Falluja and Guernica

by iosaf Sun Nov 07, 2004 15:22

History not only gives us the impression that Franco's coup d'etat was legitimate but since the present day constitution of Spain still considers it to be a legitimate regime, modern day Spanish law sees it so.
- A fact which complicates the exhumation and proper burial of those victims of fascism (estimated at many many thousands) who died in that period.
- A fact which only last October led the current Zapatero adminstration to "annul" the execution warrent and charges of treason which saw the elected President of Catalonia a constituent republic of the 2nd Spanish republic extradited from Vichy France by the Gestapo and shot in Barcelona. The only elected head of state to be executed in Europe in the XX century.
- A fact which saw the IU party of Spain (a 4th international member) supported by the ICV (marxist green) ruling member of the present Catalan tripartite government propose and succesfully pass a law last week to finally remove all Fascist symbols from public buildings in Spain. Even now there are still many "fasces" and "falangist" crests and though the Franco eagle is illegal it is yet to be found throughout the peninsula.
Zapatero's centre left government has also promised to hasten the final renaming of streets and squares throughout Spain which still carry the name of the dictator and his supporters.

***
It was not insignificant that Guernica became one the iconic images of the anti-war mobilisations. after it first banner size appearance on the streets of BCN in 2003 the copy of the same painting which hung in the UN was covered at the request of Negroponte (former US ambassador to Honduras during the Contra scandal) who was then representing US interest in seeking support for the war on Iraq. After global protest the painting was uncovered, and Negroponte apologised for "sending the wrong message" and is currently US ambassador to the interim government of Iraq which this morning declared a 60 day state of emergency which will bring de jure "military law" to within three weeks of the deadline agreed by UN security council members with Bush for Free and Open and Democratic elections.

by Joker Modine Sun Nov 07, 2004 16:34

Most channels led with the car-bombings in Samarra and Ramadi areas. showed pictures of the wounded etc. only AFTER that did they refer to the 'imminent attack' on Fallujah as if to create a link,,,, we have to attack Fallujah to get these terrorists.

The attack on fallujah is not imminent... the ground assualt has not started, but the air assault and the artillery attacks started two nights ago.
Only one camera crew showed some of the damage inside Fallujah.
One of the emergency hospitals was reduced to rubble after it was deliberately bombed FOUR TIMES (so no help for anyone injured in the attacks) and ambulances were unable to go out due to the shelling.
This was not mentioned by FOX or CNN. Sky referred to it, and BBC news 24 showed a report from the rubble of the hospital, showing hospital trolleys and medical equipment buried under concrete.

Last night it emerged that a commander of Iraqi forces outside Fallujah defected after he was given a breifing of the plan of attack on the city.

It's unlikely that he's a double agent as there's little that an advance warning can do to help the people of Fallujah other than to direct them to the areas which can expect less bombing than others.

It could well be that the guy saw a merciless plan to level large sections of a city and decided he wanted nothing to do with it.
A bit liek the Iraqi brigade commander who was ordered to attack Fallujah last year and instead ordered all his men back to barracks saying "2we didn't sign up to kill other Iraqis"

Meanwhile, the various networks were treated to interviews with Marine Lt. Lyle Gilbert, a very polite "yes, sir, thank you sir" spokesman, who often had to politely ask for tricky questions to be repeated (or maybe the sound of exploding hospitals was making it hard to hear) He said that the Marines would try to limit the number of civilian casaulties, but wouldn't clarify as to how this would be done.

Another Marine was interviewed and it was obvious that he was planning on collectively taking revenge on the people of Fallujah for the death of young Marines under his command. "All the marines we've lost in the past 5 months have been killed by a faceless enemy. And, like I said, the enemy has a name. It's satan, and he's in Fallujah and we're gonna destroy him"

Understandably pissed off at watching his marines die, he doesn't give the impression that he discriminates anyone in Fallujah as friend or foe. There's a recipe for another My Lai massacre.

Some residents of Fallujah have asked for foreign journalists to embed themselves with the residents, so that they can report to the world what is really happening inside the besieged city (rather than simply watch Fransic Tusa draw a simulation on the Sky news SKYstator ©).

