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Notícies :: guerra |
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Iraq, últimas noticias: la batalla se extiende a Bagdad.
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per SunTzu |
10 nov 2004
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La resistencia se está reunificando, ataques a soldados americanos en varias zonas de Iraq. Distritos enteros de Bagdad (ad-Durha, Hur Rajab, Abu Ghurayb, al-‘Abidi, as-Suwayrah, Salman Bak, al-Latifiyah y al-Yusufiyah) controlados por los mujaidines. Ataques a las fuerzas de ocupación y al entorno del Primer ministro Allawi. |
LAST IN: Fight Extends To Baghdad: Resistance Unifies, Controls Baghdad Districts
Nov 10, 2004
By Muhammad Abu Nasr, Free Arab Voice; Edited by JUS
As was widely expected, the Iraqi resistance in Baghdad was not about to let US occupation forces massacre Fallujans by turning a blind eye. As joint statement has been released, the resistance imposed a Baghdad and seized control of some districts.
Resistance Pounds US Forces From Behind Their Lines, Conflict Widens
Mujahideen forces are seeking to expand the liberation war throughout the predominantly Sunni regions of Iraq. A statement from the Resistance disclosed that the Mujahideen intend to spread the struggle from al-Fallujah to Baghdad after fierce attacks by Mujahideen outside al-Fallujah wrecked havoc in the rear of the attacking Americans. Resistance forces pounded them with more than 200 rockets in unprecedented barrages Tuesday night through to Wednesday night. Unlit mobile rocket launchers have been passed to Mujahideen behind US lines under cover of darkness to strike the enemy from where he does not expect it.
Mujahideen Units Issue Unified Declaration; Imposes Curfew On Baghdad
In a dispatch posted at 1:05am Mecca time (2:05am Baghdad time Wednesday morning, the local correspondents for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the city was virtually clear of US troops, all American forces and their puppet police and puppet “national guardsmen� confining themselves to their fortress bases after the Mujahideen imposed a curfew on the Iraqi capital.
Explosions could be heard all over the city, as resistance fighters struck targets US and Allawi targets.
Informed sources have confirmed that the Mujahideen have imposed its control on the entirety of 60 Street in the southern suburb of ad-Durha, on Hur Rajab, Abu Ghurayb, al-‘Abidi, as-Suwayrah, Salman Bak, al-Latifiyah, and al-Yusufiyah in the greater Baghdad area, after a day of unprecedented attacks throughout the area timed to coincide with the US drive at al-Fallujah.
Today marks the first time since the occupation of Baghdad that the Mujahideen have been able to impose its control over all these districts, in what represents a major defeat for the American invader troops, putting them back to square one and robbing them of the fruits of their months of occupation.
Joint Statement Released
At this time, all detachments of the Iraqi Resistance are united in the struggle against US aggression. A joint statement issued by Resistance organizations was received by Mafkarat al-Islam, carrying the signatures of:
• Tawhid wa-al-Jihad
• Ansar as-Sunnah
• Al-Jaysh al-Islami
• The Secret Army. (al-Jaysh as-Sirri)
• The Black Banners (ar-Rayat as-Sawda’)
• The Abu Bakr as-Siddiq Brigades
• The Lions of the Two Rivers
• The Brigades
This is also the first time that these detachments of the Iraqi Resistance have issued a unified declaration. The statement also urged its distribution widely among the Iraqi people through mosques and in areas controlled by the Iraqi Resistance. The statement ordered the curfew in the city and ordered the people not to leave their houses as the Resistance patrolled the city.
At this filing, the resistance remains strong in Fallujah. A tank platoon that moved along a street in Fallujah engaged fighters who had just come under mortar fire climb onto rooftops and fire rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and machineguns.
"There are lots of them. We took heavy fire," Gunnery Sergeant Ishmail Castillo told Reuters. "They opened up on my tank. They don't look like they are going to cave in" he said.
These reports are now forcing the US to admit its meeting tough resistance.
Omar al-Faris, JUS, also contributed to this report |
Mira també:
http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=100464&list=/home.php
http://www.jihadunspun.com
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This work is in the public domain |
Comentaris
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Video de un ataque a un comboy norteamericano
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per Stz |
10 nov 2004
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http://barcelona.indymedia.org/media/all/display/9203/index.php |
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Re: Iraq, últimas noticias: la batalla se extiende a Bagdad.
