The US murdered Fallujah

What do we compare this to? The devastation by US bombing of the Cambodian countryside during the spring of 1970? Or is the crushing of the Jewish resistance in Warsaw by the German SS during World War II a more apt comparison?


The bodies of Jewish resisters lie in front of the ruins of a building where they were shot by the SS during the suppression of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. The original German caption reads: ``Bandits killed in battle." Photo credit: Poland National Archives; Source: A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust


Body of young boy in rubble of bombed home, Fallujah, Iraq, November 2004...The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, said Thursday, November 11, 2004 that ``hundreds and hundreds of insurgents" have been killed and captured. Photo Credit: Dahr Jamail

The comparisons above I propose for discussion undoutedly will anger many fine Americans, who simply cannot allow in their minds the possibility that Bush's war is something other than a righteous pursuit of justice and democracy. The thought that the US military has acted in Iraq like the Nazi Stormtroopers of World War II, crushing resistance to occupation without regard for Geneva Conventions or the humanity of the Iraqis, is just not something jingoistic Americans are prepared to accept.

But, if true, this testimony forces us to discuss such comparisons:

On 9 November American marines came to our house. My father and the neighbour went to the door to meet them. We were not fighters. We thought we had nothing to fear. I ran into the kitchen to put on my veil, since men were going to enter our house and it would be wrong for them to see me with my hair uncovered. "This saved my life. As my father and neighbour approached the door, the Americans opened fire on them. They died instantly.

"Me and my 13 year old brother hid in the kitchen behind the fridge. The soldiers came into the house and caught my older sister. They beat her. Then they shot her. But they did not see me. Soon they left, but not before they had destroyed our furniture and stolen the money from my father's pocket."

Hudda told me how she comforted her dying sister by reading verses from the Koran. After four hours her sister died. For three days Hudda and her brother stayed with their murdered relatives. But they were thirsty and had only a few dates to eat. They feared the troops would return and decided to try to flee the city. But they were spotted by a US sniper.

Hudda was shot in the leg, her brother ran but was shot in the back and died instantly. "I prepared myself to die," she told me. "But I was found by an American woman soldier, and she took me to hospital." She was eventually reunited with the surviving members of her family.

I also found survivors of another family from the Jolan district. They told me that at the end of the second week of the siege the US troops swept through the Jolan. The Iraqi National Guard used loudspeakers to call on people to get out of the houses carrying white flags, bringing all their belongings with them. They were ordered to gather outside near the Jamah al-Furkan mosque in the centre of town.

On 12 November Eyad Naji Latif and eight members of his family-one of them a six month old child-gathered their belongings and walked in single file, as instructed, to the mosque.

When they reached the main road outside the mosque they heard a shout, but they could not understand what was being shouted. Eyad told me it could have been "now" in English. Then the firing began. US soldiers appeared on the roofs of surrounding houses and opened fire. Eyad's father was shot in the heart and his mother in the chest.

They died instantly. Two of Eyad's brothers were also hit, one in the chest and one in the neck. Two of the women were hit, one in the hand and one in the leg. Then the snipers killed the wife of one of Eyad's brothers. When she fell her five year old son ran to her and stood over her body. They shot him dead too. Survivors made desperate appeals to the troops to stop firing.

But Eyad told me that whenever one of them tried to raise a white flag they were shot. After several hours he tried to raise his arm with the flag. But they shot him in the arm. Finally he tried to raise his hand. So they shot him in the hand....

See also this entry at Darh Jamail's weblog.

The testimony describes blatant war crimes carried out by US forces and gross violation of black-letter international law:

Geneva Convention IV, Article 32:

The High Contracting Parties specifically agree that each of them is prohibited from taking any measure of such a character as to cause the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons in their hands. This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture, corporal punishments, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment of a protected person, but also to any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents.

Will this ever end? Will anyone ever be held responsible for these crimes? It seems that those responsible for managing this brutal policy just receive promotions, as the former death squad manager and chief US "diplomat" in Iraq during the siege of Fallujah has now received a nomination to become Director of National Intelligence.

These are sad and freightening times. Thanks to Past Peak: Cause for Alarm for the link to the Information Clearing House story.