So, while 10,000 troops, dozens of tank and artillery units bear down on Fallujah, and the airforce bomb it day and night... the top story each day from Iraq will just be the casualties on the coalition side.

by i-ball Sun Nov 07, 2004 16:36

The residents of Fallujah are basically screwed, they knew that this was coming as soon as the Presidential elections were over.

by pc Sun Nov 07, 2004 16:42

was listening to bbc radio 5 last night I think the Daily Mail said it had a story from the one and _only_ western journalist in Fallujah, who talked of civilians fleeing to leave a couple of hundred foreign fighters????

by eeekkk Sun Nov 07, 2004 16:46

.

by asshole.jpg Sun Nov 07, 2004 16:55

So why the hell didn't they turn out in force and vote for Kerry .... or Nader ?

by Tommy Donnellan - Galway Alliance Against War Sun Nov 07, 2004 17:17

Fom U.S.S. Ireland, from this loathsome link in the Yank's Imperial archipelago, a military machine, in three hours, will be dropping "Moral Values" on your agony.

by barry Sun Nov 07, 2004 17:47

Very well put, but youse forgot to put anything about the Brits in the top corner. I think theres quite a few of them being mustered for the slaughter here as well (not a criticism, just a wee point)

by Terry Sun Nov 07, 2004 17:54

Of course there is the small overlooked detail that the politics of the armed groups opposing the U.S. in Iraq more greatly resemble those of Franco than anything else in Europe since at least the French Revolution.

by barry Sun Nov 07, 2004 17:58

Which presumably means we should look the other way while good old fashioned democracy is bombed into them, the upstarts.

by jus thinkin Sun Nov 07, 2004 22:19

it is a bit jubilant in tone about the prospect of tthe defense of Fallujah. Whilst the American attack is dispicable th e `pospect of US troops drawn from the poorest sectors of society dying is nothing to applaud.

by Anti Bush hack Sun Nov 07, 2004 22:57

Fallujha united will never be defeated

by barry Sun Nov 07, 2004 23:49

They all have rifles, they know where their big toes are, not hard to hit at that range.

by Terry Mon Nov 08, 2004 01:27

Nice logic Barry - you are either with us or you are against us, now where did I hear that before?

by Rove Mon Nov 08, 2004 10:52

Is Bush with anyone?

when the 10,000 US Marines go pouring over the western bridges of Fallujah to shoot at Iraqis and be shot at by Iraqis... will Bush be with them?

The Iraqis are certainly outgunned and stand little chance of holding out for long against air attacks, artillery shelling and a massive ground force

The Marines through superior numbers and fire power will take over the city, but many of them will be killed as well.

And Bush won't even go to their funerals.


Hollywood will likely make a film about the brave boys who took Fallujah, while Arabic films will glorify the Iraqis who stood their ground... who will record the people who get murdered in their own homes, hospitals and streets?

4 more years of sending other peoples kids, dads, mothers, sisters and brothers out to kill other peoples kids, dads, mothers, sisters and brothers.

Hail to the chief anyone?

by i-ball Mon Nov 08, 2004 11:13

Anyone got pictures of this?

by American -- by legal citizenship only; but still embarrassed Mon Nov 08, 2004 11:44

The success of the BRAVE Iraqi resistance will save the rest of the developing Third World from further American military adventures! The Iraqi resistance will make the price too politically high for the U.S. and make the Americans pay the only price that counts to Americans: not, unfortunately, maimed and dead Iraqis (especially civilians), but, unfortunately, maimed and dead American soldiers -- especially the young and the poor, once again, killing and dying for the old and the rich.

I am visiting this website to see what the Irish have to say. The article above is an excellent article.

