Fallujah: The homecoming and the homeless

[Esslinger]

Ahmed Rawi, a Red Cross spokesman, said yesterday: "No one knows how many families are inside the city." The Red Cross team ­ which entered without escort and left before curfew ­ met no residents, apart from engineers and technicians. The Red Cross reported that hundreds of dead bodies remain stacked inside a potato chip warehouse on the outskirts. Some of the bodies were too badly decomposed to be identified. Raw sewage runs through the streets.

All this, and there are no humanitarian workers working inside the city. When the first of Fallujah's refugees are allowed to return on Christmas Eve, they will be funnelled through five checkpoints. Each will have their fingerprints taken, along with DNA samples and retina scans. Residents will be issued with badges with their home addresses on them, and it will be an offence not to wear it at all times. No civilian vehicles will be allowed in the city in an effort to thwart suicide bombers. One idea floated by the US is for all males in Fallujah be compelled to join work battalions in which they will be paid to clear rubble and rebuild houses.

American officers say the hardline approach is legal under martial law regulations issued last month by the interim government of Iyad Allawi. But they appear a little embarrassed by the Orwellian overtones of their plan. Major Francis Piccoli, a spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, admitted: "Some may see this as a 'Big Brother is watching over you' experiment. But, in reality, it's a simple security measure to keep the insurgents from coming back."

Before the battle of Fallujah, the US repeatedly said that foreign fighters and Islamic zealots were orchestrating guerrilla attacks on US soldiers from the city. But the planned measures presume everybody in Fallujah to be a potential supporter of the resistance.


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=591998

[bhikkhu]

1. "Hundreds of dead bodies" stacked in a warehouse?

Fallujah continues to resist words...what can be said?

[peacebird]

12. we certainly set a large portion of the population in Fallujah "free"

freed them from the shackles of life anyhow...

hundreds of corpses stacked and decomposing... raw sewage in the streets... disease rampaging through the refugee camps... and winter is upon them now, living in canvas tents in the desert.

mans inhumanity to man - what horrors have been wrought in our name. do you think the redstaters even pause to reflect on the irony of this occuring in the holiest month of their christian calendar?

[booksenkatz]

15. Agree so much, peacebird!

I watch the Repubs "warmly" crooning songs about "peace on earth" and "goodness and light" and it literally makes me ill.

"Have a Merry Christmas and a prosperous, joyous new year! Love and Kisses, The Jones Family"

[truth2power]

18. I agree.

I look at those cars with the "Proud to be an American" stickers and it makes me sick. And watching people at the mall who seem to have not a care in the world. And I know that there are some places in the world where people are being bombed into oblivion by us.

And I wonder how these people waving their flags and shouting USA! USA! would feel if they had to try to collect the body parts of their children. How would they feel if there were decomposing bodies in the streets and they had no clean water to drink?

AMERICANS HAVE NO CLUE BECAUSE NO AMERICAN ALIVE TODAY HAS EVER HAD TO EXPERIENCE THE EFFECTS OF WAR ON THEIR OWN SOIL!

3000 people died on 9/11 and it has been all 9/11 all the time for over 3 years now, with no indication it will let up anytime soon. Americans don't seem to understand that, for some people, this kind of carnage is what they go through every day of their lives.

I am convinced that Americans will never be able to empathize with with the horror experienced by victims of our warmongering unless and until that type of horror is loosed on us.

May god have mercy on us!

edit: typo...argh.

[Just Me]

2. Who is responsible,...for what is,...in Fallujah?

What was that city like, four years ago,...compared to today?

Would the American citizens welcome such "freedom"?

I don't know? But, I ask,...would we?

Since these people NEVER threated our security, we have NO excuse for imposing our will upon them.

Who is responsible for the environment, the well-being of these people?

[NNN0LHI]

3. The US is going to turn this city into a work/death camp

>>>One idea floated by the US is for all males in Fallujah be compelled to join work battalions in which they will be paid to clear rubble and rebuild houses.<<<

[ninkasi]

4. And is this the democracy

that we seem determined to cram down their throats? I am so ashamed of what our country has become, with the jackals that are running it. Could any of us have imagined, say 5 or 10 years ago, that we would inflict this much death and pain upon the earth? I dearly love the country we used to be, but I can't find it anymore.

My hope now is that enough of us will fight to bring freedom and democracy and equality back to this land of ours. Our founding fathers tried to write protections into the Constitution to prevent what is happening now, but too many of us sucumbed to a mindless stupor, as, one by one, our freedoms and ideals were stolen. It is to our everlasting shame that enough of us didn't try harder to keep it from being stolen.

[WildClarySage]

5. Badges? Forced Labor?

Just when I think I can't be shocked any more deeply. :-(

[Algomas]

6. DNA samples, retina scans??

They don't need all this new-fangled crap. What's wrong with the tried and true and much less expensive numeric wrist tattoo?

[Katherine2]

7. Freedom is on the march, remember?

[WildClarySage]

8. And it's getting outta there

as fast as it's legs can carry it.

[peacebird]

11. this ought to put a rest to those bush/hitler comparisons... not.

[leftchick]

9. lovely! How very Nazi-like!

bushco* is not like Hitler so stop saying that!

[Rose Siding]

10. Major Francis can't hear him/herself

"Some may see this as a 'Big Brother is watching over you' experiment. But, in reality, it's a simple security measure to keep the insurgents from coming back."

Isn't "security" always the excuse?

[Darranar]

13. "legal under martial law regulations"...

More steadfast defense of freedom from the invaders and their puppets.

[booksenkatz]

14. Woo-hoo! Sounds like freedom to me!

:puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:
:puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:

How can we do this? Why are my tax dollars being used for this nightmare? Why do so many Americans not seem to give two shits that this is happening in their name, with their money? We wouldn't want it happening here on our soil, to us, so why is it ok to do it to innocent people who did nothing to us? What in the hell did they do to deserve ANY of this?

The USA could have been such a force for good in this world, but we blew it.
:cry:

[riverwalker]

16. hell, absolute hell

I want to gather up all the yellow ribbons and use them as a noose
for the next Nuremberg-type trials.

[TahitiNut]

17. Exactly like a Nazi-run ghetto! No difference whatsoever.

Fascist fucks! :grr:

[Ripley]

19. Fascist Fucks INDEED!

I think this is just training for what they will do here after the next terrorist attack on US soil. All in the name of security.

Well god dammit I will REFUSE to wear a BADGE!!!!!!!

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: