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I Dread What Is Going to Happen in Fallujah |

Forwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE):   Free Americans Resisting the Fourth Reich on Behalf of All Species.   NOTE:  Thanks to Soula Culver for the first of these and to Judith Karpova for the other.   --  kl, pp. (  '?


           I Dread What Is Going to Happen in Fallujah
 By Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
 The Independent, London  October 25, 2004
 http://argument.independent.co.uk/regular_columnists/
 yasmin_alibhai_brown/story.jsp?story=575607


 -- It is not that I am ungrateful for minute mercies. It is a little
 heartening that some members of the hitherto pusillanimous herd of new
 Labour MPs have mooed in protest at the latest Blair/Hoon folly - the
 decision to send 850 British soldiers in to support the much-anticipated US
 assault on Fallujah. These Labour politicians and most commentators who
 object to the decision are anxious about "our boys", about what will happen
 to the soldiers in this volatile area.

  As I write this, 49 young recruits to the Iraqi army have been discovered
 lined up and shot. And don't believe the PR about Basra. Yes, British
 soldiers are less hated than Americans, but only marginally. I have
 recently met three people from Basra who are enraged that there is so much
 censorship of real news from that area. We are protected from learning
 about the catastrophic injuries, the rising hatreds and the scandalous lack
 of amenities.

  Each time it reports on Zimbabwe, the BBC sanctimoniously announces that
 it is not allowed to report freely from that country. Why not the same
 warning when it is covering Iraq, so we know we are only getting partial
 information? Even the gung-ho Daily Telegraph acknowledged in September
 that the British, unlike their American friends in the north of Iraq, "have
 tight control over the press in southern Iraq ... Army chaperones accompany
 journalists at all times to ensure they hear nothing more untoward than the
 odd squaddie expletive".

  We can all empathise with the terrible dread that must befall the homes of
 soldiers being sent on duty into this ugly war, particularly now. British
 soldiers know better than any of us just how complicated and brutal the
 situation is becoming. But to make them and only them the focus of the
 growing national anxiety about Fallujah is unforgivably immoral.

  Our boys joined up in full knowledge that they could be called upon to
 take up active duty. British citizens understandably care very much about
 these lives and the sacrifices the soldiers are making in a war that had no
 overwhelming mandate from the people. But they are soldiers, well armed and
 well looked after, unlike most of the people living in Fallujah and Najaf
 and elsewhere where (courtesy of the allies) there have been merciless
 bombings and countless deaths.

  Like millions of others around the world, I can hardly bear to think what
 fate awaits Fallujah, just what this post-US-election final solution will
 be and mean. It is what our boys will inflict that should concern us and
 that it doesn't appear to is further evidence of what terrorists claim -
 that Arab lives matter not at all to Western powers embarked on this
 mission to subdue and obliterate the independent Iraqi soul.

  If we cared at all, by now not a single Blair minister would be allowed by
 journalists to sidestep the central questions. How many Iraqis have died
 since the war started? How many were blameless civilians? Why don't you
 know? Why don't you want us to know? Where is your proof that all those you
 are killing are terrorists?

  Some information has come through. We know that in the past six weeks,
 there have been hundreds of civilians killed in attacks around Baghdad.
 Voices in the Wilderness (which works for justice in Iraq) claims that in
 Majar al-Kabir, British troops have been accused of indiscriminate killings
 and mutilations. In August, in Amara, north of Basra, a British battalion
 fired more rounds and killed more people than they did during the invasion
 itself. In Najaf there has been an orgy of killing by the allies.

  According to The Financial Times, US soldiers bragged that for every
 American killed, they took out up to a hundred Iraqis. Official figures
 show that coalition forces are suffering about 3,000 attacks a month, and
 the Pentagon now believes there are approximately 25,000 active and violent
 resisters in Iraq.

  We, the electorate, are expected to bless any actions taken by our troops
 and politicians because the targets are only "insurgents", "terrorists",
 "fundamentalists", supporters of the previous devil Saddam or the two
 emerging monsters, Muqtada Sadr and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. How do they know?
 Why should we believe them, even those of us who fear and despise the
 beheaders and kidnappers? Only a dozen or so attacks each month are claimed
 by Zarqawi, who is pitiless but really only in charge of a small, extremely
 vicious group.

  Fallujah is one of the most savagely attacked areas. And the reason is
 pure revenge. On 31 March, four Americans were killed and dismembered.

  An "overwhelming attack" was promised and is about to be delivered. At the
 time, US Lt-Gen James Conway warned that it would be wrong to be seen to be
 "attacking out of revenge". The intervening months have not managed to
 subdue the ferociously patriotic area. This is the Sharon method - to kill
 and maim unfortunates living in close proximity to rebel groups. Kill them
 before they grow. The UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has called this abomination
 by its name: he has described US military actions in Fallujah as
 "unacceptable collective punishments".

  Allied troops have been bombing the town every day. The only kebab shop
 has been turned to dust, a loss felt keenly by those who loved to break
 their Ramadan fast there with friends. Al-Jazeera has shown residential
 areas being demolished, entire families being wiped out. On one day this
 month, 50 houses bit the dust. Most of the Western media has been kept out.
 Food is running out; people are fleeing to nowhere; hospitals have no
 medical supplies but the wounded are piled up in there just so families can
 raise some hope.

  Ninety-nine per cent of Fallujans are opposed to the occupation. Ah, but
 they are Sunnis, we are told, another label, another group that is supposed
 to hate the war because they love Saddam. Yet most of these Sunnis
 co-operated with the allies in the early days of the war, and today the
 ultra-Shia movements, including those who support Sadr, are sending in
 secret reinforcements to their presumed ideological enemies. One American
 colonel has described the town as "the Cambodia of this war" and its people
 as "vipers". Others have promised absolute ruthlessness, a culling if you
 like, to show the country who is in charge.

  Now a poignant letter has gone out from Fallujah to Kofi Annan at the UN.
 It is from various groups, including the Bar Association, the Centre of
 Human Rights and Democracy, and the Teachers' Union: "Whenever they destroy
 houses, mosques, restaurants; when they kill children and women, they say
 'we have launched a successful operation against Zarqawi.' We, the people
 of Fallujah, assure you that this person, if he exists, is not in this
 city... We simply didn't want the occupation. That is our right according
 to the UN charter, international law and the norms of humanity."

  And for this insubordination, for such outlandish demands, their city is,
 in a few weeks, going to be flattened, left quiet and sloshing with Arab
 blood. Bush and Blair will make speeches no doubt and claim it has all been
 in the name of democracy and freedom. Makes sense doesn't it? We will kill
 and maim you and yours until you agree to our demands to accept our
 domination and say you are ecstatic to be given this "freedom" and the
 right to vote from the grave.
 y.alibhai-brown@independent.co.uk
 Copyright: The Independent


 Mary Luckey
 Professor
 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
 San Francisco State University
 1600 Holloway Ave.
 San Francisco, CA 94132

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