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per alegrame el dia |
10 nov 2004
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despierta!
dispara!
un gringo!
en tu casa!! |
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Re: Iraq, últimas noticias: la batalla se extiende a Bagdad.
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per zst |
10 nov 2004
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Kortatu!!
¿quien dijo eso de "Punk is dead"? |
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Re: Iraq, últimas noticias: la batalla se extiende a Bagdad.
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per tuturu |
10 nov 2004
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el punk muerto?juasjuasjas ke kolgao el ke dijo eso kizas este muerto en grupos comerciales pero el punk sigue y seguira existiendo.
este sabado concierto en el CSO la pilona(cabañal valencia) kostranostra, grupo de riesgo y zenka.
punk! |
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Re: Iraq, últimas noticias: la batalla se extiende a Bagdad.
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per al-sadr |
10 nov 2004
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SALIM!! SALAAM!! SADAM HUSSEIN!! |
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Diario de la resistencia iraqui
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per suntzu |
11 nov 2004
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Duros combates en Faluya, donde los ocupantes dicen controlar el 70% de la ciudad mientras 200 soldados colaboracionistas desertan. / La resistencia toma barrios enteros de Ramadi, Baquba y combate en Mosul. / Secuestrados tres familiares del primer ministro colaboracionista, Alaui. / Los grupos suníes llaman al boicot a las elecciones y un partido abandona el gobierno colaboracionista. / El gobierno colaboracionista decreta el estado de emergencia. / El gobierno colaboracionista prohíbe declaraciones de sus funcionarios a Al Jazeera. / Atentado contra el colaboracionista Ministro de Hacienda. / El número de muertos de las fuerzas ocupantes es de 1.286, de ellos 1.140 son estadounidenses.
[Foto superior: marines estadounidenses gravemente heridos en la batalla de Faluya antes de ser trasladados]
3-10 de noviembre
Duros combates en Faluya, donde los ocupantes dicen controlar el 70% de la ciudad. El asalto definitivo se puso en marcha el lunes, tras la declaración del estado de emergencia dictada por el gobierno colaboracionista de Alaui, y en él participan unos 20.000 soldados, entre ocupantes y colaboracionistas, apoyados por bombardeos aéreos y tanques Abrahms. Son ya tres días de combates y los ocupantes dicen controlar el 70% de la ciudad, aunque el grueso de los defensores parece haber abandonado la ciudad hacia otros lugares para extender la lucha. El primer día tomaron el principal hospital de la ciudad deteniendo a 50 personas-, situado en el lado occidental de la ciudad. Muchos pacientes fueron reunidos en los vestíbulos y registrado el hospital en busca de insurgentes, según el relato efectuado por Salih Issawi, jefe del hospital. Las primeras informaciones de los combates dan una cifra de muertos relativamente pequeña respecto al número de combatientes implicados: 71 defensores de la ciudad, 10 marines y 2 soldados colaboracionistas. Habrían sido destruidos al menos un vehículo Bradley, un tanque Abrahams y un helicóptero habría sido derribado, así como un avión de reconocimiento no tripulado, derribado mientras sobrevolaba el centro de al ciudad. No hay cifras sobre las víctimas civiles, aunque los reportes de la prensa árabe hablan de destrucción total de hospitales, ambulancias, casas y mezquitas. Más de la mitad de las 120 existentes en la ciudad habrían sido total o parcialmente alcanzadas por el fuego artillero de los ocupantes. La insurgencia se ha dirigido a los medios de comunicación para que vean cómo defienden la ciudad. Los pocos periodistas que aún permanecen en la ciudad son todos iraquíes y están siendo permanentemente hostigados por los ocupantes, que la pasada semana volvió a asesinar a un cámara de Reuters. Con anterioridad al asalto, el día 6, el consejo de los Ulemas publicó una llamada a "los comandos, grupos, secciones y miembros de la resistencia" en todo Iraq para que aumenten al máximo sus acciones contra los invasores y los colaboracionistas. El consejo solicita "atacar y destruir todos los blancos militares vitales, incluyendo ministerios, oficinas de la administración [colaboracionista], lugares donde los agentes y los elementos del supuesto ejército y policía se encuentren" y llama a la rebelión civil en caso de que se realizase el asalto a Faluya. También pide a los ciudadanos que eviten las áreas y lugares donde se encuentran los colaboracionistas para evitar ser víctimas de las acciones de la resistencia. Ese mismo día, las fuerzas ocupantes tuvieron que reconocer que un oficial del ejército colaboracionista había desertado con informes sobre el asalto a Faluya. El oficial, un capitán, era el comandante de una compañía de 160 hombres y de nacionalidad kurda. No fue el primero. Otros 200 soldados abandonaron sus unidades por lo que consideraron "ultraje" a sus conciudadanos y ataques a la población civil, al tiempo que seguían el llamamiento de la Organización de Ulemas que, el lunes, declaró "ilícito" colaborar con las tropas ocupantes que atacan Faluya. [Fuentes: Al Jazeera, IPS,Knight Ridder Newspapers, New Standard, Associated Press y Reuters. Elaboración: CSCAweb]
La resistencia toma barrios enteros de Ramadi, Baquba y combate en Mosul. La ofensiva de la resistencia contra el asalto a Faluya se produjo en otras ciudades. En Ramadi, donde lograron que las tropas ocupantes se retirasen de la ciudad hacia sus bases y donde la población colgó de las ventanas de sus casas banderas y pancartas en solidaridad con los resistentes de Faluya. En Baquba, donde se atacaron las comisarías de la policía colaboracionista en los distritos de Wahda, Tahrir y Mafraq causando la muerte de 52 policías. En Mosul, donde en los barrios del sureste se están produciendo enfrentamientos directos con los soldados estadounidenses. [Fuente: France Press, Europa Press y Middle East on Line. Elaboración: CSCAweb]
Secuestrados tres familiares del primer ministro colaboracionista, Alaui. Se trata de un primo del primer ministro, su esposa y la nuera del primo. El secuestro se produjo en su domiciio del barrio de Qadissiya, en el centro de Bagdad y el hecho ha sido reconocido por un responsable del partido Alianza Nacional, que dirige el propio Alaui. [Fuente: Europa Press. Elaboración: CSCA]
Los grupos suníes llaman al boicot a las elecciones y un partido abandona el gobierno colaboracionista. La ofensiva contra Faluya ha provocado el llamamiento oficial de los grupos suníes a boicotear las elecciones previstas para el 27 de enero de 2005.al mismo tiempo, el Partido Islámico de Iraq, que formaba parte del gobierno colaboracionista con el ministro de Industria, ha abandonado el gabinete de Alaui en señal de protesta. El dirigente de este partido, Moceen Abdelhamid, acusó a Alaui de "legalizar el derramamiento de sangre de los iraquíes en colaboración con las tropas de ocupación". [Fuente: Al Jazeera y agencias. Elaboración: CSCAweb]
Decretado el estado de emergencia por dos meses. El gobierno colaboracionista ha decretado el estado de emergencia por 60 días en todo el país a excepción del norte kurdo. Tanto el ejército ocupante como el colaboracionista, y la policía, pueden allanar impunemente hogares y lugares de trabajo en búsqueda de sospechosos de colaborar con la resistencia; interceptar paquetes, cartas o cualquier tipo de comunicación que consideren conveniente; restringir el transporte y el tránsito de vehículos, entre otras medidas. Los períodos de encarcelamiento pueden ser de hasta 3 años y las medidas pueden ampliarse por un período de tiempo de 30 días más cuando finalice el actual estado de emergencia. [Fuente: Al Jazeera y Reuters. Elaboración: CSCAweb]
El gobierno colaboracionista prohíbe declaraciones de sus funcionarios a Al Jazeera. Según una orden enviada el pasado día 30 de octubre a todos los ministerios, el gobierno colaboracionista de Alaui ha prohibido a sus funcionarios, sean del rango que sean, llevar a cabo entrevistas o dar declaraciones a la televisión vía satélite Al Jazeera.. Las oficinas de esta cadena de televisión están cerradas desde hace varios meses. [Fuente: KUNA. Elaboración: CSCAweb]
Atentado contra el colaboracionista Ministro de Hacienda. El dirigente del Consejo Supremo de la Revolución Islámica, Abd Adil al Mahdi, ha salido ileso de un atentado en el que ha muerto uno de sus guardaespaldas. [Fuente: Al Jazeera. Elaboración: CSCAweb]
Parte de guerra de la resistencia:
Día 1:
La resistencia frustra una tentativa de avance de los ocupantes en Faluya, matando a un soldado e hiriendo a otros 6. En Ramadi se destruyó un vehículo artillado Bradley. En el suburbio de Durah se derribó un avión de espionaje no tripulado. Seis pistoleros de las Brigadas Badr (pertenecientes al Consejo Supremo de la Revolución Islámica), muertos en una emboscada en la calle Haifa, de Bagdad y otros dos capturados en la vecindad de Al Ilam, también en la capital. Destrucción de un vehículo Bradley cerca de la mezquita de Ibn Taymiya. En el área de Jabbur al Arab, fuerte batalla con destrucción de dos vehículos armados, un Humvee y un Bradley; las tropas de EEUU abrieron fuego contra los civiles, matando a 8 y destruyendo 5 casas; cuatro combatientes de la resistencia murieron, 3 fueron heridos y los ocupantes tuvieron 18 bajas. Dos británicos muertos en Al Mahawil. Dos soldados ocupantes, muertos en Al Masafi. Tres soldados ocupantes, uno de ellos mujer, muertos en ataque contra un convoy de agua y provisiones en Amiriya, en Bagdad. Secuestrados un estadounidense, dos árabes y un nepalí. Destrucción de un vehículo Bradley en Al Mushahada. Ejecución del diputdo-marioneta Abd Hatim Kamil y seis de sus guardaespaldas en una acción en Durah. Ejecución de un colaborador de la Brigada Badr en Salman Bak y otros cuatro pistoleros en el área de Ash Sahb, de Bagdad. Dos soldados ocupantes muertos en ataque cerca de Abu Ghraib. Bombardeo de las bases de EEUU en Tikrit. Cuatro soldados daneses muertos y uno herido en ataque en el camino de Al Mafal, en el sur de Iraq. Ataques contra la base de Suqur, el aeropuerto internacional, en Bagdad.
Día 2:
Nueva tentativa de entrar en Faluya y nuevo rechace; tres combatientes de la resistencia resultaron heridos. Tres soldados ocupantes muertos en ataque en Abu Grhraib. 8 individuos a quienes se consideraba agentes del sionista servicio Mossad, muertos en ataque en la vecindad de An Naft. Tres oficiales de inteligencia de EEUU muertos en la carretera de Al Hurriya. Ejecución de dos pistoleros de la Brigada Badr. Muerte de dos marines en Abu Ghraib. Ataque con cohetes Katyusha a la base de Balad. Captura de un soldado ocupante en Samarra. Cuatro policías colaboracionistas muertos en ataque contra la comisaría en Basora. Ataques contra la base de Suqur, el aeropuerto internacional y la "zona verde" de Bagdad.
Día 3:
Ejecución de tres miembros de la colaboracionista Brigada Badr en Zafaniyah. Ejecución de Ali Husayn, funcionario colaboracionista del Ministerio del Petróleo, cuando salía de su casa en el distrito de Al Qadisiyah. Destrucción de un vehículo Bradley en Al Adl. Ataque con cohetes Katyusha contra la base de Al Madmudiya, de Bagdad. Muerte de tres soldados ocupantes en Latifiya. Muerte de dos pistoleros de la Brigada Badr en Abu Tayyarah. Ataque contra un vehículo Humvee, muriendo cuatro soldados de EEUU y resultando herido muy seriamente su traductor libanés. Ataque contra la base de Suqur y la jefatura de los colaboracionistas en Azamiya, en Bagdad.
Día 4:
Ataque contra una columna ocupante en tre Al Karmah y Abu Ghraib. Tres soldados británicos del regimiento Black Watch muertos en ataque al norte de Bagdad. Dos soldados de EEUU muertos en Ridwaniya, al sudoeste de Bagdad. Cuatro colaboracionistas muertos y cinco heridos en emboscada contra el ejército colaboracionista en al-Mahmudiya. 7 soldados de EEUU y un combatiente de la resistencia muertos en combate tras una emboscada en Hur Rajab. Destrucción de un Humvee en Salman Bak. Dos marines muertos en Duywaliba, al sudoeste de Bagdad, al ser destruido su Humvee. Un oficial del colaboracionista Partido Dawa fue ejecutado en el barrio de al Mansur, de Bagdad. Trs colabotradores de la Brigada Badr muertos en ataque de la resistencia en ad-Durah. Seis soldados de EEUU y 7 traductores colaboracionistas, muertos cuando un mártir de la resistencia hizo explotar un coche bomba en el camino al aeropuerto, cerca del Club Equestre de Bagdad. Tres soldados de EEUU muertos y dos heridos en ataque en Latifiya. Un comandante de la Brigada Badr ejecutado en Basora. Ataques contra la "zona verde", el aeropuerto internacional y la base de As Suqur, en Bagdad.
Fuente: Free Arab Voice |
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Sadam Hussein es carne de electrodos...¿quién piensa en él ahora?
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per stz |
11 nov 2004
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Dear friends,
Are you wondering why/how the reports from Falluja have become so bland?
Please read these frightening reports emerging from Falluja, consider sharing them with others, and take action to stop these horrors. jamie
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US Covering up Civilian Casualty Count By Destroying Hospitals
Concerned American 11 Nov 2004 03:45 GMT
The US has destroyed or occupied every hospital in Falluja prior to their unprecedented assult. This is a violation of international war crimes laws, and will result in increasing the civilian casualty count dramatically. Worse still, they targetted those hospitals intentionally to prevent word from getting out about what they are doing there.
The US bombed one hospital in Falluja to the ground over the weekend. Then we seized the main hospital, removed all 50 doctors, and replaced them with 4 new doctors. According to Al Jazeera, and one BBC reporter, Iraqis are not being allowed into the hospital unless they are wearing the uniform of the Iraqi military. Yesterday we bombed the only remaining medical center in the city. We have no specific information about how many civilians were in the hospital and the clinic that we blew up, but presumably hundreds or maybe thousands. All three of these medical sites were reportedly overflowing with a combination of volunteers, patients crammed into every available corner and the street out front, doctors, and staff when they were bombed.
Blowing up a large, urban, civilian hospital while it is crammed full of innocent people clearly meets any definition of a war crime.
Likewise, occupying a civilian hospital and preventing civilian access is specifically forbidden under the fourth geneva convention. The general in charge of the operation gave the following as the reason that these hospitals were not protected targets- they were identified as sources of anti-American propaganda. What he means by anti-American propaganda is that, like the UN, CARE, the Red Cross and the Lancet Institute, the hospitals had been reporting numbers of civilians killed by the US to the international media that are higher than the numbers that the military acknowledges. We blew up the hospitals because we didn't want the world to know how many civilians we were going to be killing in Falluja, and they were the only institutional source for that information that the outside world has in Falluja right now. All of the other organizations have been locked out, or have left out of concerns over the safety of their staff. Now, the only institutional source of civilian casualty counts in Falluja is the US military. The hospitals were public relations targets.
So, we no longer have accurate numbers for civilian casualties in Falluja, but Al Jazeera and the BBC each have one brave reporter inside the city. They can't provide us statistics, but they do provide anecdotal information. Stories about parents holding their children for 8 hours while they died in their arms after a bomb was dropped next door, unable to even attempt to seek medical attention, a BBC reporter that saw dozens of families killed before he decided that it was too dangerous to go outside, etc. I think that it is safe to say that the numbers will include thousands of innocent civilians. Some anecdotal information says that the majority of buildings in the city have been destroyed already. Even an embedded CNN reporter claimed that virtually every building that she had seen was either completely destroyed or seriously damaged by bombing. If that is true, the civilian casualties will be in the tens of thousands over the course of just a few days. But, because of the military's careful move to shut down the channels of information, we will never know the actual numbers.
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US media and liberal establishment: accomplices in the assault on Fallujah
By: WSWS on: 10.11.2004 [07:01 ] (129 reads)
(10999 bytes)
Statement of the World Socialist Web Site editorial board
9 November 2004
A murderous operation is under way in Fallujah and the entire media and political establishment in the US is an accomplice in the crime. The unfolding massacre in the Iraqi city has failed to elicit an outcry, or even significant questioning of the assault, from these circles.
No editorialist at a major newspaper or television news commentator has even hinted at moral qualms over the American onslaught. Not one columnist at the New York Times or Washington Post thinks Fallujah worth mentioning. Last week’s Democratic Party presidential hopeful hasn’t a word to say.
This universal complicity is the symptom of a terminal malaise. The upper echelons of American society are hopelessly corrupted and morally decayed.
Even as thousands of marines poured into Fallujah in an attempt to eradicate the Iraqi resistance fighters, American commentators blandly spoke of the action as the most natural and uncontroversial of events. Here is a city, surrounded and cut off, whose male population between the ages of 15 and 50 faces being “put to the sword� by the US military, and no one in the media can stir himself to raise an objection.
The deliberate demolition of a major urban center by a great power is unlike anything since World War II. The phrases used by the media—warplanes and tanks are “softening the defenses;� the city of 300,000 is being “cleansed� of insurgents—are meant to conceal from the American public the true character of the assault: a homicidal operation aimed at destroying a major source of opposition to the colonialist US occupation and its puppet regime.
Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian (“Screams Will Not be Heard�) notes the foul and unreal character of the American propaganda war: “The city is being ‘softened up’ with precision attacks from the air. Pacifying Fallujah has become the key to stabilising the country ahead of the January elections. The ‘final assault’ is imminent, in which the foreigners who have infiltrated the almost deserted Iraqi city with their extremist Islam will be ‘cleared,’ ‘rooted out’ or ‘crushed.’ Or, as one marine put it: ‘We will win the hearts and minds of Fallujah by ridding the city of insurgents. We’re doing that by patrolling the streets and killing the enemy.’�
With only those journalists “embedded� with US forces on the scene, Bunting points out, “In an age of instant communication, we will have to wait months, if not years, to hear of what happens inside Fallujah in the next few days.�
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s assurances that “There aren’t going to be large numbers of civilians killed, certainly not by US forces,� are worth less than nothing, coming from a notorious war criminal. Rumsfeld’s comment that innocent people will be able to stay out of the way and that only the “terrorists� will be killed simply means that all the future dead in Fallujah will be labeled “insurgents� by the Pentagon. Or, as a US military official told Agence France-Presse, “There is no confusion, if you’re on the street, you’re a bad guy. Ninety percent of the population has left.�
That would still leave 30,000 people in the city, presumably all of whom are fair game for lethal American weaponry. Rumsfeld promised that this time the operation in Fallujah, known as “Phantom Fury,� would be pursued to the end. “I could not imagine that it would stop without being completed,� he said.
Bloodthirstiness pervades the American media, as it attempts to brutalize public opinion. On Fallujah, the differences between the right-wing gutter press and the more respectable liberal outlets are hardly worth speaking of.
Ralph Peters in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post advises the US military “to burn out the plague of fanaticism and prove to Iraq’s people that the forces of terror will not be allowed to enslave them. We need to demonstrate that the United States military cannot be deterred or defeated. If that means widespread destruction, we must accept the price.�
The “liberal,� pro-Democratic Detroit Free Press speaks contentedly of “breaking the back of the insurgency� and hopes that “if thousands of them are killed in Fallujah� other Iraqi fighters may draw the conclusion that resistance is “no longer worth it.� The New York Times takes the opportunity on the day of the assault to editorialize on the need for 40,000 more US troops in Iraq.
This disgusting blood lust dominates official America, under conditions in which tens of millions have registered their opposition to the war through protests, polls and in the recent elections. Some 80 percent of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s 55 million voters—or 44 million people—oppose the Iraq war. This sentiment is being systematically excluded and suppressed.
People from all walks of life are against the war and its latest, even more deadly phase. There are countless political organizations, scholars and experts who could testify to the conflict’s criminality and the real, but concealed, motives behind the US intervention. Yet the American establishment has not seen fit to allow anyone who opposes the Iraq war to make his or her case in front of the media. There is no equal time here—in fact, no time at all. This alone belies the claim that the conflict in Iraq has something to do with “democracy.�
All the noisy chatter in the media cannot hide the shameful reality. Bush’s election, won by terrorizing and deceiving the public, is now being used to legitimize past crimes and justify new and even greater ones. Whatever the political confusion that exists in the US, the massacre in Fallujah does not express the will of the American people.
The battle is obscenely one-sided and, on the American side, thoroughly cowardly. The US military employs the most modern and horrific weapons to eradicate a few thousand lightly armed fighters.
An Iraqi journalist told Al Jazeera, “US tanks, armoured vehicles, F16 and C130 fighters are taking part in the attack on Fallujah. Violent clashes are now going on in the western areas of the city. US forces are backed by tanks and helicopters. Clashes have also erupted in Julan neighbourhood. Resistance in these areas is fierce. The city’s defenders are responding to the US attacks with everything at their disposal.�
In an attempt to justify the destruction of Fallujah, the stooge government headed by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and the Pentagon claim the resistance is composed of “terrorists� and “criminals.� But even in the American media, this Big Lie cannot be completely sustained. Darrin Mortenson, in the North County California Times, writes: “After the Marines’ last advance on Fallujah was halted in early April 2004, the troops held onto their hard-fought foothold in the first few blocks of the city while the politicians politicked and the planners planned.
“They realized they were up against not only entrenched fanatics and foreign fighters, but also against a city full of patriotic Iraqi civilians defending their city. Many said they would be doing the same if someone attacked their hometown, and admired the tenacity of their enemy.�
Only the most stupid and dishonest in the media deny that mass opposition to the US presence exists and increases on a daily basis. Yet this fact is not allowed to contradict the general presentation of the American mission as “nation-building� and “democratizing.�
Vietnam bequeathed the infamous phrase about “destroying a village to save it.� Now, US imperialism is engaged in destroying an entire country to “save� it.
What is the crime of the resistance forces in Fallujah—even if one accepts the unproven and dubious claims about the presence of alleged arch-terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi? That they resist by force of arms a foreign occupier, who has designs on the country’s territory and natural resources.
If this is a crime, then so was the resistance to the Hitler regime’s occupation of much of Europe. Why not retroactively endorse the repression meted out by the Nazis to the French or Italian resistance? Perhaps it is time to recognize the essential wisdom and maturity of German policy during World War II. After all, the Nazis too claimed that their opponents were “terrorists� and “criminals.�
There is no serious examination in the American media of the opposition in Iraq. Who are these people? Why are they fighting? Who is dying at the hands of the American military? These questions interest the embedded journalists and their superiors at home almost as little as they interest the Pentagon.
The US media treats the butcher Allawi, his hands dripping with blood, as the “legitimate� Iraqi head of state. This once and future CIA asset visited the main US base outside Fallujah and exhorted his troops—those who had not deserted—with the following words: “Your job is to arrest the killers, but if you kill them, so be it.� The press reports this filth without comment.
During the Vietnam War, sections of American elite public opinion turned against the government’s policy. The level of violence itself delegitimized the conflict, not only in the eyes of masses of people, but even among some sections of the political and media establishment. It was not possible then, nor is it today, to ascribe “democratic� and “progressive� aims to a war that entails the deliberate mutilation or death of hundreds of thousands of innocents.
Some 100,000 Iraqis are now dead as a result of the US occupation. Fallujah will add many more. This willingness to raze a city to the ground because it has become a pole of resistance to imperialist occupation sums up the entire Iraq conflict.
The city will be leveled to “teach a lesson� to the Iraqis and anyone else who dares resist the American drive to dominate the globe. Retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson told the Wall Street Journal, “This is primarily a political battle. Fallujah has little to no military significance. But every day the insurgents hold that city is a political and psychological victory for them.�
In other words, what is being carried out in Fallujah is a policy of exemplary and collective punishment—a practice associated with the Nazi SS and Wehrmacht, and explicitly labeled a war crime and banned under the post-war Geneva Conventions.
The assault on Fallujah will resonate across generations as an atrocity. Despite the torrent of lies and misinformation, the truth will emerge. If the American military pursues its aims to the murderous end, the name of the Iraqi city will take its place alongside Guernica, My Lai and other symbols of imperialist barbarism |
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