Falluja: Dresden in Iraq

[chlamor]

Fallujah: Dresden in Iraq

Ken Sanders, www.dissidentvoice.org

April 14, 2005

Although studiously ignored by the mainstream news media, last month came reports that the U.S. used napalm and chemical weapons in its assault upon the city of Fallujah ( http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/744/1/80
/ ). The assault of November 2004 resulted in the near-total destruction of the city, as well as the deaths of thousands of non-insurgent Iraqi civilians. If the reports about napalm and chemical weapons are true, not only would the U.S. be in violation of international law, it would be guilty of the very crimes against humanity that it previously leveled against Saddam Hussein and used as a justification for invading Iraq.

Reportedly, Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli of the Iraq Ministry of Health held a press conference last month and charged the U.S. with using napalm, mustard gas, and nerve gas when it attacked Fallujah in November 2004. Dr. ash-Shaykhli described "melted" bodies and fires that could not be put out with water. Similarly, Dr. ash-Shaykhli described entire sections of the city where nothing, neither cats nor dogs nor birds, was left alive, suggesting the use of chemical weapons.

Promptly, the United States denied Dr. ash-Shaykhli's allegations about mustard and nerve gasses. The U.S. even went so far as to deny the very existence of Dr. ash-Shaykhli or that anyone by that name ever worked for Iraq's Ministry of Health. According to the U.S., the false story about the U.S. military's use of chemical and nerve gasses in Fallujah was invented by a web site pretending to be that of the Qatari television network Al Jazeera.

Unfortunately, the U.S. denial of wrongdoing in Fallujah cannot withstand scrutiny.

For example, while the U.S. is correct that a fake Al Jazeera ("aljazeera.com") published a story about U.S. atrocities in Fallujah, the U.S. glosses over the fact that the real Al Jazeera ("aljazeera.net") published a similar story. On March 17, 2005, the real Al Jazeera reported on the wholesale killings of civilians by U.S. forces in Fallujah ( http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0317-02.htm ), including through the use of napalm. In that story, the real Al Jazeera provided eyewitness accounts of U.S. forces killing entire families, including women and children. Likewise, the real Al Jazeera reported that the U.S. raided the only hospital in Fallujah at the beginning of the assault in order to prevent reports of civilian casualties.

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m11116

[wtbymark]

1. yea- in light of this information

and the pictures i saw of the bodies in Fallujah

I cannot support the troops anymore

Isn't it a soldiers duty to disobey an unethical order?

[blogbear]

2. It should be and thank-you for asking it!

[cssmall]

7. Read the Milgram experiment. . .

then you'll understand exactly why orders are followed. Yes, the orders may be completely unethical, may be completely wrong, but when placed on a point the ordee will be forced to follow the orders, even if it means killing someone. . .

Again, read Stanley Milgram's experiments. He proved that the American public could be just like the Nazis.

[Terran1212]

3. No need to support immoral troops

I'd better compare it to Srebrenica (sp), the Bosnian city hit by the Serbs that prompted the NATO bombings.

[bemildred]

4. As much as I would like to go there,

as much as I consider Fallujah a war crime and an atrocity,
it was not Dresden, Dresden was a Holocaust.

http://www.learningcurve.gov.uk/heroesvillains/churchill/churchill_2.htm

Churchill was a terrorist.

[chlamor]

5. Iraq

with Falluja as a part of it, has been utterly annihilated over the last 14 years. Bombs, starvation, infrastrucure decimation etc. Millions and millions and millions have been killed not all of it due to the bombing. The long term effects of present day warfare (slaughter-ecocide-omnicide) far excede anything done during WW2 due in no small part to the high tech weaponry. Falluja, a city of 500,000, not the 200,000 reported by Western press, was wiped off the face of the Earth.
I know you know this and are as usual right on about Churchill. Peace bemildred.

[bemildred]

6. OK, I can go with that. But you really got to read about Dresden.

Those pricks back then were talking OPENLY about terrorizing the
German civilian population to "end the war quicker", they did tests
on mock-up German and Japanese towns to make sure the napalm and
white phosphorus worked like it was spose to to cause a firestorm.
And some of the dickweeds would walk around proud as shit when it did.
(Not that the Nazis were any better, it's the sanctimonious, self-righteous
posturing and lies that tees me off.)
:puke:

[Briar]

8. Just wait for that Harrison Ford film

soon everyone will feel happy about Fallujah and regard it as a heroic trimuph for democracy.

