CONTROLLED
PRESS IGNORES
CRIMINAL
OBLITERATION OF FALLUJAH
By Christopher Bollyn
American
Free Press
The
controlled press has scrupulously avoided discussing the devastation
and prima facie evidence of war crimes committed during the U.S.
siege and assault of Fallujah.
As Americans prepared for Thanksgiving,
an estimated 100,000 residents of the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah, trapped in their homes, struggled to
survive without fresh food, water or electricity, reportedly cut off by
U.S.
forces on November 8.
Meanwhile, on the streets of Fallujah,
a city of more than 350,000, dogs gnawed on bloated and rotting corpses
that remained unburied for weeks.
Thousands of families in Fallujah were
reported to be in a critical humanitarian situation after U.S.
forces prevented the delivery of relief supplies. An Iraq Red Crescent
Society (IRCS) humanitarian aid convoy, reportedly blocked by U.S.
troops for more than two weeks, was allowed to deliver aid to residents
in the heart of the city on November 25.
On Thanksgiving, U.S.
forces permitted the IRCS convoy carrying thousands of food parcels,
blankets, tents and medical supplies to enter the city and allowed one
of the clinics to be converted into a temporary hospital to treat the
injured. Rana Sidani of the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, Switzerland
however, told American
Free Press on Nov. 30 that
"many civilians" were still prevented from receiving aid or medical
care.
At the beginning of the U.S. operation in Fallujah on Nov. 5, a
hospital in the central Nazzal district of Fallujah was "reduced to
rubble" as a result of U.S. air and artillery
bombardment. "Only its façade, with
a sign reading Nazzal
Emergency Hospital, remained intact,"
Reuters reported.
"A nearby compound used by the main Falluja Hospital to store medical
supplies was also destroyed," witnesses told Reuters. Fallujah's main
hospital was occupied by U.S. forces when the ground
offensive began. These actions are
apparent violations of international humanitarian law.
"Bodies can be seen everywhere and
people were crying when receiving the food parcels," Muhammad al-Nuri,
a spokesman for the IRCS in Baghdad,
said. "It is very sad. It is a human
disaster."
Al-Nuri said that it is difficult to
move in the city due to the large number of dead bodies in the streets. The ICRS estimates there are more than 6,000
dead in Fallujah, al-Nuri said.
AFP asked Major Jay Antonelli at the
Coalition Press Information Center (CPIC) in Baghdad if the ICRS estimate of 6,000
dead in Fallujah was credible. "We do not
keep a count of dead Iraqis," Antonelli said. Asked the same question,
the ICRC's Sidani said, "We don't know."
Antonelli said, "U.S. forces never blocked
aid convoys from reaching the wounded. We
only recommended to the aid convoys that they should not enter the city
because the MNF [Multi-National Forces] could not guarantee their
security or safety."
"The ICRC is very worried about the
humanitarian situation in Falluja," Sidani said. Asked
what the ICRC was doing to alleviate the suffering in Fallujah, Sidani
said: "We are reminding the parties of their responsibilities under
international humanitarian law."
It should be noted that the U.S.A. and Britain, the belligerent occupying
powers in Iraq,
are the two largest contributors to the ICRC, providing more than 42
percent of its budget for field operations.
A second convoy from Baghdad, headed
by Dr. Said Ismael Haki, the IRCS president, delivered aid to Fallujah
on Nov. 26. "There are no houses left in Fallujah, only destroyed
places." Haki said. "I really don't know
how the people will return to the city. No one will find their homes."
As U.S.
troops in Fallujah engaged in what has been described as the most
intense urban combat since Vietnam, the controlled
press scrupulously avoided discussion or footage of the devastation of
the rebellious Sunni city. For example,
during the second week of the attack, rather than discuss the
widespread devastation of Fallujah, U.S. television news programs focused
largely on a brawl between basketball players and fans in Detroit.
Lt. Col. Brandl, commander of the 1st
Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, was filmed giving a "pep
talk" to his marines: "The enemy has got a face - he's called Satan,"
Brandl said. "He's in Fallujah, and we're
going to destroy him."
At least 136 U.S. soldiers were killed during
November in Iraq,
and more than 800 were wounded, most of them in Fallujah, making it the
most costly month, and operation, in terms of U.S. lives lost since the invasion of Iraq
began in March 2003.
FOR WHAT CAUSE?
Michael Ware, Baghdad bureau chief for Time magazine, who has
been in Fallujah during the fighting, said U.S. actions in Fallujah
are "creating the nightmare that we are seeking to prevent."
"I stood there as I saw American boys
die," Ware told Chris Matthews of MSNBC on Nov. 24, "I mean, a man shot
at close range, blown apart by a rocket propelled grenade.
