The Sinister Plan . . . (Fallujah) . . .

[OneBlueSky]

according the a Metafilter poster, "there are only two ways to describe the US army plans for Falluja: either 'American gulag' for those who enjoy Stalinist imagery, or 'concentration camp' for those who prefer the Nazi version of the same" . . .

The Sinister Plan:
The chilling reality of what Fallujah has become is only now seeping out, as the American military continues to block almost all access to the city, whether to reporters, its former residents, or aid groups like the Red Crescent Society
by Michael Schwartz
OutLook India
December 21, 2004

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20041221&fname=fallujah&sid=1

The chilling reality of what Fallujah has become is only now seeping out, as the American military continues to block almost all access to the city, whether to reporters, its former residents, or aid groups like the Red Crescent Society. The date of access keeps being postponed, partly because of ongoing fighting -- only this week more air strikes were called in and fighting "in pockets" remains fierce (despite American pronouncements of success weeks ago) -- and partly because of the difficulties military commanders have faced in attempting to prettify their ugly handiwork. Residents will now officially be denied entry until at least December 24; and even then, only the heads of households will be allowed in, a few at a time, to assess damage to their residences in the largely destroyed city.

With a few notable exceptions the media has accepted the recent virtual news blackout in Fallujah. The ongoing fighting in the city, especially in "cleared" neighborhoods, is proving an embarrassment and so, while military spokesmen continue to announce American casualties, they now come not from the city itself but, far more vaguely, from "al Anbar province" of which the city is a part. Fifty American soldiers died in the taking of the city; 20 more died in the following weeks -- before the reports stopped. Iraqi civilian casualties remain unknown and accounts of what's happened in the city, except from the point of view of embedded reporters (and so of American troops) remain scarce indeed. With only a few exceptions (notably Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post), American reporters have neglected to cull news from refugee camps or Baghdad hospitals, where survivors of the siege are now congregating.

Intrepid independent and foreign reporters are doing a better job (most notably Dahr Jamail, whose dispatches are indispensable), but even they have been handicapped by lack of access to the city itself. At least Jamail did the next best thing, interviewing a Red Crescent worker who was among the handful of NGO personnel allowed briefly into the wreckage that was Fallujah.

A report by Katarina Kratovac of the Associated Press (picked by the Washington Post) about military plans for managing Fallujah once it is pacified (if it ever is) proved a notable exception to the arid coverage in the major media. Kratovac based her piece on briefings by the military leadership, notably Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commander of the Marines in Iraq. By combining her evidence with some resourceful reporting by Dahr Jamail (and bits and pieces of information from reports printed up elsewhere), a reasonably sharp vision of the conditions the U.S. is planning for Fallujah's "liberated" residents comes into focus. When they are finally allowed to return, if all goes as the Americans imagine, here's what the city's residents may face:

* Entry and exit from the city will be restricted. According to General Sattler, only five roads into the city will remain open. The rest will be blocked by "sand berms" -- read, mountains of earth that will make them impassible. Checkpoints will be established at each of the five entry points, manned by U.S. troops, and everyone entering will be "photographed, fingerprinted and have iris scans taken before being issued ID cards.

- more . . .

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20041221&fname=fallujah&sid=1

[wug37]

1. This had been noticed a week or so ago

and it's still just as disgusting then as it is now. I've been waiting for secondary reports about this to come out, supporting the Boston Globe's report on it, and now those are coming out. We have to do something to stop this slide we are taking into Nazi fascism now before it's too late to do anything about it.