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U.S. MEDIA APPLAUDS DESTRUCTION OF FALLUJAH<br>
____________________________________________________________________<br><br>
News & Analysis: Middle East: Iraq<br>
<a href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/fall-n17.shtml" eudora="autourl">http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/fall-n17.shtml<br>
</a>By David Walsh<br><br>
Not a single major voice has been raised in the American media against
the<br>
ongoing destruction of Fallujah. While much of the world recognizes<br>
something horrifying has occurred, the US press does not bat an eye
over<br>
the systematic leveling of a city of 300,000 people.<br><br>
A journalist for the Times (London) described the scene the night the
US<br>
onslaught began: "The districts comprising Fallujah's
perimeter--where most<br>
of the insurgents are concentrated--were already largely in ruins.
The<br>
crumbling remains of houses and shell-pocked walls reminded me of my
home<br>
town Beirut in the 1980s at the height of Lebanon's civil war.... I
began<br>
to count out loud as the bombs tumbled to the ground with
increasingly<br>
monotonous regularity. There were 38 in the first half-hour alone.
The<br>
bombing continued in waves until 5:15 a.m. as the American forces
softened<br>
up their targets."<br><br>
And now? Buildings have been destroyed by the hundreds, corpses
buried<br>
under many of them. A Christian Science Monitor reporter observes:
"Some<br>
districts reeked from the sickening odor of rotting flesh, a stench
too<br>
powerful to be swept away by a brisk breeze coming in from the sandy
plain<br>
surrounding the city 40 miles west of Baghdad.<br><br>
"A week of ground combat by Marines and some Iraqi troops, supported
by<br>
tanks and attack helicopters, added to the destruction in a city where
the<br>
homes and businesses for about 300,000 people are packed into an area
a<br>
little less than 2 miles wide and a little more than 2 miles long. ...
Cats<br>
and dogs scamper along streets littered with bricks, broken glass,
toppled<br>
light poles, downed power lines, twisted traffic barriers and spent<br>
cartridges. Walls are full of bullet holes. Marines have blown holes
in<br>
walls and knocked down doors to search homes and shops. Dead Iraqis
still<br>
lay out in the open Monday."<br><br>
For all intents and purposes, the US military declared any male in
Fallujah<br>
and any family unlucky enough to be caught in the hail of deadly
fire<br>
legitimate targets for death. We will perhaps never know how many
civilians<br>
have been slaughtered by US forces.<br><br>
The chief United Nations human rights official, Louise Arbour, has
called<br>
for an investigation of abuses, including the disproportionate use of
force<br>
and the targeting of civilians. Arbour claimed that all violations
of<br>
international humanitarian and human rights laws should be
investigated,<br>
including "the deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate
and<br>
disproportionate attacks, the killing of injured persons and the use
of<br>
human shields." The American media either ignores or brushes this
aside.<br><br>
In none of the US media commentaries is there a single expression
of<br>
concern about not merely the moral, but the legal issues involved in
the<br>
attack on Fallujah. The American military operation in the city is
an<br>
illegal act of aggression in an illegal, aggressive war.<br><br>
As Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law,
executive<br>
vice president of the National Lawyers Guild and the US representative
to<br>
the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists, has
noted,<br>
the attack began with an act contravening international law: "They
[US<br>
forces] stormed and occupied the Fallujah General Hospital, and have
not<br>
agreed to allow doctors and ambulances to go inside the main part of
the<br>
city to help the wounded, in direct violation of the Geneva
Conventions."<br><br>
Cohn continues: "Torture, inhuman treatment, and willful killing are
grave<br>
breaches of the Geneva Conventions, treaties ratified by the United
States.<br>
Grave breaches of Geneva are considered war crimes under our federal
War<br>
Crimes Act of 1996. American nationals who commit war crimes abroad
can<br>
receive life in prison, or even the death penalty if the victim dies.
