Hama Halajba and Fallujah. Crimes repeated.

[ted]

Lord, I'm Praying to you now to intercede in this thread and that you will guide each person in their posts.

Amen.

t.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

The images from last month's siege on Falluja came almost exclusively from reporters embedded with US troops. This is because Arab journalists who had covered April's siege from the civilian perspective had effectively been eliminated. The first major operation by US marines and Iraqi soldiers was to storm Falluja general hospital, arresting doctors and placing the facility under military control. The New York Times reported that "the hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumours about heavy casualties", noting that "this time around, the American military intends to fight its own information war, countering or squelching what has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons".

Just as doctors and journalists have been targeted, so too have many of the clerics who have spoken out forcefully against the mass killings in Falluja. On November 11, Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, the head of the Supreme Association for Guidance and Daawa, was arrested. According to Associated Press, "Al-Sumaidaei has called on the country's Sunni minority to launch a civil disobedience campaign if the Iraqi government does not halt the attack on Falluja". On November 19, AP reported that US and Iraqi forces stormed a prominent Sunni mosque, the Abu Hanifa, in Aadhamiya, killing three people and arresting 40, including the chief cleric - another opponent of the Falluja massacre. On the same day, Fox News reported that "US troops also raided a Sunni mosque in Qaim, near the Syrian border". The report described the arrests as "retaliation for opposing the Falluja offensive". Two Shia clerics have also been arrested in recent weeks; according to AP, "both had spoken out against the Falluja attack".

"We don't do body counts," said General Tommy Franks of US Central Command. The question is: what happens to the people who insist on counting the bodies - the doctors who must pronounce their patients dead, the journalists who document these losses, the clerics who denounce them? In Iraq, evidence is mounting that these voices are being systematically silenced by the Americans through a variety of means, from mass arrests, to raids on hospitals, media bans, and overt and unexplained physical attacks.

I believe that your government and its Iraqi surrogates are waging two wars in Iraq. One war is against the Iraqi people, and it has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives. The other is a war on witnesses.

You Americans have to ask yourselves what you would think of another country doing this type of mass murder to bring

[ted]

Even the Russian President took a shot at United States' policy Saturday, evoking a "dictatorship coated in beautiful pseudo-democratic phraseology." during a speech Saturday. "A dictatorship, especially a dictatorship in international affairs, does not settle, and has never settled, these types of problems, even if that dictatorship is coated in beautiful pseudo-democratic phraseology," said Vladimir Putin

Translation= Darn Americans! How can I afford to get my family all those cool Christmas presents if you keep busting up my money making schemes like the UN's oil for food program?

t.

[Guest yod]

I believe that your government and its Iraqi surrogates are waging two wars in Iraq. One war is against the Iraqi people, and it has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives. The other is a war on witnesses.

You Americans have to ask yourselves what you would think of another country doing this type of mass murder to bring “democracy” to a country.

That is an outright lie. Kiss my American grits.

Even the Russian President took a shot at United States' policy Saturday, evoking a "dictatorship coated in beautiful pseudo-democratic phraseology." during a speech Saturday. "A dictatorship, especially a dictatorship in international affairs, does not settle, and has never settled, these types of problems, even if that dictatorship is coated in beautiful pseudo-democratic phraseology," said Vladimir Putin

Well Russia certainly knows how to run a dictatorship.

But how many dictatorships set up free elections??

We went into Fallujah to guarantee that the rest of Iraq would be able to vote without fear of being bombed or having their heads cut off. We went into Fallujah so policemen could go to work reducing the crimes of thugs and punks. We went into Fallujah after THEY drew first blood on 4 contractors who were attempting to get the water, electricity, and basic services back on in Iraq. Maybe you don't remember them? They were burned, hanged, and dragged through the streets while the city cheered.

So a few poor little terrorists were killed. Too bad. Next time they better think a little harder about who they attack.

[ted]

t.