Let's call Fallujah what it is: Ethnic Cleansing

[Sandpiper]

I don't see how you could classify it as something else:

US forces have seized the hospital and locked out its staff.

All males, ages 15 to 50 are barred from leaving.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. It's Ethnic Cleansing

[Ducks In A Row]

2. kill all men, leave all the women available for raping

yep, it's great being in the military.

Does bush** get first choice? How about rumsfield?

[Jersey Devil]

3. Bringing democracy to Iraq is "hard work"

I mean, you have to work hard at it.

Well, all I have to say is that I think this is the beginning of the end - for us. After this Fallujans will attain the status of folklore throughout Islam. Remember the Alamo, er, Fallujah!

[Dhalgren]

4. Ethnic Cleansing is exactly what it is.

This is the kind of thing that gets a person sent to the World Court - and it should...

[K-W]

5. I wouldnt use that label, I would go with Massacre.

We arent aiming to destroy an ethnicity, we are aiming to absolutely cripple a population's ability to do anything resembling resistance.

[Buck Rabbit]

17. I'm not sure the Sunnis of Falluja would agree with you.

A Crusader army, under the command of a Shiite might seem like ethnic cleansing to them.

The fact that the mainstream Sunni clergy is threatening a boycott of the election process over the invasion of Falluja seems to indicate they see the ethnic aspects of this battle.

[Cocoa]

6. I think there's a better word for it

I can't think of it, but it was a technical word used to describe what happened in a few cities in Yugoslavia.

[eleonora]

7. they're battling "the face of SATAN"

right out of the mouth of some army official over there

[jhain]

8. DU msnbc poll on Fallujah

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#survey

Do you think the assault on Fallujah will begin to turn the tide against insurgents?

[hnsez]

15. Y 54 N 46 cmon DU IT!

[dicknbush]

9. So it was Allawhi who ordered this invasion????????

Gee does that mena th US troops are under the direction and orders of a foreign leader? And if Allawhi says OK stop and retreat Will the US troops follow his orders?

Just wondering!

[althecat]

10. What difference is there between this and hallabjah?

Both actions were aimed at getting rid of Iraqi insurgents.

Both actions used cowardly U.S. sourced high technology weapons in an act of overkill in a heavily populated civilian city.

Both will result in unreasonably high levels of civilian casualties.

[althecat]

19. The Face of Fallujah - AP Photo

(got this off another thread.. shameless ripoff..)

[DinahMoeHum]

11. Bush has already LOST Iraq, and nothing he does to Fallujah

can change that.

Any "victory" there will be a Pyrrhic one at best.

Win the battles, lose the war. Just like Vietnam.

"...every battle won is just another grain of sand,
when you're white boots marching in a yellow land."
- Phil Ochs


:nuke:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. It's "legal" war crimes. And those participating are war criminals.

We hear a lot of crap about soldiers having the "right to refuse" illegal orders. This attack on Fallujah is illegal under International Law. I can't help but wonder how many troops are using that right.

The "right to refuse" illegal orders is a sham without the muscle to enforce laws against war crimes.

[rockydem]

13. I think that's going to far

I think the tactics employed in Iraq will not work, and are and will be a disaster. But I think calling it ethnic cleansing goes way to far. An ethnic cleanser kills even if the enemy lays down its weapons. They also kill women and children.

[K-W]

14. And the goal is to remove the ethnicity for that sake.

I havent heard any reason to think that is our goal, although reducing thier ability to resist may cause a similar fate for the people.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. Well...?

They are killing people who laid down their weapons and killing women and children.

[democracyindanger]

18. Cheapens the real meaning of ethnic cleansing.

Call it a massacre, call it a war crime, call it lots of other things, but ethnic cleansing it isn't.

[althecat]

20. Editorial: Is An All Out Assault On Fallujah A War Crime?

My editorial on this from yesterday.. seems to have more resonanance today though.

*****

Is An All Out Assault On Fallujah A War Crime?
Scoop Editorial - By Alastair Thompson Scoop Co-Editor

Four years ago in December 1999 Grozny, the capital of the rebel Russian region of Chechnya, faced a very similar situation to that now faced by Fallujah. Ultimatums to surrender the city had expired several times and the Russian Government led by then interim Prime Minister Valdimir Putin had declared its intention to launch an all out offensive on the city to remove the rebels in the city once and for all.

And back then Putin had, if anything, a greater legal right to launch a final assault on Grozny than the Bush Administration presently has in Iraq.

