U.S. has committed a massacre in Fallujah

Who will speak out?

US troops have carried out a massacre in Falluja, but MPs are silent

Ronan Bennett
Saturday April 17, 2004
The Guardian

What does it take to get a New Labour politician to speak out on Iraq? I'm not talking about the likes of Blair, Hoon and Straw - key players so deeply implicated in the cruel tragedy of conquest and occupation that they have no option but to stay the course, even as it spirals into slaughter and chaos. But there are ministers and backbenchers with a history of commitment to human rights. What does it take to shock them out of their baffling silence?

Not the 600 or 700 Iraqis killed over the last fortnight in Falluja, it seems. Perhaps they believe, like the prime minister, that those attacking coalition troops are Saddam loyalists, al-Qaida fighters or religious fanatics, and deserve everything they get. Perhaps they have been reassured by General John Abizaid, head of the US Army's central command, who spoke of the coalition's "judicious use of force". Maybe they accept the reassurance of the commander of the US marines besieging the city that his men are "trained to be precise in their firepower", and that "95% of those killed were legitimate targets".

Let's accept for the moment that the commander is right and accept that the AC-130 gunships and F16 fighter-bombers unleashed against the people of Falluja are precise, that the 500lb bombs falling on the city come under the definition of judicious. Let's look at just a handful of the 5% of civilian casualties the Americans concede they have inflicted.

These include the mother of six-year-old Haider Abdel-Wahab, shot and killed while hanging out laundry; his father, shot in the head; Haider himself, and his brothers, crushed but dug out alive after a US missile struck their house. They include children who died of head wounds. They include an old woman with a bullet wound - still clutching a white flag when aid workers found her. They include an elderly man lying face down at the gate to his house - while inside terrified girls screamed "Baba! Baba!" They include ambulance crews fired on by US troops - and four-year-old Ali Nasser Fadil, wounded during an air strike. The New York Times reporter who found the infant in a Baghdad hospital described him lying in bed, "his eyes wide and fixed on a spot in the ceiling". His left leg had been crudely amputated. The same reporter found 10-year-old Waed Joda by the bedside of his gravely wounded father. "American snipers shot at us as we were trying to flee Falluja," said Waed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1193948,00.html

In time the truth will come.

That's about half of all estimated killed. Not that you'll read about it in this country.

should it have been perpetrated by the losing side who would be made to account at a Nuremberg-styled trial.

Fallujah may go down in the history books as the beginning of the end of the American occupation. The atrocities committed upon the innocents there will forever stain America's hands.

On June 30, Iraqis can tell America to go home. We must help them reach that point. Because we can't do it from here.

I'm thinking Lidice, for instance. An atrocity committed by a regime that had to be destroyed by the rest of the world.

If we continue on with PNAC, the rest of the world will react with force. Looking at the situation optimistically, Fallujah is the Rubicon we need to end the "onward Christian soldier" project.

What's Lidice?

It's like the world is bewitched, isn't it? Reminds me of the Jenin refugee camp massacre. Not a single home left standing, the entire camp nothing but rubble and a tangle of bodies. Israel and the US blocked an investigation, and Colin Powell toured the area and came back and told Congress that HE didn't see anything unusual -- of course people died, but they were all terrorists....

Sick...and scary.

Ishtar

I'm torn between so many emotions upon reading this. I have sorrow for these innocent Iraqis, great embarrassment and humiliation as an American that opposed this invasion from the onslaught. And finally total outrage at the mainstream media that filters what's really happening in Iraq so they can sell more ads. And what does get through the domestic channels has the nerve to paint us as the victims.

I think I'm going to be sick.

We're tearing lives apart and sowing centuries worth of hatred.

Bush said he wanted "heads to roll" after those four contractors were killed in Fallujah. Well, half of those heads were innocent women and children. He is a war criminal. And some people persist in saying this is all making us safer.

You live long enough, you get to see all the insanity of which man is capable.

sounds like the poor little soul on CNN (Wolf Blitzer) this afternoon. He also lost his left hand and his Grandfather. At least this is getting some coverage on US "news", but not enough. So very sad.

Wolf, "What a trajedy," shaking his head. This comment was a pitiful understatement.

How could any sane government voluntarily and deliberately choose to go down the same violent path that Israel has gone down?

I am committed. I will never forgive and I will never forget this town. I have feared this tragedy would happen every since last year and the date was 4/28/03.

Please everyone here, in the US, all DU'ers, our country has committed a huge crime against innocent people. We just do not have very much time left to try and right this situation. If all of us do not get on top of this we are in deep trouble. Many generations after us will suffer.

We have to make this be MAINSTREAM NEWS. These people are not insurgents. What if you were trying to flee with your wife and children and when you got to the checkpoint were told that your wife and 3 babies could continue, but you and your 13 year old son would have to return. How would you, the wife say goodbye, could you? Would you send your daughters and one young son on and stay with your husband or would you be able to walk away, crushed, knowing you might never see the love of your life, the father of your children, your sustenance, again. THIS IS CRIMINAL. THIS IS a REPEAT OF GERMANY and of the worst kind of oppression. READ YOUR HISTORY. Our soldiers, our military are being trained by the Israeli IDF forces at Ft Bragg. These are the tactics the IDF use. This is criminal, breaks every convention of the Geneva Accords. Wake up, before it is too late.

..is the other thing in the article, about how "new" labour MP's kowtow to Blair and keep their mouths shut. Dissent is not tolerated within "new" labour and that is one of the main reasons why the party is unreformable.

bush said there was mass graves there.

I like very much this little excerpt on the Labourite I despise
EVEN MORE than Blair:

"... Ann Clwyd, defender of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs, who wrote: "Some will continue to argue that internal repression is not a matter of legitimate concern for other countries. I disagree. There are basic human rights that must be defended." Are we to take it, then, that external repression is acceptable? That the human rights of the inhabitants of Falluja are not worth defending?"

What about the horrible things that Saddam has done? Hundreds of thousands in mass graves! Starving his people! Yes, this is sad that civilians die in battleground areas, but it happens. This has happened in every other war. Who do you think is the enemy there? The Americans? Or are the insurgents the heroes that should be lifted high while defiling American soldiers' bodies and drag them up and down the street? Do our troops have any rights to defend themselves? Our troops are not war criminals. The troops are our families, our neighbors, our friends. Yes, I know there may be some bad apples in our armed services, but I have faith in the system that it would be dealt with. I believe that the armed services overall have done an excellent job repairing hospitals, homes, businesses, power plants and water lines, and building playgrounds.

Hey, if you want to help the children of Iraq, check this out. It's a pretty cool thing.

<http://operationgive.org>

is that what you are saying?

welcome to DU :hi:

peace

That's an awesome movie!

"My furher! I can walk!"

"Yes, this is sad that civilians die in battleground areas, but it happens. This has happened in every other war."

as to the reason for this "war"

but i don't think you can actually do any better.

is that we can behave indistinguishably from Saddam, but that somehow it will not be evil when we do it.

When we fill up the mass graves and poison a generation or two of Iraqi kids with Depleted Uranium, will no one will feel justified in attacking *our* axis of oil?

And the question of heroes vs villans is moot. We are at the occupiers vs liberators point, and we are not the liberators. Liberators generally do not drop 2000 lb bombs on civilian areas.

between the acts of a torturing, murderous dictator and the acts of US troops? Hmmnnn, interesting. This is a logic in defense of slaughtering children and old people that always puzzles me. Think about this. If you are a citizen of THIS country, it is the acts of THIS country for which you have a responsibility.

Between killing hundreds of thousands of people for your pleasure than killing some civilians by accident. The US troops do not fire their weapons unless there is some need for it. There's a difference between horrible mass-murdering and self-defense. We do not want to kill anyone in Iraq.

are you following anything coming out of Iraq other than Fox news? There are hundreds of children, old people, other non-combatants dead and injured. This is not an accident. Even the British are appalled at the conduct of US troops. And tell me that if you are the Iraqi parent whose child is dead from US fire you are going to simply sorrowfully accept this "accident?" We are committing war crimes in Iraq according to observers on the ground, and you babble on about accidents.

//This has happened in every other war//

Just like saying that blacks were 3/5ths human , and laws were passed making slavery legal... don't make it right or just.

The problem here is labeling...What is going on in Iraq has nothing to do with war...It Is not a war , never has been. Taking a corporate police action and hanging the label WAR on it ...don't make it war.

no more than a gang of high school bullies beating up a third grader w/ one hand tied behind his back , can be labelled a gangwar.

by your own admission the iraqi people have suffered enough. must they be punished for the actions of their dictator? your logic is fundamentally flawed.

everybody keeps referring to these people trying to take back their country as 'insurgents'...as if they have no right to fight an occupying force. i bet 'insurgency' would be quickly renamed 'freedom fighting' were the US to be invaded without provocation by a foreign force. i find the hypocrisy incredible.

and if you believe that the armed services have repaired anything outside of the U.S. 'green zone'...then you must be getting your news from fox.

The massacre in Fallujah; the rape and torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq. Only "God/Bush" knows whats going on in Guantonamo Bay???

While 50% of Americans condone these activities, the other 50% are content to blame "this Administration". At some point we have to ask ourselves -- Is attributing blame really enough?

No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.

Edward R. Murrow