Lies of the state: Ramadi 2006

Developing massacre, information blackout

Except for a small article published in the Los Angeles Times last Sunday, we are getting no news about a major escalation in the US attack against the Iraqi city of Ramadi.

LA Times: The image pieced together from interviews with tribal leaders and fleeing families in recent weeks is one of a desperate population of 400,000 people trapped in the crossfire between insurgents and U.S. forces. Food and medical supplies are running low, prices for gas have soared because of shortages and municipal services have ground to a stop.

U.S. and Iraqi forces had cordoned off the city by Saturday, residents and Iraqi officials said. Airstrikes on several residential areas picked up, and troops took to the streets with loudspeakers to warn civilians of a fierce impending attack, Ramadi police Capt. Tahseen Dulaimi said.

Smashing of the city over the last week was described further in a posting at Free Iraq, a website sympathetic to Iraqi anti-colonial resistance, past and present:

Islam Memo: (Saturday June 10, 2006, 9 at morning) ``A full scale American attack on Ramadi has commenced and fierce fighting is taking place in most districts of Ramadi. American helicopters withdrew from the area after one of them was hit by Resistance fire but was not downed. American fighter planes are now taking part in the offensive.''

Flashpoints carried an interview yesterday evening with Rana, an independent Iraqi journalist now in Amman, Jordan and who was in Falluja during its destruction in late 2004.

Rana: [In second siege of Falluja in 2004] ...the Americans were shooting everywhere... they were shooting not at specific things, but everything that was moving in the streets. And the signs... It's similar, the same signs that we did have at this stage before they started the siege of Ramadi. First, they start with the airstrikes that destroy more houses and more buildings... And what they did at Falluja, the first thing they did at Falluja General Hospital... [they] arrested the doctors and patients, even some people who had surgery at this time. The entered the operation room and arrested them.

Rana goes on to describe the continuing and totally unreported humanitarian disaster that continues to this day concerning the internally displaced people from Falluja. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of people from Ramadi now face this fate.

Good hearted folks trying to help Iraq, these Americans are, eh? That is what you may think after reading the shameless propaganda piece on the White House website. It does say more about Ramadi than nearly the sum total of the entire world media beyond what the LA Times has reported. Here's how the White House describes the Ramadi operation.

Securing Ramadi: Terrorists/insurgents have been focusing on destabilizing Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, both to undermine the government in that province and as a transfer point and staging ground for attacks elsewhere.

Coalition Action: Coalition forces are working with the Iraqi Government to stabilize the city by keeping the pressure on terrorists/insurgents while recruiting, training, and fielding Iraqi army units to serve in and around Ramadi. A locally recruited police force is also being built.

It all sounds so benign, so justified. But these are lies of the state. As in Falluja in November 2004, it looks like we can expect a whole new episode of rampant war crimes--like the destruction of medical facilities and denial of care for injured persons--as an entire Iraqi city of 1/2 million is razed and its population displaced. The policy appears to be collective punishment. The Americans have taken a decision that widespread resistance to occupation must be met with sacking of an entire city. America has decided that the entire population is America's enemy--including all the men, the women, and the children. What better definition of tyranny is there? America outdoes Saddam's Anfal campaign with its actions. Ramadi pays the price.