BLOODY QUAGMIRE
U.S. assault on Falluja incites new uprisings
By John Catalinotto
The Bush administration and the Pentagon had hoped that the
image their operations in Falluja would give to the world would
be of an all-powerful force, decisive in battle, merciful in
victory: a ground-war version of "shock and awe."
Yet despite the Pentagon's control of "embedded" reporters
and the near absence of independent news sources in Iraq, the
main image to come out of Falluja was the video of a U.S.
Marine executing a wounded and helpless resistance fighter.
And, as of Nov. 17, the big news out of Iraq was that the
active armed resistance had spread to Mosul, Beiji, Baquba,
Ramadi, Tikrit, Iskandariya, Samarra and Baghdad, with police
stations overrun and arms captured by anti-occupation
fighters.
In Falluja itself, after nine days of battle, U.S. forces
were still calling in air strikes. The resistance fighters, far
outgunned and outnumbered, were still able to shoot back. Some
resistance units are reportedly going back into Falluja to
continue shooting at U.S. troops.
The offensive succeeded in showing that the U.S. military is
overwhelmingly well-armed and destructive, but also cruel and
frightened. Instead of demonstrating "shock and awe," it has
shown the world Abu Ghraib II.
NBC correspondent Kevin Sites, who took the original video
of the Iraqi prisoner being shot, was quoted by the Associated
Press on Nov. 17 as saying that U.S. Marines had killed three
more unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoners in a Falluja mosque on
Nov. 12.
Comments across the Internet compared Falluja with other
embattled cities of historic importance: Guernica, destroyed by
Nazi bombers in the Spanish Civil War; Stalingrad, the Soviet
city whose resistance marked the turning point of World War II
in defeating German imperialism; Algiers, which the French
could occupy but never completely control in Algeria's
liberation war; and Hue in Vietnam, whose recapture by U.S.
forces after the 1968 Tet uprising cost them the war as it came
out that they had slaughtered 5,000 people.
No comparison can be exact, and the Iraqis will write their
own history. Still, from each of these historic examples there
are lessons that the Pentagon generals and the Bush White House
seem incapable of learning.
Most Pentagon reports on casualties in Falluja claimed about
65 GIs killed and over 300 wounded, 200 of them seriously. In
the course of the week, over 400 seriously wounded or ill U.S.
troops were flown to hospitals in Germany. The Pentagon claimed
its troops killed 1,200 "insurgents," which is what U.S.
officials likes to call Iraqis who defend their country from
invaders.
The U.S. military doesn't keep a count of civilians killed.
Top U.S. generals claimed that most of Falluja's 300,000
residents had left, and boasted they would kill few civilians.
But at least 50,000 remained.
Humanitarian disaster
Humanitarian agencies, speaking to the few independent news
reporters left in Iraq, gave a different assessment. "The Iraqi
Red Crescent Society, which is supported by the Red Cross and
the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), has called the
situation in Falluja a 'big disaster.'" (IPS reporter Dahr
Jamail at dahrjamailiraq.com)
"Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of U.S.
military reprisal, a high-ranking official with the Red Cross
in Baghdad told IPS that 'at least 800 civilians' have been
killed in Falluja so far."
"Muna Salim, who managed to flee the city with her sister
after the rest of their family was killed by U.S. bombs, said
Falluja had turned from a battlefield to a ghost town in recent
days," reports Jamail.
"'Most families stayed inside their houses all the time,'
she said after reaching Baghdad. 'We were always very hungry
because we didn't want to eat our food or drink all of the
water. We never knew if we would be able to get more, so we
tried to be careful.' She could not bring herself to talk of
the killings.
"The Iraqi Red Crescent has several teams of relief workers
and doctors, and truckloads of food waiting for the
authorization from the U.S.-backed interim government and the
U.S. military, but they have not been allowed in."
Sara Khorshid writes on IslamOnline.net:
"Those in Baghdad might be better off than Fallujans still
locked inside their hometown, which is currently being razed to
the ground by the U.S. Army. Every thing is being wiped out.
'The residential areas, our houses, they are all destroyed.
They bombed the hospital, the clinics, the doctors, the
infrastructure, everything,' Abu Mohammed said.
"'What Zarqawi? Where is Al-Zarqawi? Is he a ghost?' asks
Umm Usama. 'There is no Zarqawi in Falluja, no Arab fighters as
they claim.' In the name of Al-Zarqawi 1,200 people have been
killed in Falluja according to the American military, which
describes the victims as 'insurgents' and 'guerrillas.' Eyewit
nes ses say the dead are civilian residents.
"'[Given this tragic situation], whoever believes that
America has invaded and occupied Iraq to bring democracy and
freedom is either stupid or in cooperation with the U.S.
against the Iraqis,' says Monther Yaakoub, another Fallujan in
Baghdad.
"I am obliged to fulfill my promise to the Fallujans I spoke
with and get their calls across through this article: Abu
Mohammed calls upon the Western media to cover the horrific
situation they are living in. Umm Waddah calls upon the Arabs,
who view the Iraqi tragedy on Arab TVs, to act and help their
brothers and sisters in Iraq. And Umm Usama asks us to pray for
Falluja, and for Iraq."
Reports from the resistance itself can be found at
freearabvoice.org. But even in the corporate media, one could
find reports that the resistance had opened up armed struggles
in a dozen cities in what is called the "Sunni
Triangle"--although it is not exclusively Sunni, nor is it
shaped like a triangle.
The resistance overran nine police stations in Mosul, a city
of nearly 2 million people north of Baghdad. Oil wells and
pipelines have been set on fire in at least five places.
Political impact
Demonstrations of thousands have already taken place in Arab
countries in solidarity with Falluja. Perhaps even more
important was the response in Iraq itself.
"On the fourth day of the ground attack on Falluja, last
Friday [Nov. 12]," writes Haifa Zangana in the British Guardian
Nov. 17, "joint Shia-Sunni prayers were held in the four
mosques in Baghdad and were massively well attended.
Inter-communal prayers were the hallmark of the 1920
revolution."
According to a Xinhua report on Nov. 17, some 47 Iraqi
political and religious parties have decided to boycott the
general elections engineered by Washington for January 2005.
The reason was "the U.S.-led assaults in cities like Najaf,
Karbala, Samarra, Sadr City, Adhmiya, and especially the
genocide crimes in Falluja," said the statement.
Mainly Sunni factions led by the Muslim Clerics Association
signed the statement, but at least eight Shiite groups and one
Christian party were also among them, according to Xinhua.
Another place where Falluja will have an important political
impact is in the United States and among U.S. troops. Already
the New York Times reported on Nov. 16 that the Army had sent
notices to more than 4,000 former soldiers ordering them to
return to active duty. More than 1,800 have already requested
exemptions or delays. Of about 2,500 scheduled to arrive on
military bases for training by Nov. 7, some 733 failed to
show--29 percent.
Within the U.S., there have been demonstrations in response
to the Falluja war crimes in Baltimore, Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, Boulder,
Colo., Wash ington, D.C., Buffalo, N.Y., and other cities.
Perhaps the closest historical example for Falluja is Hue.
After all, it was Viet namese resistance organizer and
communist leader Ho Chi Minh who said the Vietnamese were ready
to fight for decades, even generations, if necessary.
The New York Times gave a hint of this when its reporter in
Mosul wrote about the children at one playground there. "Amin
Muhammad, 10, and his friends raced around with plastic guns.
'We divide ourselves into two teams,' he said. 'The mujahedeen
versus the U.S. forces.' And in their battles, he said, the
mujahedeen always win."
Reprinted from the Nov. 25, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
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