Chechnya is legally a part of Russia, even if it would like not to be. Iraq is not (yet) a part of the USA.

But even so PM Putin and his Generals chose to to back down from their threats once informed of their legal responsibilities by several NGOs, a clutch of international officials, and a few thundering US newspaper editorials.

Legally the position is relatively clear. A military attack inside one's own country – in which the loss of large numbers of civilian life is a virtual certainty - is illegal.

Moreover in international criminal law the soldiers and officers involved in such an attack are personally liable for their actions, as are their commanders and their political bosses.

It seems likely it is for these reasons that today we are being told that "Marstial law" has been declared by the Iraqi interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi this morning. This is an attempt to provide the planned action with a legal cover.

More than that it is being implied clearly in recent news reports that it is Mr Allawi that is ordering this assault on Fallujah. Bolstering these claims are reports Iraqi troops will be used in the assault.

A clear signal being given is that former CIA employee Allawi is the intended fallguy should this come unstuck.

There are several implications of this:

Firstly, on the face of things we have a clear case of cowardice in the line of fire on the part of the newly re-elected U.S. Commander in Chief.

Only a few days after the election he is already attempting to palm off responsibility for his actions to subordinates. (That said Bush Administration acquired Congressional power to retrieve American military prisoners from European custody if necessary with the use of force is increasingly making sense. )

Secondly consideration of the legal hazard posed by the U.S. Military seems to have received a woeful level of both media and official attention.

At the time of the Grozny seige – in mid December 1999 - Putin was in a remarkably similar position to that Allawi is now. Like Allawi, Putin had not been elected to office. Like Allawi, Putin was appointed by a President (Yeltsin) to the role of Prime Minister out of relative obscurity. Like Putin, Allawi was strongly associated at the time with espionage (Putin was the boss of the FSB (aka KGB) and Allawi, as reported above, was a former CIA spy).

Unlike Putin though Allawi is not the effective power in Iraq at present. (Interestingly Putin effectively took over the role of President of Russia on December 31st 1999 – just days after the Grozny crisis.)

In fact in 2004 the situation is considerably more complicated legally - so far as the troops are concerned - than it was for troops operating under Putin's authority. And the remarks of senior officers such as those of the Marine Colonel who was reported widely this morning saying that the operation against Fallujah was intended to, "whipass", are simply pouring petrol on this dangerous legal situation.

According to the Washington Post on June 24 2004:


"Yesterday at the United Nations, the administration, citing opposition on the Security Council, withdrew a resolution that would have extended immunity for U.S. personnel in U.N.-approved peacekeeping missions from prosecution before the International Criminal Court.
"In Iraq, U.S. officials are already concerned about the potential fallout after June 30 among key players -- from Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most powerful religious cleric, to militant insurgents. But the Bush foreign policy team concluded that there are few alternatives until elections select a government that will be powerful enough to negotiate a formal treaty, U.S. officials said.

"The issue of immunity for U.S. troops is among the most contentious in the Islamic world, where it has galvanized public opinion against the United States in the past. A similar grant of immunity to U.S. troops in Iran during the Johnson administration in the 1960s led to the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who used the issue to charge that the shah had sold out the Iranian people. "Our honor has been trampled underfoot; the dignity of Iran has been destroyed," Khomeini said in a famous 1964 speech that led to his detention and then expulsion from Iran. The measure "reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of an American dog."

And so it seems likely - given the puppet like nature of Allawi's relationship with the US Military, and the fact that technically he has no legal command authority over U.S. Forces (as Putin had over Russian forces) - that the tissue of legality put in place to cover U.S. liability for war crimes in Fallujah will prove far too thin to provide any effective protection either for U.S. soldiers or their civilian masters.

Given time this attack could yet lead to a situation when Senior U.S. Cabinet members, and possibly the President himself, might find there are a number of International Criminal Court signatory states they are discretely advised not to visit.

*****

[althecat]

21. Fallujah: What Sort of Criminal Monsters Bomb Hospitals?

Fallujah: What Sort of Criminal Monsters Bomb Hospitals?

Kurt Nimmo


November 7, 2004

"A hospital has been razed to the ground in one of the heaviest US air raids in the Iraqi city of Falluja," reports the BBC ( http://www.uruknet.info/?p=6879 )

"A nearby medical supplies storeroom and dozens of houses were damaged as US forces continued preparing the ground for an expected major assault."

