for fear lest
any one
of them have cameras with which to record the crimes of
the American troops.

The correspondent reported that the as-Saqlawiyah
residents transported 20 bodies on Monday, among them
two women and two children. On Tuesday they transported
14 bodies. The correspondent noted that all those who had
died were killed by some sort of chemical gas since their
bodies were bloated, as if inflated from all sides, and yellow
but without odor - except for a few that the witness said gave off
a pleasant smell as is expected of the bodies of
martyrs.

The as-Saqlawiyah residents to took part in the hauling of
the bodies asked the Americans to be allowed to go into
the al-Jawlan neighborhood but the American commander
said through an Iraqi translator that although they were
in complete control of the area where they then were on
the outskirts of al-Jawlan, that was not the case inside, and
the Americans could not let the residents go into
the neighborhood un-escorted, but the Americans dared not
go
into the neighborhood with them either.

On Wednesday a group of as-Saqlawiyah residents went
on another trip to collect the bodies of those killed by
chemical weapons on the northern side of al-Fallujah. A
woman refugee who was coming from the western side of
the al-Jawlan neighborhood said that she saw the US
troops putting bodies in black bags and throwing them in
the Euphrates River but she was unable to see whose
bodies they were.

except for a few that the witness said gave off
a pleasant smell as is expected of the bodies of
martyrs.

Look, I hate this war and I hate the propaganda our government feeds us, put puleeeeze.....let's not take whatever we get from random Arab reports as gospel, it's just as ludicrous as believing Rumsfeld...

And I agree with your cynicism.

But when reports come in from our Agitprop
division I just want to give equal time to the other side.

and while in the cynical dept:

"Two dozen arrived on a truck at the dusty outlying village
of Saqlawiya Friday"-where did this truck come
from.
Who picked the bodies up.

According to Al Jazeera-the US doesn't have a presence in the
Al Jawlan area.

n/t

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They've been saying it a long time.

"ran for office".

that his lawyers were fighting to put his name on the ballot. It makes you wonder if the people fighting would just orginize a 'write-in' campain would they have the votes to get him elected? And what would the Administration do about it?

blog that chronicles the progress of the US action in Iraq. She starts out liking Americans and thinking maybe some good will come from the invasion to her last post where she is really bitter. It is very sad to read....http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

We need to find a way to discuss this subject without resorting to calling each other vulgar names. We're going to try to start along that path by locking this thread and taking a break from it, in the hopes that when we revist it we can all be a little more civil and respectful, even with people we disagree with.

And as a side note - if anyone is advocating the death of any US military personnel, you're posting on the wrong website.