The Psychopaths and Fallujah Resistance
11/06/04 "ICH" -- As the hubris of the American election is passed, the people of Fallujah are under new massive US assault. The world “only” superpower is posed to flatten the city of 300,000 people in order to pacify (kill) its citizens because of their opposition to US Occupation. This new massacre is sold by the Bush Administration and mainstream Western media as a “necessary step to hold election” in Iraq.
The US took over the main hospital and converted to a military hospital. In other words, the people of Fallujah no longer have a hospital to treat injured men, women and children. The US Occupation forces are currently preventing men of age 14-60 years from leaving the city. It is a crime against humanity to massacre unarmed civilians. US forces are also preventing journalists from entering the city to report on the ongoing massacre of innocent civilians.
As I write, the BBC reports that the US strikes on the centre of Fallujah have completely destroyed the Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the centre of the city. There are no reports on casualties of a criminal attack on a hospital in the centre of the city. Can you imagine this happening in Manchester or Boston?
In April 2004, the first US massive attacks on Fallujah killed more than 1300 Iraqis, mostly innocent women and children, reported by AFP. The heroic Iraqi Resistance forced the Marines to capitulate, and Fallujah became the symbol of Iraqi Resistance to US Occupation.
According to Rahul Mahajan of Empire Notes, who was in Fallujah at the time of the siege in April 2004, “[o]f 20 people I saw come into the clinic I observed in a few hours, only five were "military-age males." I saw old women, old men, a child of 10 shot through the head; terminal, the doctors told me, although in Baghdad they might have been able to save him”.
Since then, the city has been under constant aerial bombardments by US forces killing many more innocent civilians. Reuter’s news agency reported on September 02, 2004, the US killed 17 people, including 3 children, a woman and an elderly man. Reuters reported on the night of September 07, 2004, US warplanes and helicopters “pounded Fallujah all night and killed ‘up to 100 militants’ according to US military; though local hospital sources reported ‘only’ 6 dead and 23 wounded”.
The new assault comes even as Iraqi Muslim Scholars denounced the aerial bombardments as “terrorist acts”. In a statement to Aljazeera, they pointed out that the victims of the US air strikes were “women and children, most of them less than 10-years old”. They urged the international community to earnestly work for an end to the US acts of aggression in Iraq.
The Fallujah community leaders tried to negotiate a peaceful solution, but the US forces refused any negotiation. Instead, the US forces through their spokesman, Iyad Allawi, tried to paint a distorted picture of the people of Fallujah and opted for “military solution”.
The pretext for this barbarity is that the US intended to kill a “terrorist” by the name of al-Zarqawi. According to the people of Fallujah, “al-Zarqawi does not exist. He is a made-up figure”. The US Occupation forces in Iraq have been claiming that al-Zarqawi and his Arab and non-Iraqi Muslim fighters are hiding out in Fallujah. Dr Muhammad al-Hamadani, a Fallujah resident told Aljazeera News that he had no knowledge about any non-Iraqi fighters in the town.
It appears that al-Zarqawi is replacing the old and elusive pretext of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Unlike the WMD pretext, the al-Zarqawi pretext is dangerous because the one-leg elusive man can move site. In other word, if al-Zarqawi is not found in Fallujah, the Bush Administration can say that he run to another city.
However, according to Article 50 of the Geneva Conventions, “[t]he presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character”. The Bush Administration is committing war crimes in violations of international law.
The Iraqi Resistance has revealed the limits of the US superpower. Fallujah is the symbol of resistance to US hegemony. Fallujah is an example the Bush and his gang of terror are obsessed with and they want to destroy it. Bush and his gang of terror naïvely think that if they succeed in Fallujah, they will succeed in the rest of Iraq. Fortunately, they proved to be dead wrong.
The election hubris is over, but the fight must continue to get the Bush and his gang of terror out of Iraq. A true progressive and anti-war movement must not allow these crimes to continue. The aims should be to stop the war and the true liberation of the Iraqi people from the Bush tyranny.
Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia. He can be reached at e-mail: G.Hassan@exchange.curtin.edu.au
The US took over the main hospital and converted to a military hospital. In other words, the people of Fallujah no longer have a hospital to treat injured men, women and children. The US Occupation forces are currently preventing men of age 14-60 years from leaving the city. It is a crime against humanity to massacre unarmed civilians. US forces are also preventing journalists from entering the city to report on the ongoing massacre of innocent civilians.
As I write, the BBC reports that the US strikes on the centre of Fallujah have completely destroyed the Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the centre of the city. There are no reports on casualties of a criminal attack on a hospital in the centre of the city. Can you imagine this happening in Manchester or Boston?
In April 2004, the first US massive attacks on Fallujah killed more than 1300 Iraqis, mostly innocent women and children, reported by AFP. The heroic Iraqi Resistance forced the Marines to capitulate, and Fallujah became the symbol of Iraqi Resistance to US Occupation.
According to Rahul Mahajan of Empire Notes, who was in Fallujah at the time of the siege in April 2004, “[o]f 20 people I saw come into the clinic I observed in a few hours, only five were "military-age males." I saw old women, old men, a child of 10 shot through the head; terminal, the doctors told me, although in Baghdad they might have been able to save him”.
Since then, the city has been under constant aerial bombardments by US forces killing many more innocent civilians. Reuter’s news agency reported on September 02, 2004, the US killed 17 people, including 3 children, a woman and an elderly man. Reuters reported on the night of September 07, 2004, US warplanes and helicopters “pounded Fallujah all night and killed ‘up to 100 militants’ according to US military; though local hospital sources reported ‘only’ 6 dead and 23 wounded”.
The new assault comes even as Iraqi Muslim Scholars denounced the aerial bombardments as “terrorist acts”. In a statement to Aljazeera, they pointed out that the victims of the US air strikes were “women and children, most of them less than 10-years old”. They urged the international community to earnestly work for an end to the US acts of aggression in Iraq.
The Fallujah community leaders tried to negotiate a peaceful solution, but the US forces refused any negotiation. Instead, the US forces through their spokesman, Iyad Allawi, tried to paint a distorted picture of the people of Fallujah and opted for “military solution”.
The pretext for this barbarity is that the US intended to kill a “terrorist” by the name of al-Zarqawi. According to the people of Fallujah, “al-Zarqawi does not exist. He is a made-up figure”. The US Occupation forces in Iraq have been claiming that al-Zarqawi and his Arab and non-Iraqi Muslim fighters are hiding out in Fallujah. Dr Muhammad al-Hamadani, a Fallujah resident told Aljazeera News that he had no knowledge about any non-Iraqi fighters in the town.
It appears that al-Zarqawi is replacing the old and elusive pretext of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Unlike the WMD pretext, the al-Zarqawi pretext is dangerous because the one-leg elusive man can move site. In other word, if al-Zarqawi is not found in Fallujah, the Bush Administration can say that he run to another city.
However, according to Article 50 of the Geneva Conventions, “[t]he presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character”. The Bush Administration is committing war crimes in violations of international law.
The Iraqi Resistance has revealed the limits of the US superpower. Fallujah is the symbol of resistance to US hegemony. Fallujah is an example the Bush and his gang of terror are obsessed with and they want to destroy it. Bush and his gang of terror naïvely think that if they succeed in Fallujah, they will succeed in the rest of Iraq. Fortunately, they proved to be dead wrong.
The election hubris is over, but the fight must continue to get the Bush and his gang of terror out of Iraq. A true progressive and anti-war movement must not allow these crimes to continue. The aims should be to stop the war and the true liberation of the Iraqi people from the Bush tyranny.
Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia. He can be reached at e-mail: G.Hassan@exchange.curtin.edu.au
posted by R7 | 11/06/2004 09:19:00 PM
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