You all should know that plenty of truely progressive Americans, especially those who are younger, SUPPORT the Iraqi resistance (as do most people of color who are not in the military 'poverty draft'). Although more of those Americans should OPENLY say so, especially anti-war activists, as I do, many are hesitant or afraid to. It would be a great blow to U.S. propaganda -- just as the anti-war marches at home and all over the world were. It would also force many American tin soldiers to THINK about what they are doing in Iraq (like those at abu-Graeb or those terrorizing Iraqi families in the middle of the night, randomly busting in their front doors). Too many anti-racist, anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, native-born Americans (whose rights are still not as easily stripped away) are too afraid to use the free speech rights that we, indeed, still have.

[Non-native-born Americans and, especially, non-citizens (like those of "permanent resident" status), especially of Arab/Muslim ethnicity/religion, are not accorded the same free speech protection (even of personal opinion) by police/federal agents and the courts. Legal loopholes have been steadily created to take away their rights.]

Nonetheless, progressives in the U.S. know who the REAL terrorists are: the United States government -- who, like Israel, Britain, and a number of other allied Western countries, define terrorism in a way that excludes state terrorism and anything those imperialist countries and their client regimes might do, but includes anyone fighting state/imperialist oppression.

It was the United States government, starting under Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1978/'79, and continuing under Reagan and Bush I in the 1980's, who turned Islamic fundamentalists into a world power in the CIA's largest operation in its history to mightily goad the Soviet Union into attacking Afghanistan. Brzezinski still believes that the, what we call, the ultimate "blowback" or "chickens coming home to roost" on 9/11 was "a small price to pay" for his belief that his war in Afghanistan "toppled the Soviet Union". 'What can we be concerned about the ruffled feathers of a handful of Arabs', Brzezinski still even says today -- although he is a critic of the U.S. war in Iraq, after first trying to play both sides of that debate.

Incidentally, Brzezinski recognizes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the central problem in the world today, as far as U.S. foreign policy interests, and he says that 'the Palestinian Question' must finally be solved. But his "solution" is for the indigenous Palestinian people is basically for them to accede to Israel's demands (and further annexations of the best land), to shut up and be happy to even have an "independent" bantustan state -- surrounded by "Israel" -- in the end.

(Most white-Americans, of course, are so STUPID they don't even know that the Palestinians were already living in PALESTINE and were originally the vast majority of the population -- that Palestine was, essentially, an *Arab* country before the Zionist leaders, exploiting, in order to gain personal political power, the suffering of their own people, pressured/coerced/hoodwinked post-WWII European Jewish refugees into going there!)

There are millions of Arabs/Muslims who agree with bin Laden, who would NEVER fly passenger jets into skyscrapers. Bin Laden opposes U.S./Western imperialism and U.S./Western skulduggery and political interference in Arab/Muslim world nations (behavior that the U.S., domestically, would call espionage or sedition) -- and so do I! Bin Laden's quite reasonable statements have said NOTHING about his wanting to impose Islamic fundamentalism upon the West. And even bin Laden was correct when he said (as close as I can quote off-hand), "If we (al-Qaeda) just hated freedom & democracy, then why didn't we attack SWEDEN?: there's more freedom & democracy there than in the United States."

The U.S. government also *LURED* Saddam into attacking Kuwait (killing tens of thousands, maybe well over 100,000 Iraqis in the first Iraq war) -- something Western governments persistently overlooked (and most Western people have not realized) -- since Saddam, then, no longer needed the military weapons/hardware/technology that the U.S. gave or sold him to kill *other* brown-skin people -- the Iranians. Luring Saddam into attacking Kuwait was a way for the U.S. to have an excuse to destroy most of Saddam's military equipment, since the Iraq-Iran war was over.

Keep this in mind: *NEVER* in the entire history of the United States, has the U.S. government *EVER* directly interviened -- either with its military or its intelligence services -- in the non-European, developing Third World for the purposes of establishing a democracy: NEVER!! Quite to the contrary: the U.S. government has intervened to OVERTHROW/SUBVERT democracies and/or KILL/ASSASSINATE pro-democracy leader-activists all over the economic or political Third World -- even in the Middle East (as with the U.S. and the British in 1953 Iran). (This is the same U.S. that recently kidnapped the democratically-elected president of Haiti and installed another death squad regime, and encouraged the overthrow, by the rich, of the democratically-elected president of Venezuela.)