He dies there in front of you and I can't help but think why? For what cause?
"I see us creating the very thing that
the president said we went there to prevent," Ware said, "...subsequent
to this invasion and the occupation and the guerrilla war that is
currently underway, we are the midwives of the next generation of al
Qaida and Islamic terrorist."
Ware, who has interviewed senior
insurgent leaders, said they study the writings of the Vietnamese
general Vo Nguyen Giap, Che Guevara, and Mao Zedong.
"They're bringing it straight from the Vietnam, and the broader
insurgency playbook," Ware said.
"The name of the game is deny the
population to the insurgents," Ware said. "That's what we're trying to
do, win hearts and minds. But we're not
winning them."
The U.S. struggle to win Iraqi hearts and
minds suffered a further set back when NBC TV broadcast footage of a U.S.
marine executing a wounded and unarmed Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque. The much-publicized shooting, apparently part
of a massacre of a group of wounded resistance fighters, "was a rare
crack in the façade that Washington, with the complicity of
most of the corporate media, has tried to present to the world of its
brutal assault on the rebel Iraqi city," Rohan Pearce wrote in The Greenleft Weekly Australia on Nov. 24.
The New York Times has reported
actions taken by U.S.
forces in Fallujah, which appear to be prima facie evidence of war
crimes, without mentioning that the actions constitute clear violations
of the Laws of Land War found in the U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10.
For example, a Nov.
20 Times article by Edward
Wong, with two correspondents in Fallujah, reports that U.S.
marines had transformed a mosque into a fortress with snipers and
machine gunners perched on the roof.
Then, using the passive form, Wong goes
on to say that "no neutral group has been able to enter the city,"
without mentioning that U.S. forces blocked
humanitarian aid convoys. Likewise, Wong
wrote, "Electricity and water had been cut off."
The Times, whose motto is
"All the news that's fit to print," apparently didn't think that it's
readers needed to know the U.S. forces had cut off the
water and power to a city of 340,000 people.
Asked if U.S.
forces had cut power and water to Fallujah, Maj. Jay Antonelli of CPIC
wrote: "MNF did, with approval of the
Interim Iraqi Government, cut off electricity to the city of Fallujah as
Operation Al-Fajr began. Water was not cut
off intentionally, however the water system did sustain some kinetic
damage during strikes."
American Free Press asked the
Pentagon's Lt. Col. Joe Yoswa if it is true that U.S. forces were using
mosques as fortresses. "It's not
possible," Yoswa said. "Under no circumstances. We
would not set up snipers in a mosque in an offensive position."
CPIC's Antonelli said: "MNF would not
use a mosque as a 'fortress.' MNF and Iraqi security forces would only
fire from a mosque if they were being fired upon and were firing back
in self-defense."
Abu Sabah, a refugee from Fallujah,
reported seeing phosphorus bombs: "They used these weird bombs that put
up smoke like a mushroom cloud. Then small pieces fell from the air
with long tails of smoke trailing behind them. These
exploded on the ground with large fires that burnt for half and hour,"
Abu Sabah said. "When anyone touched these fires their bodies burnt for
hours."
Eyewitnesses from Fallujah also
reported seeing "melted" bodies.
"THROW-AWAY SOLDIERS"
Having seen what appeared to be a
depleted uranium (DU) missile fired at a building in Fallujah on CNN
during the first week of the fighting, AFP asked the Pentagon if DU
weapons are being used in Fallujah. "Yes," Yoswa said, "DU is a
standard round on the M-1 Abrams tank."
Because U.S. marines in Fallujah
are very close to the poison gas produced by exploded DU shells, AFP
asked Yoswa if anything was being done to protect the troops from DU
poisoning. Yoswa seemed unaware of the
dangers posed by the use of DU.
Marion Fulk, a retired nuclear
scientist from Livermore National Lab told AFP that U.S.
troops in DU contaminated battlefields are considered "throw-away
soldiers." The Marines exposed to DU in
Fallujah, and elsewhere, face greatly increased risks of cancer,
deformed children, and other health problems in the future.
OBLITERATION OF FALLUJAH
The "obliteration of Fallujah" is a
serious war crime, according to Francis A. Boyle, a professor of
international law at the University
of Illinois. "The obliteration of Fallujah continues
apace," Boyle wrote in his Nov. 15 article, A War Crime in Real Time:
Obliterating Fallujah. "Article 6(b) of the 1945 Nuremberg Charter
defines a Nuremberg War Crime in relevant part as the 'wanton
destruction of cities, towns or villages.' According to this definitive
definition, the Bush administration's destruction of Fallujah
constitutes a war crime for which Nazis were tried and executed."
Finis
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