U.S. has committed a massacre in Fallujah

[anarchy1999]

Thank you to BeyondGeography, who posted this in Editorials

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x45708

WE ALL ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR SPEAKING OUT, IF WE ARE SILENT WE ARE COMPLICIT!!!!!!!!


If we do not stop what is happening we will never be able to live with ourselves. The people of this town are crying for help!


Who will speak out? All of us have to, and we have no time to lose!

If we do not make a difference, many of our soldiers are going to die needless deaths. It is truly up to us. and time is very TRULY SHORT!

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

[JCMach1]

1. Just wait until the battle for Najaf

:(

[anarchy1999]

2. You have been here long time.

Do you not believe that if all of us were to start ringing the phones and faxes off the walls of media and congresscritters tomorrow that we could not make a difference in the outcome of this disaster? JC, could we stop the tide? I think, I like to believe that we could. If I am totally wrong then please smack me down. If I am going to be smacked down though, would you do it in a PM, rather than publicly.

I believe though, you know we can make a difference. Remember the flowers we all sent to Senator Byrd?

[izzie]

3. It is hard to beat the men with power.

News is starting to make the army look bad. It is very hard to sit at home and see the just reason to have a well armed man kill children and old people. And when they did nothing to us. It is not like we lived in Coventry, England and been firebombed by these people. The WTC were another group of people, and most of us know that.I can not believe that many think we need to kill all in the Middle East because the planes hit the WTC, but I may be wrong.I seem to think like every one I know but not the ones I read on the PC. This GOP is beyond me.

[JCMach1]

6. We would have to find a high profile target to hit...

someone who could speak out about Najaf before it happens...

Realize, it's almost too late...

Bombard Biden???

He would have to be hit with everything we have...

On edit: send him black-dyed carnations in mass??? with the message "Save Najaf before we have another Fallujah on our hands" Also bombard him with calls, e-mails and FAXES... Also, why not the Repug head of Foreign relations...?

[anarchy1999]

13. JC, I do not want to wait. We can not afford to wait.

Did you not march last year? Nothing has changed. We are still marching for peace. In all kinds of ways. We have to, we must.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Overwhelmingly painful to read, but necessary

From the article:

Every one of these incidents has been documented by journalists, aid workers or medical staff. And there are plenty more. Even allowing for casualties caused by the Iraqi resistance, the dread catalogue of American-inflicted suffering and death is long and undeniable. At this point it's worth reminding ourselves that 5% of 600 is 30. But the evidence of the bodies alone gives the lie to the American account: at least 350 of the dead in Falluja have been women and children.
(snip)

Just saw threads insisting yesterday and overnight from visitors to D.U. that the only sources claiming many civilian deaths, etc. are nasty "Iraqii" or "Islamic" news sources which, they imply, are inventing things.

Thanks a lot. I'm absolutely saving this article.

[0007]

7. Good article to save - junior and his fuzzy math

"At this point it's worth reminding ourselves that 5% of 600 is 30. But the evidence of the bodies alone gives the lie to the American account: at least 350 of the dead in Falluja have been women and children."

Where is the outrage in the U.S. media that laid claim to truth? Has Christianity turned a blind eye to harbor secretly held beliefs?

[anarchy1999]

8. Judi, please read these blogs, they are American and English citizens

very reputable.

Rahul Mahajan at www.empirenotes.org

Jo Wilding at www.wildfirejo.org.uk and

Dahr Jamail at www.newstandardnews.net

Also Robert Fisk.

Don't miss Stan Goff either!

April 13, 2004

A Rant
The Bridge
By STAN GOFF

WARNING: This commentary may cause anxiety.

The United States government has initiated a chain reaction that it can no longer control. The stalled vengeance assault on Fallujah is merely a symptom. So is the uprising triggered by the US closure of a Shia newspaper in Sadr City, Baghdad, followed by gunning down the demonstrators who protested (Ah, yes, we don’t even hear about that when they talk about the latest demon, Muqtada al-Sadr… Memory is so short.).

The chain reaction is far broader and deeper than the battlefield fiasco in Iraq right now. Once brown people start to pick up guns, other brown people follow suit. The myth of invincibility of the United States military -- called into question even before the Bush Doctrine arrived at this particular Iraqi cul-de-sac -- is shattered. No one is shocked. No one is awed.

http://www.counterpunch.org/goff04132004.html

[MichaelUK]

5. Not just "Nasty Islamic" newspapers.

Fallujah’s hospital director said that more than 450 Iraqis had been killed, and more than 1,000 wounded, since the Americans began their operation last Sunday to root out those who killed and mutilated four American contractors.
April 10th

The source?
The Times (British)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1068986,00.html

[xchrom]

9. not that i won't make e-mails and phone calls

but you can get really tired reading this stuff.
since reagan, republicans have had no problem using lethal force against innocent civilians to gain what they see as their goal, i.e. iran/contra.
you just get worn out.

[anarchy1999]

10. You know what, I'm really worn out myself! I ask myself every day

why should I give a shit.

And then along comes someone like you. You renew my spirit.

I'm more worn out than you will ever know. I want to quit every day. And then I read a post from Mari333, IrateCitizen, AWD, Andy, Bev, GrannyD, and I know I can't quit. There is only one reason I am here at this moment in time.

Hope you get to feeling better and come and join us.