So, whenever you hear the U.S. government say that it is intervening to bring democracy to some Third World country, you can know from history that the U.S. is *LYING*!!: it's just the cover story for more U.S. imperialism.

In the Oliver Stone Vietnam War movie "Platoon", one black-American soldier says that, "The U.S. has been going around kicking everybody else's ass for so long, I know that it's about time that the U.S. got its *own* ass kicked." That time has come again. And now for many jingoistic white-Americans who thought that they could go pick on a smaller isolated country -- as the U.S. has done since Vietnam -- to boost America's ego , WAR AIN'T FUN NO MORE!

by julian Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:37

Actually it was Willem Defoe, stop being racist!

by vigilator Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:42 not in D4, by a long shot

Willing to do regular vigil at US Embassy for people in Fallujah? (including the US troops who should be safe at home)

by i-ball Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:50

Having already destroyed the Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the centre of Fallujah two nights ago, the US forces seized the main hospital in Western Fallujah last night.

This from ABC news:

On Monday, the Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunni clerics group, condemned the assault on Fallujah. The group has threatened to boycott elections.

"The attack on Fallujah is an illegal and illegitimate action against civilian and innocent people. We denounce this operation which will have a grave consequences on the situation in Iraq," said spokesman Mohammed Bashar al-Faidhi.

After the seizure of Fallujah Hospital, its director Dr. Salih al-Issawi said he asked U.S. officers to allow doctors and ambulances go inside the main part of the city to help the wounded but they refused.

The American troops' attempt to take over the hospital was not right because they thought that they would halt medical assistance to the resistance," he said by telephone to a reporter inside the city. "But they did not realize that the hospital does not belong to anybody, especially the resistance."

During the siege of Fallujah last April, doctors at the hospital were a main source of reports about civilian casualties, which U.S. officials insisted were overblown. Those reports generated strong public outage in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world, prompting the Bush administration to call off the offensive.

by i-ball Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:54

From the Australian Daily Telegraph.
November 8, 2004


12 killed in Fallujah attacks
From correspondents in Fallujah
November 8, 2004

TWELVE people were killed in US air strikes and ground fire in the centre of the rebel-held Iraqi city of Fallujah today, an official from a local medical clinic said.

The official said 10 people were killed when a US aircraft bombed their house near the Faruq mosque in the centre of the Sunni Muslim bastion.
Two hours later, shells landing near a local cemetery killed two other people taking part in a funeral procession, he said.

AFP

by I-ball Mon Nov 08, 2004 13:12

It will be hard to get an accurate picture as the medical staff won't be able to venture very far if it all.

Ambulance drivers would be very brave to venture out while f-16s are dropping bombs, and AC-130s are strafing whole city blocks.

by dara Mon Nov 08, 2004 15:12

Whilst disagreeing totally with the US Coalition of the non-thinking, I find the thrust of the article to be dreadful- quote
"deadly chemicals including cyanide which will be fired at the Americans"..eerm, what about the Iraqi civilians who will be caught in the crossfire for example- I don't think they will care if they are hit by US or Syrian weaponry. The allusions to Franco are disingenious- the freedom-fighters are also killing civilians, people forced by economic necessity to enlist in the police force are apparently legitimate targets. I would finish by asking the question- if the freedom-fighters win, will they continue to execute people who hold opinions contrary to themselves?

I don't care if it is Yanks, Iranians, Iraqies, British, Polish or Jordanian- murder is murder.

by redjade Mon Nov 08, 2004 15:24

NY Times:
The hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties.

"It's a center of propaganda," a senior American officer said Sunday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/international/middleeast/08falluja.html?ex=1257570000&en=7900014eb4622de3&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

by Eoin Dolan - IAWM Mon Nov 08, 2004 18:09

The assault on Faluja will no doubt be another bloody chapter in american history. A chapter that Bertie and his government are helping Bush and his corporate minions write.

1,000 troops are going through Shannon Airport every day.100,000 Iraqis have been killed. Lets make our voices heard this Saturday.

by hayseed Mon Nov 08, 2004 18:12

Don't swallow the assumption that Fallujah is held by imported foreign terrorists holding the residents hostage.

"the villages are infiltrated with Viet Cong"
It's propoganda. the occupiers and their local CIA/Mi6 agent (acting Prime Minister)Allawi will put it about that the resistance in Fallujah is made up of fanatics with all types of poison and weapons who swarmed in over the border.
They don't want anyone to think that it's simply a case that the people of Fallujah do not want the invaders running their country. that would be against the myth of liberation and legitimate rule by Allawi (the man who brought the 45-minute claim to the western intelligence agencies)
look at the other myths... Fallujah is a ghost town, only rebels remain (in other words, if we bombs the place to bits, we'll pretend that the dead were not innocent civilians.) a large number of residents have left Fallujah, but not 300,000 of them.

-Zarqawi is hiding there, and if the locals had handed him over, there would be no siege, and no assualt.
The locals say they don't know this man, some say he is a convenient fiction created to justify the attack. - to persuade the 10,000 marines that the evil guy who has been attacking them is holed up and that this is a showdown (in a densely populated OK Corral)
As usual the only thing that's true is what is true of all wars.
Lies will be told, buildings will be destroyed, lots of people will be killed, and depending on who wins the dead will either be heroes or villains, never victims caught in the middle.

by etc Mon Nov 08, 2004 18:28

"Beware of being deceived that you are fighting terrorists from outside the country, because by God you are fighting the townspeople and targeting its men, women and children and history will record every drop of blood you spill in oppressing the people of your nation," it said.

Residents say they know nothing of the foreign fighters and daily U.S. bombardments just bolster local resistance.

Last time U.S. forces stormed Falluja in April, some units of Iraq's fledgling security forces refused to fight.

The association, which has helped negotiate the release of foreign hostages in Iraq, warned security force personnel not to repeat the "mistake" they made in joining U.S. forces to quell an uprising in the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Najaf in August.

"You made a mistake when you participated with the occupation forces in the invasion of the holy city of Najaf. Beware of repeating the same mistake in Falluja," it said.

==============================
Hopefully, this will help to embolden a spirit of military disobedience amongst the Iraqi troops. It will help to educate more of the US/UK troops too.
Some of the US commanders would simply call them wimps or cowards, but enough of the troops know that these people don't believe in Bush's occupation of Iraq.. (most of them only joined because it was the best paying job in a country with massive unemployment)

In the past 48 hours a senior Iraqi commander left his uniform and his weapon and left his post outside Fallujah. A substantinal number of Iraqi troops did the same.

by mike Tue Nov 16, 2004 14:08

Its almost reminiscent of the American carpet bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with Atom Bombers.

by Ray Tue Nov 16, 2004 14:13

Nagasaki and Hiroshima weren't carpet-bombed with atom bombers. The point of the atom bomb was that you only needed one of them. Tokyo was repeatedly carpet-bombed, Dresden was carpet-bombed, and so were other Axis cities.

by Noel Tue Nov 16, 2004 15:05

The Lancet's 100,000 dead figure is getting quite a lot of air play around these parts.

The not-in-my-namers seem particularly fond of bandying it about to bolster their fifth-former arguments.

This extrapulated figure has been reached by using a minute survey group of less than 1000 families.
The range of probability was from 8,000 to 194,000, the researchers then split the difference.

War is an ugly, dirty thing; with civilian deaths a tragic consequence. However, the anti-war idealogues seem to have jumped rather hastily and ghoulishly upon this particular statistic.

by Ray Tue Nov 16, 2004 15:20

The survey had to work by extrapolating from a smaller group. That's how _all_ surveys work - epidemiological surveys, opinion polls, whatever else. The alternative is to cover Iraq in thousands of reserachers to try to record every death. The only group with the resources to do that is the US army, and they've made a point of not recording civilian deaths.
With any survey, there is an error margin. But as long as the people surveyed are randomly selected and are reasonably representative of the general population, the results will be useful.
The link lists some of the good and bad objections to the Lancet study, and answers them.