We have learned nothing. Or specifically, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have learned nothing. The number of dead, Iraqis and American soldiers is about to increase dramatically as our armed forces prepare to do to Ramadi what they did to Fallujah:
BAGHDAD — Fears of an imminent offensive by the U.S. troops massed around the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi intensified Saturday, with residents pouring out of the city to escape what they describe as a mounting humanitarian crisis.
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.
Ramadi is essentially the same size as Fallujah, maybe a little larger. It sounds like we are doing exactly the same thing we did in preparation for the Fallujah attacks: First, cut off the city from food, water and medical supplies and surround it with our troops. Then begin air strikes on suspected insurgent strongholds, and tell the citizens to either flee as refugees, or be prepared for the coming slaughter.
Let me be blunt. This is senseless and reckless. It’s also a war crime in my opinion.
Thousands of families remain trapped in the city, those who have fled say. Many can’t afford to leave or lack transportation, whereas other families have decided to wait for their children to finish final examinations at school before escaping.
“The situation is catastrophic. No services, no electricity, no water,” said Sheik Fassal Gaood, the former governor of Al Anbar province, whose capital is Ramadi. […]
“It is becoming hell up there,” said Mohammed Fahdawi, a 42-year-old contractor who packed up his four children and fled to Baghdad two weeks ago. “It is unbelievable: The Americans seem to have brought all of their troops to Ramadi.”
The fearful city is haunted by memories of the battles that raged in nearby Fallouja in 2004. Determined to purge that city of insurgents, U.S. Marine and Army units lined up to the north and pushed south through the heart of Fallouja. They cleared one neighborhood after another in intense, constant street fighting. By the time the sweep was over, the town was largely destroyed.
Military officials have insisted that the deployment of the additional troops did not presage a Fallouja-style offensive.
“Moving this force will allow tribal leaders and government officials to go about the very difficult task of taking back their towns from the criminal elements,” said Army Maj. J. Todd Breasseale, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.
With all due respect to Major Breasseale, he’s lying. This is exactly the MO the military employed prior to attacking Fallujah. The result will be a city not worth taking back, a city turned into rubble and heaps of the dead bodies.
“In general, Anbar is controlled by terrorist groups,” said Sheik Yaseen Gaood, deputy minister of the Interior overseeing the western provinces. “The Anbar government has no authority. The ministries of Interior and Defense have no influence there.”
This is the height of irony. The deputy minister of the Iraqi Department of the Interior, a department responsible for the Shi’a death squads that have roamed throughout Iraq killing Sunnis wherever and whenever they wish, complains about the vicious terrorists that control Ramadi. We have no influence there, he complains. What would his Interior Department be doing if it did have influence in Ramadi? Killing Sunnis, that’s what
I guess it’s official. We have finally decided to take sides in this civil war between the Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis. We’re backing the group with the larger population and the larger representation in Parliament. The group supported by fundamentalist Shia militias which are imposing Sharia law wherever their influence extends. The group bent on vengeance against their former Sunni oppressors.
God forgive them, for I can’t. This is insane.
To the world, our nation has lost its mind, its heart, and its soul and I still think it’s all for oil. They want most of the forces out but they can’t get the country stabilized to get the oil out in an expedient and predictable fashion! The elections are just round the corner and they have to act now! Looks like they’re going to do a little Sunni genocide and appear to believe that the Shia and Kurds will make it work between the two of them. It’s easier to exterminate the Sunnis……they are a much smaller population than the Shia are!
It is a totally terrifying picture you paint for us Tracy. If I say thanks for your insight, I hope you understand that it means I respect your frame of reference and analytical abilities, but in no way does it mean that I support this type of operation. And yeah, it is all for the oil IMO.
them from the murdering warpigs called the Bush Regime.
And today – most Americans won’t even give a shit… or they’ll applaud it.
We are the terrorists.
The planet will turn on us soon. And we will have deserved it. Years of not rising up against this and the war crimes.
For years now – and with no let up in sight – when we move to take down a city, town, village – especially in the Western Desert, Sunni region but also N of Baghdad in the Tikrit area, we first shut the hospitals and position snipers across from the hospital. Strictly against the Geneva Conventions.
In Fallujah it was reported that our snipers shot families trying to bury their dead in the soccer stadium.
This has to end. But I don’t see it ending, not for years.
Saddaam was from Tikrit. Funny how if I didn’t know better it would seem that this had all been just one big Sunni genocide plan all along!
Rumsfeld isn’t competent enough to plan intentional genocide. He is incompetent enough to assist the Shias in carrying one out, however.
Yes “al-Tikriti” from a tiny village along side/near Tikrit. The village name i have forgotten.
We long ago ringed Tikrit in barbed wire and set up the same ID/check point system as at Fallujah.
They have used Iraq as a testing ground – not just for weaponry.
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/newscommentary/000386.php#moreDahr J again:
Haditha was not an isolated incident by a few bad apples. What happened in Falluja makes Haditha look insignificant.
A war crime and another Vietnam parralel. Destroying the village to save it. Were out of control. Arrest Bush.
Question: Which is it… treason or traitor for protesting in front of a recruiting station?
In the Patriot Acts – it’s now an act of treason or being a traitor. I was wondering because several times yesterday the police told me I would be arrested if I did not “move along” or “move away from the Marines Recruiting Tent”.
I know that this is now a “crime” and I am an “enemy against the state” but I can’t find the exact wording. Thanks, Salunga.
I do hope the world liberates us from this evil dictatorship and it’s bloodbath squad.
They’ll make it up as they go along. No oversight after all and don’t sweat your specific label be it traitor or person of interest. It will be changed at the pleasure of the president, vice president, secretary of defense and of course the NSA.
These crimes have to be stopped. We need to demand international intervention to stop our out of control regime from perpetrating mass murder.
International intervention will become more & more irrellevant as John “Catfish” Bolton tries to make the UN irrellevant.
Where does “SWAMBAWEUNDI” go for any redress when there is no more UN.
I think the intervention should be done here. All sick f..ks should be rounded up & put in rehab, then brought to trial, then imprisoned. The “sick f..ks” clause should be bipartisan. The first war crime was the preemptive [my ass} attack. All & everything after that are additional charges.
I feel something even worse than another war crime is about to befall us.
The fly in the ointment, however, is that 85% of the world’s Muslim population is Sunni.
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/06/340897.shtml
Great read!
My gut feeling, too, is that the siege of the city is a war crime. What would be the law, though?
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has various international treaties and laws, including the Geneva Conventions, on-line along with commentary on the protocol to protect civilian populations.
As far back as 1874, in the International Declaration concerning the Laws and Customs of War, Article 15 provided:
Obviously, the conventions were drafted when the parties to warfare had identifiable governments. Does this mean the “insurgents” can do anything while the coalition forces are obliged to abide by the Geneva Conventions? In short, to what international law do we look for war crimes guidance?
I don’t suppose it’s worth asking on what authority the U.S. is carrying out this atrocity.
I think the excuse is that Iraq’s government asked them to.
Adding insult to the hubris of the “warpigs”, as Dj so eloquently describes them, is now the common practice of the US military to follow the local customs; most notably, that of “solatia”.
Articles in the Boston Globe and the NYT give but a hint of the scale of innocent death and dismemberment ocurring, and reading between the lines, the escalation of so called “collateral damage” and “rogue soldiers”.
The Cost of Killing Civilians in Iraq from E&P
Since BushCo™ has ‘decided’ that $2500 US, is the value of an Iraqi. Given that there are 40 M +- Iraqis, why don’t they just give each of them the $2.5K…100B total…apologize and get the hell out of their country…saves money and lives.
Peace
This time will the western media keep a look out for the targetting of doctors and ambulance drivers by our forces? Will they watch for the denial of access to hospitals to civilians? Will they watch for the ‘all people who remain in the town will be seen as enemy combatants’ statements? Will they watch for the indiscriminent targetting that the ‘all who remain’ decisions cause?
All of the above were widely claimed by Iraqi non-combatants in Fallujah and even reported by some non-mainstream news reporters. All of the above are undeniable war crimes.