Under<br>
the doctrine of command responsibility, a commander can be held liable
if<br>
he knew or should have known his inferiors were committing war crimes
and<br>
he failed to prevent or stop them. ... Bush's aggressive war against
the<br>
people of Iraq promises to kill many more American soldiers and
untold<br>
numbers of Iraqis. Nuremberg prosecutor Justice [Robert] Jackson
labeled<br>
the crime of aggression 'the greatest menace of our times.' More than
50<br>
years later, his words still ring true."<br><br>
There has been nothing like the attack on Fallujah since the Nazi
invasion<br>
and occupation of much of the European continent--the shelling and
bombing<br>
of Warsaw in September 1939, the terror bombing of Rotterdam in May
1940.<br>
All the talk about precision bombing in Iraq is dust thrown in the
public's<br>
eyes. The purpose of the devastation in Fallujah is to terrorize the
Iraqi<br>
people and the entire population of the Middle East. Large numbers
of<br>
people have been killed in the assault on the city.<br><br>
Nowhere in the American media do you find a word of protest. No one
asks<br>
for verification that the city is being held "hostage" by
criminals and<br>
"foreign terrorists." No one questions an operation to
"root out" a<br>
relative handful of terrorists that requires razing a city to the
ground.<br><br>
It is necessary to put this on record. In the future, people will ask:
what<br>
did you do and say while Fallujah was being destroyed? If readers can
find<br>
major newspaper or television editorials denouncing the murderous
attack,<br>
by all means, send them in to the WSWS. We have searched in
vain.<br><br>
This is what we found.<br><br>
The New York Times editors complain that the onslaught in Fallujah
"is not<br>
the textbook way to conduct a counterinsurgency campaign" and worry
that<br>
the city's decimation may be a "very costly victory," because
of the<br>
hostility it will breed in the Sunni population, but never question
the<br>
morality or legality of the attack.<br><br>
The Times' real concern is for the fraudulent elections scheduled
for<br>
January, designed to give the occupation a pseudo-democratic
veneer.<br>
"Insurgents have now stepped up their attacks in the larger city of
Ramadi,<br>
30 miles west of Falluja," the editors write, "and have
established a new<br>
base in the northern Iraq metropolis of Mosul. It is critical to keep
these<br>
armed fighters from disrupting the Iraqi elections planned for
January."<br><br>
The editors of the Washington Post too are nervous about the
long-term<br>
prospects in Iraq, but assert that "the prospective restoration
of<br>
government rule and the elimination of an open haven for terrorists
[in<br>
Fallujah] is a significant step forward, provided that rule can be<br>
sustained and bolstered with reconstruction and participation in
upcoming<br>
national elections." The Post transmits to its readers, without any
proof<br>
whatsoever, the claim that "reported casualties so far have been
relatively<br>
light."<br><br>
Along the same lines, the Boston Globe criticizes Bush
administration<br>
policy for making the attack on Fallujah necessary, but signs on to
the<br>
operation: "Given everything that has gone wrong in the
intervening<br>
period--after all the mistakes of omission and commission made by
President<br>
Bush and his advisers--Fallujah could not be left as a sanctuary
and<br>
spawning ground for thousands of insurgents who aspire either to restore
a<br>
Saddamist police state or to impose a harsh Islamist
theocracy."<br><br>
After its initial hesitation, the Globe warms to the task: "For the
taking<br>
of Fallujah to be successful, there must be enough well-trained and<br>
reliable Iraqi security forces to keep the dispersed insurgent bands
from<br>
filtering back in. Then other cities in the Sunni area will have to
be<br>
cleared one at a time of Ba'athist and Islamist
reactionaries."<br><br>
The cynical position of these "liberal" newspapers was summed
up in the<br>
stance of the Los Angeles Times, whose editors comment: "Iraqi
insurgents<br>
based in Fallouja presented U.S. military forces with two choices, one
bad<br>
and the other worse. Marines opted for the bad one Monday, assaulting
the<br>
city with the understanding that civilians as well as fighters would
be<br>
killed and Arab passions would be inflamed far outside Fallouja and
Iraq.<br>
The worse option was to do nothing, cede the town to the guerrillas
and<br>
make it a model for other cities in Iraq."<br><br>
For whom is this a "worse option"? The Iraqi people, the
American<br>
people--or the US ruling elite and its military? While carping about
this<br>
or that tactical issue, the liberal media establishment makes clear that
it<br>
easily prefers the colonial-style occupation of Iraq--and all that
goes<br>
with it, including the destruction of Fallujah--to its alternative,
the<br>
defeat and forced withdrawal of American forces.<br><br>
We feel obliged to ask: is there a limit beyond which the editors of
the<br>
Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the
Boston<br>
Globe would not find halting US military operations in Iraq the
"worse<br>
option"? The razing of two major urban centers, five, a dozen? Two
hundred<br>
thousand dead Iraqis, half a million, one million? We would seriously
like<br>
to know.<br><br>
The majority of the American press does not bother to go through the
ritual<br>
of expressing reservations about the political costs of the
Fallujah<br>
attack. They smell blood and seem to like the scent.<br><br>
The San Francisco Chronicle, published in an area where antiwar
sentiment<br>
is widespread, makes no bones about its bloodlust: "The success of
the<br>
present operation will be gauged in part by how well U. S. commanders
hold<br>
down their own casualties and those of Iraqi counterparts--and of
Iraqi<br>
civilians sheltering in Fallujah--while crushing any insurgents who stay
to<br>
fight. ... The anti-guerrilla crackdown that is supposed to accompany
the<br>
emergency decree needs to be more successful than what the U.S.
military<br>
and interim Iraqi leaders have been able to accomplish thus
far."<br><br>
USA Today is forthright, declaring in an editorial, "The battle must
be<br>
fought. The training of Iraqi forces delayed it. But as the U.S. and
others<br>
have learned the hard way, guerrilla wars are about more than
taking<br>
territory. Capturing Fallujah will open a new period that could
determine<br>
whether the insurgents will be protected by the populace, or rejected
in<br>
favor of peace."<br><br>
The Good Samaritans at the Christian Science Monitor, spiritual heirs
to<br>
Mary Baker Eddy, whose Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
was<br>
"the culmination of her own life-long search for a spiritual system
of<br>
healing," bare their fangs in a particularly vile manner:<br><br>
"The battle for Fallujah will go down in history as a textbook
example of<br>
urban warfare. The US military used the most advanced technology and
the<br>
best street-fighting tactics to hunt down the entrenched insurgents
while<br>
keeping civilian casualties to a minimum.<br><br>
"But the message of Fallujah isn't the prowess of the United States
but its<br>
tenacity.<br><br>
"Having failed last April to retake that small Sunni city, the US
could not<br>
again afford to appear weak to the would-be voters of Iraq. With
elections<br>
planned for late January, Iraqis had to be shown that the US
military,<br>
along with the fledgling Iraqi Army, will keep eliminating safe
sanctuaries<br>
for hostage-taking terrorists and bombmaking insurgents."<br><br>
The argument that the retaking of Fallujah represents a vital step in
the<br>
"democratization" of Iraq is a common theme in the American
press.<br><br>
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorializes: "Despite its
fearsome<br>
costs--through Friday, some 18 U.S. troops and five Iraqi soldiers
were<br>
killed, along with 600 insurgent fighters--there is little doubt
that<br>
Fallujah had to be retaken. The city is the headquarters for Iraq's
Sunni<br>
Muslim minority, and without Sunni participation January's elections
could<br>
be considered illegitimate."<br><br>
The Toledo [Ohio] Blade: "Fallujah had to be taken away from the
resistance<br>
if the scheduled January elections are to have any credibility. An<br>
important population center like Fallujah simply cannot be allowed
to<br>
remain outside the control of the interim government and U.S.
forces."<br><br>
The Modesto [California] Bee: "As the elections of a national
assembly<br>
near, U.S. and Iraqi forces confront a rebel movement that is determined
to<br>
disrupt the voting and, more broadly, to make Iraq ungovernable.
Thus<br>
Washington has only one realistic option: Beat back the rebel
offensive<br>
wherever it surfaces, despite the risk of increasing alienation among
Iraqi<br>
Sunnis."<br><br>
The Oregonian [Portland, Oregon]: "Fallujah is the center, or at
least a<br>
center, of the armed opposition to Iraq's efforts to establish a
democratic<br>
regime. That probably means this week's attack is a necessary condition
for<br>
any kind of election to go forward. The new government, even with the
help<br>
of the United Nations, cannot conduct free, fair elections if rebels
can<br>
control whole cities and launch murderous, intimidating attacks from
them."<br><br>
None of these newspapers' editors question the logic of a
nationwide<br>
election and an entire "democratic" process supposedly made
possible by the<br>
extermination of a city and the massacre of the national popular
resistance<br>
forces.<br><br>
Certain editors go out of their way to pay tribute to the American
military.<br><br>
Comments the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "In the annals of war, there
has never<br>
been a fighting force as capable as the Americans of waging urban
warfare<br>
with weaponry and tactics more attuned to the need to avoid innocent
loss<br>
of life. Fallujah was a citywide safe house for all manner of bad
guys,<br>
beheaders and insurgents. It was an open taunt that prevented
political<br>
progress and future amity among the ethnic and religious groups in Iraq.
It<br>
had to be shut down."<br><br>
The editors of the Des Moines Register echo this sentiment,
"America's<br>
magnificently trained and equipped fighting forces are again on display
in<br>
the long-awaited offensive to retake Fallujah from the Iraqi
insurgents.<br>
There's little doubt the troops can prevail militarily. Let us also
pray<br>
that their bravery and sacrifice will be rewarded in the larger sense
of<br>
bringing enough stability to Iraq to hold elections."<br><br>
No doubt similar tributes were paid to the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe in
the<br>
German press of 1939-40. In reality, the "battle for Fallujah"
was entirely<br>
one-sided. US military and technical superiority over the Iraqi
resistance<br>
is as great, if not greater, than the American army's advantage over
their<br>
Indian opponents in the 1870s and 1880s.<br><br>
The openly right-wing press can hardly conceal its glee over
"payback" in<br>
Fallujah. The Indianapolis Star proclaimed in an editorial, "The
U.S.-led<br>
military offensive under way in Fallujah against Iraqi insurgents was
long<br>
overdue. 'We are determined to clean Fallujah from terrorists,'
interim<br>
Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said on Monday. A hotbed of
insurgent<br>
activity for months, Fallujah and other cities surrounding Baghdad must
be<br>
cleared of resistance so the country can proceed with elections in<br>
January."<br><br>
The headline of the Charleston [South Carolina] Post and Courier
editorial<br>
is quite explicit: "No option but force for Fallujah." The
comment lays the<br>
blame for the annihilation of the city squarely on the shoulders of
those<br>
who sought to defend it from the American occupiers. "The fanaticism
of the<br>
al-Qaida-led terrorists and the obduracy of hard-line Sunni insurgents
left<br>
no other alternative to the all-out offensive launched yesterday by
a<br>
15,000-strong force of U.S. Marines and Army troops, backed by units of
the<br>
newly formed Iraqi Army. ... Now it is up to the U.S. Marines and Army,
who<br>
are spearheading the thrust into Fallujah, to rid the city of its nest
of<br>
vipers."<br><br>
The [Phoenix] Arizona Republic editorial carries the headline,
"Fallujah<br>
must fall." It argues that "with perhaps thousands more rebels
massed in<br>
the city west of Baghdad, the Marines and Army must charge forward
once<br>
again. It is a hellish business, fighting street by narrow street, and
our<br>
prayers go with the young soldiers, as well as their Iraqi army allies.
...<br>
With a Fallujah teeming with terrorists, insurgents and
fundamentalist<br>
anarchists, the planned national elections are jeopardized. ... That
means<br>
Fallujah must be freed of terrorist control."<br><br>
The Boston Herald proclaims that the "Fight for Fallujah is a fight
for us<br>
all." The tabloid's editors write: "The fight for Fallujah
remained<br>
unfinished business for far too long. It was a nest of terrorist
vipers<br>
last spring, when the charred and dismembered bodies of two
American<br>
contractors were hung from one of the bridges over the Euphrates. And
it<br>
was allowed to continue to grow and to fester--until now."<br><br>
So much for the American "free press," free only of any
commitment to<br>
democratic principles, honesty and truth.<br><br>
Copyright 1998-2004 World Socialist Web Site. All rights
reserved.<br><br>
*****<br>
____________________________________________________________________<br><br>
FALLUJAH: MURDER MADE RESPECTABLE<br>
____________________________________________________________________<br><br>
ONLINE JOURNAL<br>
Commentary<br>
November 17, 2004<br>
<a href="http://onlinejournal.com/Commentary/111704Heard/111704heard.html" eudora="autourl">http://onlinejournal.com/Commentary/111704Heard/111704heard.html<br>
</a>By Linda S. Heard<br>
Online Journal Contributing Writer<br><br>
Iraq is under martial law, complete with curfews and press restrictions.
A<br>
report in the prestigious Lancet says 100,000 Iraqi civilians have
been<br>
killed since the start of the invasion. Unemployment is running at
70<br>
percent, kidnappings and beheadings are rife, while the breakdown
in<br>
security has driven every international aid agency out of the
country.<br><br>
But never mind, Fallujah--a town of 300,000 souls of which many
have<br>
already met their Maker--has finally been pacified. That'll teach them
to<br>
lay off foreign mercenaries in future. Oops! I mean contractors, of
course.<br>
Congratulations USA!<br><br>
Now that all is right with the world, some 200,000 exiled civilians
can<br>
return home, provided they still have one that is. A report in the
Los<br>
Angeles Times describes the city as "a tableau of destroyed
buildings,<br>
burned-out cars, battered mosques and piles of rubble." No building
was<br>
sacrosanct including hospitals and clinics.<br><br>
The fate of those who stayed behind because they have nowhere else to go
or<br>
did not want to abandon their belongings and valuables is
uncertain.<br>
Reports of families burying their dead in gardens, eking out an
existence<br>
on flour or dates, bleeding to death without medical assistance or
becoming<br>
ill after drinking contaminated water paint an ugly picture.<br><br>
We have yet to discover how many newly minted orphans there are,
courtesy<br>
of the Marines, such as five-year-old Aysha Saleem who lost her parents
and<br>
grandparents in one of the US military's "precision strikes."
Indeed, we<br>
may never know as the mouths of reporters embedded with the troops open
and<br>
close according to military diktats.<br><br>
We would never know how US soldiers are breaching the Geneva
Conventions<br>
but for a renegade video aired by Australian ABC television. In it,
a<br>
Marine shouts: "I've just injured one. He's between two
buildings." One of<br>
his colleagues walks over to a tiny alleyway separating two houses,
climbs<br>
up onto a metal drum, and fires his weapon in cold blood. "He's
done," he<br>
announces flippantly.<br><br>
We may never learn whether his victim, exterminated like a rat, was
a<br>
hardcore foreign fighter, a local insurgent or merely a male resident
of<br>
Fallujah prevented from leaving. Men aged between 15 and 55 were
either<br>
rounded up or forced to fight to stay alive. Members of the Scottish
Black<br>
Watch regiment, whose job they say is to patrol the "rat run,"
confirmed<br>
the status of fleeing Iraqis as rodents.<br><br>
In a further breach of the Geneva Conventions, US troops prevented a
Red<br>
Crescent convoy of emergency aid from reaching the main Fallujah
hospital,<br>
where wounded residents have been forbidden from entering.<br><br>
Yet even though the stench of human flesh pervades their nostrils,
one<br>
Marine held to the view: "We will win the hearts and minds of
Fallujah by<br>
ridding the city of insurgents. We are doing this by patrolling the
streets<br>
and killing the enemy." Those who have lost mothers, daughters, sons
and<br>
brothers to his bountiful nature will, no doubt, be grateful.<br><br>
Another such enlightened soldier, Lt. Col. Gareth Brandl, told the
BBC:<br>
"The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He lives in
Fallujah." Others<br>
of his ilk were holding evangelical ceremonies or dressing up as
gladiators<br>
for chariot races, using horses confiscated from Iraqis, in the mold of
the<br>
movie Ben Hur.<br><br>
A third, a music lover, was quoted as saying: "Only two songs send a
shiver<br>
up my spine. The Marine hymn, and that song by Toby Keith after 9-11
which<br>
says 'we're gonna kick you up the ass--that's the American way."
The<br>
majority of US soldiers in Iraq still believe the lie that Saddam
Hussein<br>
had links to Osama Bin Laden and the attacks on America.<br><br>
For the 48 percent of Americans who voted against the Bush doctrine,
this<br>
is not the American way. They include a former Marine Staff Sergeant
James<br>
Massey from Waynesville, North Caroline, who told the WSW website:
"We're<br>
committing genocide in Iraq."<br><br>
He describes his disillusionment thus: "We were like a bunch of
cowboys who<br>
rode into town shooting up the place. I saw charred bodies in vehicles
that<br>
were clearly not military vehicles. I saw people dead on the side of
the<br>
road in civilian clothes." He recalls how his trigger-happy
compatriots<br>
mowed down 30 civilians at a checkpoint on a single day.<br><br>
Iraq's Girl Blogger who pens Baghdad Burning is similarly angry
over<br>
Fallujah. She writes: "Iraqis will never forgive this. Never!
It's<br>
outrageous. It's genocide and America--with the help and support of
[Iyad]<br>
Allawi--is responsible."<br><br>
The land of deprivation, death and degradation, which Iraq has become
due<br>
to US intervention, is there for all to see but where is the outrage?
Why<br>
aren't decent people of every faith up in arms?<br><br>
Author and philosopher George Orwell may have the answer. "The
nationalist<br>
not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side,
but<br>
he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about
them."<br><br>
"Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful
and<br>
murder respectable" goes another of Orwell's remarkable
insights.<br><br>
But the politicians aren't the only ones to blame for the horror<br>
masquerading as the spread of democracy. Extremist religious leaders
are<br>
just as culpable as is a supine media, which despite its various mea
culpas<br>
over its failure to say it like it is, has once again stifled
truth.<br><br>
Think about it. How can individuals, fighting for their own freedom
against<br>
a foreign power in the towns and cities of their birth and protecting
their<br>
wives and children, possibly be "terrorists"?<br><br>
And by the same token why should those rampaging foreign armies
whose<br>
members believe freedom extends to being able to play video games
be<br>
labeled honorable? Such is the big lie, and one that is the duty of
all<br>
those who are able to cut through the propaganda, to quash.<br><br>
There is but one truth for the vast majority of Iraqis. They want no
more<br>
pretty promises, corrupt plutocrats, superpower pawns or deviant
torturers.<br>
Amid a growing insurgency, most of all, they want the invaders and
their<br>
military hardware gone. Who of sound mind and compassionate heart
can<br>
possibly blame them?<br><br>
Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs.
She<br>
welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at<br>
heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.<br><br>
Copyright © 1998-2004 Online Journal. All rights reserved.<br>
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