[MasonJar]

9. In case y'all have forgotten, the British were fighting virtually

alone for their lives and their country's liberty. London was being bombed to its knees. Churchill was a great man; in my book the man of the century. Just as we felt compelled to bomb Japan, the PM had to do what he could to stop the Germans from invading England. His oratory and his magnificence saved the world from fascism. If only we had him now to stop BUSH and BLAIR.

[Briar]

11. By 1945

when Dresden was bombed, Britain was not fighting alone and the end was in sight for the Third Reich. This wasn't a matter of the Allies' survival.

[agincourt]

10. Thanks to conservative political hegemony,

We can clean out Saddam's mass graves, and refill with new bodies that conservatives had killed for "Freeedom".

[LibertyorDeath]

12. “They beat her two sisters, then shot them in the head,”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the doctor sits with me in a hotel room in Amman, where he is now a refugee. He’d spoken about what he saw in Fallujah in the UK, and now is under threat by the US military if he returns to Iraq.


He pauses for a few deep breaths, then continues, “All I can say is that Fallujah is like it was struck by a tsunami. There weren’t many families in there after the siege, but they had absolutely nothing. The suffering was beyond what you can imagine. When the Americans finally let us in people were fighting just for a blanket.”

“One of my colleagues, Dr. Saleh Alsawi, he was speaking so angrily about them. He was in the main hospital when they raided it at the beginning of the seige. They entered the theater room when they were working on a patient…he was there because he’s an anesthesiologist. They entered with their boots on, beat the doctors and took them out, leaving the patient on the table to die.”

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000196.php


War crimes. I can only imagine the stuff we don't know about yet.

[reprehensor]

13. - - * - -

ugh

[chlamor]

14. The Truth About Falluja

"Things are almost back to normal here. We have teachers and books. Things are getting better."

New York Times 3-26-05 "Vital Signs of a Ruined City Grow stronger in Falluja"

"I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today "my own government."

Rev. Martin Luther King

Cameras aren't allowed in Falluja; neither are journalists. If they were then we would have first-hand proof of America's greatest war crime in the last 30 years; the Dresden-like bombardment of an entire city of 250,000. Instead, we have to rely on eyewitness accounts that appear on the internet or the spurious reports that sporadically surface in the New York Times and Associated Press. For the most part, the Times and AP have shown themselves to be undependable; limiting their coverage to the details that support the overall goals of the occupation. For example, in the last few weeks both the NYTs and the AP ran stories on the alleged progress being made in Falluja. The AP outrageously referred to the battered city as "the safest place in Iraq"; a cynical appraisal of what most independent journalists have called nearly total destruction. One can only wonder if the editors at the AP would approve of similar security measures if they were taken in their own neighborhoods.

The NYTs also ran a lengthy story, "Vital Signs of a Ruined City Grow stronger in Falluja", which portrayed Falluja as a city on the mend' after a healthy dose of imperial medicine: "Classes have started again two months ago and the cheerful shrieks of children can be heard in the hallways." This was just one of the more contemptuous quotes lifted from the NYT's story of "rebirth" from the epicenter of American devastation. The quote was accompanied by a picture of a Marine in full-combat gear bending over to tie the shoe of a seven or eight year old Iraqi boy; a threatening image used to convey the spirit of American generosity.

The truth about Falluja is far different than the bogus reports in the AP and Times. The fact that even now, a full 6 months after the siege, camera crews and journalists are banned from the city, tells us a great deal about the extent of America's war crimes. Just two weeks ago, a photographer from Al Aribiyya news was arrested while leaving Falluja and his equipment and film were confiscated. To date, he is still being held without explanation and there is no indication when he will be released. This illustrates the fear among the military brass that the truth about Falluja will leech out and destroy whatever modest support still exists for the occupation. Journalists should realize that Falluja may turn out to be the administration's Achilles heel; a My Lai-type atrocity that turns the public decisively against Bush's war.

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m11176

[Moderator]

15. As noted in the other post, please warn people--

--when posting material like this. Include something in the subject line, so that others are forewarned.

Also, this post is an exact duplicate of a thread you also started.

Thank you,
DU Moderator