[G_j]

17. exhaustion

after endless emailing, phone calls, vigils and LTTEs.

exhaustion..

I really think that is exactly what our "leaders" count on. That at some point we will just give up. They know, they've made note of those phone calls and letters. The fact is they have been deliberately ignoring us from the beginning in hopes that we will eventually just go away.

Remember the "Virtual-March" where we tied up all the phones in Congress for a full day?

History was made when for the first time ever ordinary people of the world went onto the streets and cried "Peace! before a war even began."

The United Council of Churches came out and opposed a war before it started for the first time in history.

The Pope spoke out against the invasion.

Many of our traditional allies opposed the invasion of Iraq.

There were dozens of people arrested doing CD in Congressional offices before the invasion. There were hundreds arrested in Civil Disobedience in the streets. In my town alone there have been over 50 arrests of peaceful protesters since the war began.

Senator Byrd made some of the best and most passionate speeches ever given in Congress pleading with America to avoid this war. We here at DU even chipped in and presented flowers to him on the Senate floor.

Veterans and military families have spoken out as never before.

Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich and Wes Clark manifested the palpable passion of anti-war sentiment.

Groups like Moveon mobilized the internet to harness the energy of citizens across the country and put together TV and newspaper ads and the powerful "Uncovered" which people across the country shared in their homes.

And of course the UN strongly resisted the invasion.

They (including Democrats) want us to give up. This is all the more reason to prove them wrong. We can't give up!!!!

btw, I voted for DK in the Dem caucus today precisely because he manifests the spirit of hope and refusal to give up or shut up that I believe in.

[bobbieinok]

25. bushco wants us to get exhausted and give up

sick, simplistic analogy

Those of you in college or who have been----

...the adm does something or plans to do something many students hate

...there are protests, letters, all sorts of outrage

...and the students graduate

...and eventually the adm action is a 'fait accompli' and there's no more protest

...the adm had the time and the power to wait out the protests and the anger

[pippin]

11. The Massacre of Fallujah

Start referring to it that way.

[anarchy1999]

12. Which one?

n/t

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. How many more mass graves

is Bu$h going to create before the world says enough is enough?


http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2004/04/12/falluja_graves,0.jpg

[anarchy1999]

16. Fallujah is killing me. I knew last year this was going to happen

in this town. I said it on the day of the first protest when the first casualties happened. All that has happened since that day has been downhill.

This is SO WRONG! Our soldiers are guilty of war crimes, period.

[keithyboy]

21. I too am sick about it. We are all lost sheep.

Looking for devine intervention of some kind. Could the earth just open up and swallow all the evil people? My heart is aching for all those dead US soldiers and their families and for all those Iraqis that we have killed and maimed and their families. My heart is just breaking about man's inhumanity to man. Just breaking.

[Karenina]

23. Mine too...

:hug:

[Deja Q]

15. This is war.

The only ones who should carry the blood are those who started it.

Saddam was a self-contained mosquito who would have gotten his due one way or another.

Bush* went out of his way using lies and deception, but in reality paying back for a limp death threat Saddam made in the mid-90s that he couldn't even begin to substantiate -- and was sternly answered to by President Clinton, an infinitely better president than *.

The fact that the Iraqi oil has not gone to pay for this 'war' is more proof that the dumbass* in office couldn't speak the truth if his life depended on it. (But that's okay. As we've clearly seen, he has little value for human life.)

[anarchy1999]

18. Dearest Toad,

This imbecile works for us the taxpayer. At least that is how the Constitution says it is supposed to be. We the people, the citizens, we are responsible for our government. We the people have lost sight of that, accountability is what Nader speaks of. Accountability is what Libertarians want. Accountability is what every 3rd party wants. Check out what the Independent Texans are all about.

If we all do not join together to remove this blight upon our country, if BushInc. gets 4 more years, "we the people" will cease to exist.

They will never carry any blood.

[anarchy1999]

19. kick to the front page................

we all have to be responsible!

[Karenina]

20. Fallujah is now a "done deal."

Next stop... Najaf. DO NOT THROW A MATCH ON THAT TAR BABY. I dunno, A99... your posts have renewed my faith in Americans. :loveya: MILLIONS IN THE STREETS ALL OVER THE WORLD were marginalized as a "focus group." But you ARE CORRECT. We all must do what we are able to do to STOP THIS MADNESS. My fear is that the chain reaction has already been set off...

[G_j]

24. kick

[genius]

22. Bush is Hitler's salvation. God can look at Hitler and say "He wasn't so

bad, comparatively."

[lostnfound]

26. kick to help with letters to the editor nt

[FreakinDJ]

27. So this is what the Germans felt when the Nazis took over

It has become more and more apparent we are now like the German citizens of Nazi Germany now. when asked many of them could not explain how the country had gotten in the condition it did

[i have issues]

28. Kudos A1999 and

you too FreakinDJ (I couln't have said how I feel more directly than..) "It has become more and more apparent we are now like the German citizens of Nazi Germany now. when asked many of them could not explain how the country had gotten in the condition it did"

[Beam Me Up]

29. In Solidarity with the Civilian Population of Falluja

:kick:

Edited to add: They Are Not My Enemies.

Edit: typo

[G_j]

30. not my enemies either n/t

[Karenina]

31. Kick!!!

:kick: