BLOODY QUAGMIRE

U.S. assault on Falluja incites new uprisings
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 Commons License.
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