"Wounded or sick civilians, civilian hospitals and staff, and hospital transport by land, sea or air must be specially respected," declares the fourth Geneva Convention ("Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War": http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/texts/doc_geneva_con.html ).

Ari Fleischer said, in May 2003, that "American values" are consistent with the Geneva Convention ( http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030507-18.html ). "The war on terrorism is a war not envisaged when the Geneva Convention was signed in 1949. In this war, global terrorists transcend national boundaries and internationally target the innocent. The President has maintained the United States' commitment to the principles of the Geneva Convention, while recognizing that the Convention simply does not cover every situation."

Ari was addressing prisoners at Camp Gitmo, but obviously the Bushcons also believe "the Convention simply does not cover" civilian hospitals.

The convention also regulates the treatment of civilians in occupied territories and forbids "grave breaches," including the "willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment" of civilians," but this is precisely what happened in Falluja last April. "All of the Middle East and indeed the whole world is now extremely suspicious that US Marine forces slaughtered civilians in Fallujah indiscriminately," Joseph Arrieta wrote at the time ( http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/05/20_falluja.html ). "Not only that, it appears Marine snipers did a lot of killing. This is not some errant bomb or missile that created 'collateral damage,' it's the alleged deliberate, careful sighting of civilian targets with spotters targeting men, women, children and ambulances," all war crimes. "According to the relatively few media reports of what took place there, some 600 Iraqis were killed during these two weeks, among them some 450 elderly people, women and children," Orit Shohat reported for Haaretz on April 28th ( http://www.uruknet.info/?colonna=m&p=2261 ).

The sight of decapitated children, the rows of dead women and the shocking pictures of the soccer stadium that was turned into a temporary grave for hundreds of the slain-all were broadcast to the world only by the Al Jazeera network. During the operation in Falluja, according to the organization Doctors Without Borders, U.S. Marines even occupied the hospitals and prevented hundreds of the wounded from receiving medical treatment. Snipers fired from the rooftops at anyone who tried to approach.

Rahul Mahajan, who serves on the Administrative Committee of United for Peace and Justice, the nation's largest antiwar coalition, writing for Counterpunch on April 19, provides details of massive U.S. war crimes in regard to Iraqi hospitals and ambulances ( http://www.uruknet.info/?colonna=m&p=2024 ):

Although the first Western reports of U.S. snipers shooting at ambulances caused something of a furor, two days ago at a press conference the Iraqi Minister of Health, Khudair Abbas, confirmed that U.S. forces had shot at ambulances not just in Fallujah but also in Sadr City . He condemned the acts and said he had asked for an explanation from his superiors, the Governing Council and Paul Bremer. . There are also persistent claims that after an outbreak of hostilities American soldiers visit hospitals asking for information about the wounded, with the intent of removing potential resistance members and interrogating them. . By any reasonable standard, these hospital closings (and, of course, the shooting at ambulances) are war crimes. . In the case of Fallujah, it's clear that one of the reasons the mujahideen were willing to talk about ceasefire was to get the hospital open again; in effect, the United States was holding civilians (indirectly) hostage for military ends

Now that Bush has received his "mandate" from the American people (or the 60% that bothered to vote), we can expect more war crimes. Bombing hospitals, more than likely with patients and staff, will now become routine as Bush "stays the course," that is attempts to defeat the indigenous Iraqi resistance called "terrorists" by the Bush Ministry of Disinformation.

Americans should be ashamed of these war crimes. But the fact is most people are hardly even aware they occur. Of course, this is no excuse, for as Nuremberg Trials demonstrated the German people were responsible for allowing their leaders to engage in war crimes and crimes against humanity. As Telford Taylor said in the opening statement of the Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No.10 in 1946, "I do not think the German people have as yet any conception of how deeply the criminal folly that was nazism bit into every phase of German life, or of how utterly ravaging the consequences were. It will be our task to make these things clear." ( http://www.humanitas-international.org/holocaust/drtrial1.htm )

Hopefully, in the not too distant future, it will be the task of a likewise tribunal to make clear to the American people the "criminal folly" of Bush and his camarilla of Straussian neocon sadists. Unfortunately, in the meantime, it appears thousands of Iraqis, mostly innocent civilians, will pay the ultimate price, the same way Jews, Poles, Russians, Germans with the wrong political ideas, and millions of others paid the ultimate price.

http://www.kurtnimmo.com/blog/