Battle for Fallujah: Mothers kill their children as 50,000 civilians become human shield for Isis

[milestogo]

Families are turning to suicide as the only way out of Islamic State-held Fallujah as the United Nations warns the city's 50,000 civilians are being used as human shields by the militant group. Lise Grande told UN Radio that civilians trapped inside the city, risk being turned into human shields while agencies were doing all they could to protect non-combatants. Aid agencies have also warned that children as young as 12 risk being forced to fight for IS (Isis/Daesh) as Iraqi government forces advance into the city.

Around 3,700 people – 624 families – have fled Fallujah since the new offensive by Iraqi forces to retake the city began last week, according to figures provided by Iraqi authorities. About 1,300 of those people are staying in al-Iraq camp in the Amiriyat al-Fallujah district in Anbar governorate, where the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, is working. Others are scattered in one of several other government-run camps in the district or are staying with relatives. As many as 20,000 children are trapped on the frontlines of the battle for control of Fallujah, the UN has warned, as US-backed Iraqi government forces continue their assault on the city.

Reports in the Times newspaper have indicated that civilians are killing themselves in Fallujah, just 60km from Baghdad, because of pressures inside the city, where Islamic State has held sway for two years. "Some of them set fire to themselves. I swear to God some of them drowned their children. Some of them threw their kids on the streets and left them there on their own because they didn't have any food," an Iraqi woman from Fallujah was quoted as saying.

The NGO Human Rights Watch has reported that it recorded the first suicides connected to Fallujah in March. "We were told of two instances of women throwing themselves and their children into the Euphrates," Christopher Wilcke, the group's Iraq researcher was quoted as saying.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/battle-fallujah-mothers-kill-their-children-50000-civilians-become-human-shield-isis-1563364

[SamKnause]

1. ...

Clinton, "We have to make clear to the Iraqis that they have been given

the greatest gift...freedom"...

[DetlefK]

2. I don't get it.

I don't quite understand you US-Americans.

There are so many things going wrong in the US, but you refuse to change anything because that would impinge on your "Freedom&quot TM).

And on the other hand, I see people here on DU longing for the good old days when Iraq and Libya were ruled by dictators, because fuck freedom, security is more important than freedom.

[SamKnause]

4. What is there to understand ???

The United States invaded Iraq.

Iraq did not attack the United States.

Our former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright stated

that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children was worth the sanctions

we put on Iraq.

Do you think the people of Iraq are better off ???

The United States is a warmongering country.

It sickens me to know the evil my country does around the

globe and here at home.

We the people in the U.S. are powerless against the Military Industrial Complex.

They get over 57% of our budget and spread death and destruction world wide.

Our country is falling apart because those in power continue on the

same failed course.

[Raster]

5. Truth!

[DetlefK]

8. That is, because freedom isn't always good. Freedom can go horribly wrong.

The US-culture seems obsessed with these notions of "freedom" and independence. But freedom isn't automatically good: Things can go right and things can go wrong.



The US is using a hodge-podge of local election-regulations who gets to vote and who doesn't and which kind of ID is needed. How about using one election-law for the whole country and issuing people one ID that is valid for any and all purposes anywhere in the country? Nope, can't do that. Because freedom.

It's absolutely normal to gerrymander districts along political lines to give one party an advantage over the other. How about the US instead installs a system where the redistricting is done in a non-partisan fashion, e.g. by a mathematical algorithm? Nope, can't do that. Because freedom.

Gun-deaths in the US are through the roof, compared to the rest of the world, because of a gun-culture that treats guns like problem-solvers instead of death-bringers. How about a massive reeducation-campaign to get rid of the gun-culture or how about restricting who gets the privilege to own a gun? Nope, can't do that. Because freedom.

How about the US issues stricter regulations on what businesses can do and can not do, to prevent harmful excesses? Nope, can't do that. Because freedom.



I'm not going to defend GWB's invasion of Iraq, but sometimes shit happens.

The US fought for independence from the UK in the name of freedom. The result was a horrible war. But in the long term it was worth it.

The US fought itself in the name of freedom for the slave-owners. The result was a horrible war. But in the long term it was worth it.

Gaddafi turned Libya into a prosperous state where you could live a good life... as long as you never said a critical word about the dictatorship. Eventually the people were fed up and rose up in the name of freedom. The result was a horrible war, followed by political instability, followed by sectarian warfare. Was it worth to fight for freedom?

Assad provided stability to multi-ethnic Syria. Droughts collapsed Syria's agriculture and people got afraid of famine. They demanded political changes and Assad said No. The people were fed up and rose up in the name of freedom. The result was a horrible war that seamlessly transitioned into sectarian warfare. Was it worth to fight for freedom?

The people of Egypt were fed up with the military dictatorship and rose up and demanded freedom. They held democratic elections, but the winners abused their powers right-away and where again deposed by the same old military dictatorship. Was it worth to fight for freedom?

Yugoslavia was ruled during the Cold War by a dictator named Tito. The Serbs hated the Croats since the Croats had allied with the Nazis in WWII, but Tito prevented an outbreak of hostilities. Tito's reign ended and the ethnicities of Yugoslavia were free to form their own future. In the early 1990s, the Croats got afraid of the Serbs and founded self-defense militias. The Serbs saw this as a move of aggression, remembered WWII, and attacked. A war that began out of fear ended with war-crimes and genocide. Because freedom.




When you say that the US bringing "freedom" to Iraq and Afghanistan destroyed those countries, what do you say to the people in Libya and Syria who tried to bring freedom to their own country?
What do you say to the egyptian people whose experiment with freedom almost netted them islamic extremism?
What do you say to the yugoslavians who used their opportunity for freedom to kill each other at the next-best occasion?
"Bad rebels! Bad! Get back under the yoke of your tyrant!"



Freedom is risky. Sometimes it goes right, sometimes it goes wrong.

[rgbecker]

10. Pretty good summary.

The issue is when should the US, using taxpayer moneys that arguably should go to better uses like infrastructure repair, free education for it people and free health care for all, get involved in fomenting "rebellions" with the hope of regime change in countries literally on the other side of the planet. Why is it always the US and never Sweden, Italy and Germany or Japan, whose peoples seem to be able to mind their own business?

Oh, I know: Freedom.

[Roy Rolling]

13. The issue

is what to do with the humanitarian crisis going on in Fallujah right now, not finding ways to turn back the hands of time.

Of course it's a quagmire. I find the whole thread hijack to focus on the obvious long term causes ignores the real problem today with lofty rhetoric. Sorry, ranting about the idiocy of W is not the topic of this post.

[DetlefK]

20. I entered this thread...

because of the quote attributed to HRC. She was criticized for mentioning that Iraq is now free. As if freedom and the freedom to have things go horribly wrong are mutually exclusive.

I'm no fan of HRC (a little bit too hawkish and too establishment), but I couldn't let this smear stand.

[NoMoreRepugs]

14. great post DetlefK

[nyabingi]

16. I don't think you really understand the US at all

We don't mind dictators. In fact, we prefer dictators to democrats as long as the dictators allow us to do what we want (which is usually exploit the labor of their workforce, extract their resources cheap and sell high without regards to the environment, etc.). We weren't friendly with Saddam Hussein, Augusto Pinochet, the Shah of Iran, etc., because they also believed in "freedom".

You also don't understand the workings of propaganda and the whole regime change thing. You are under the impression that there was mass rebellion in Syria and Libya when there weren't. Of course there were people in Syria who disliked what Assad was doing, but for the most part, Syria was a stable, prosperous, and flourishing country where various religious sects of Islam and Christianity co-existed. Assad may not be the best guy in the world (and I'm not claiming he is), but his country was functioning and stable.

Gaddafi's Libya is one that the West has always conveniently failed to give us information on. What was life in Libya like under Gadddafi? It actually had an extensive irrigation system, women had just as much freedom, mobility, and access as Libyan men, and had a unique form of localized democracy. Gaddafi was there so long because he was successful at decentralizing a good bit of power in order to accomodate the differences of Libya's people. It was the African continent's most stable, secular, and forward-leaning states but Gaddafi was a little too independent-thinking for Western tastes.

In both Libya and Syria, the US played a large role in grooming opposition figures, providing training and funding to supposed "grassroots" protesters (the ones our media tells us a just ordinary people upset with their dictator) via the numerous NGO's we have in these countries. If not for our heavy hand in helping to stir up civil strife, neither one of these countries would have fallen apart the way they have.

Anytime you are killing innocent people or destroying a country for no reason at all, that's a bad thing. We did both to Libya and Syria.

[DetlefK]

19. You really, really should read up on Libya and Syria.

Last edited Sat Jun 4, 2016, 05:49 AM - Edit history (1)

For example, Assad is a dictator who inherited this position from his father. And as he is Alawi, he always prefered Alawites for positions of power in Syria.
And as to WHY the Syrians rose up against Assad, simply google "Syria drought".



Okay, life in Libya was was economically great. So what?
Gaddafi was an arab racist, a supporter of international terrorism and he put bounties on journalists.
Libya had massive censorship and it wasn't democracy: it was effectively a hierarchy of soviets (socialist councils), beginning at the local level. Gaddafi once denied in an interview that such a thing as political opposition even exists in Libya: All the opinions of all the people are taken into account in the councils.
(But only at the local level. It's effectively winner-takes-all: Only the majority-opinions are passed on to the higher and higher layers. For comparison: Imagine if the US Congress were organized like the primaries, with delegates and super-delegates, only with a few more layers. Theoretically, all the votes of the people count, but practically only the will of the delegates counts.)

[nyabingi]

23. I realize Assad "inherited" his position from his father Hafez

but you are ignorantly misinformed as to their government structure. Some of highest ranking officials in Syria's government are Sunni (and they are still loyal to Assad) and members of all the different religious sects living in Syria. Stop getting your information from CNN my man.

Gaddafi an "Arab racist"? Where the hell did you get that notion, DetlefK? I think you've absorbed too much of the stereotypical garbage promoted in Western designed to separate northern Africa from the rest of it. Gaddafi was always a Pan-African and he stated on more than one occasion that Libyans should properly view themselves as Africans first and preached working more closely with the rest of the continent. He even advocated the establishment of what he termed "The United States of Africa", with a single currency and organization. The historical attempt to separate the northern part of the continent from the rest (the "sub-Saharan" part) is some racist bullshit that is still being advanced today.

Gaddafi fully supported Mandela and the ANC during the years the white supremacist government of SA was being supported by the equally white supremacist governments of the US and Israel and he was on friendly terms with Louis Farrakhan (who visited Gaddafi as an honored guest). You don't know what the hell you're talking about if you're calling Gaddafi an "Arab racist".

Pathetic.

[DetlefK]

24. I show you my sources and you show me yours, okay?

Here is where I got from from that Gaddafi was an arab racist: Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Legion

And I am not getting my information from CNN. (Too many commercials.) There is more in the world than CNN and Fox News. Way more.

Where did I get that Syria's government is dominated by Alawites? With so many sources to choose from, I'll again refer to the easiest english source I can find:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashar_al-Assad

[nyabingi]

33. Here go a few

http://www.panafricanalliance.com/muammar-gaddafi/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Africa

http://blackagendareport.com/content/libya-getting-it-right-revolutionary-pan-african-perspective

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/01/06/new-hillary-emails-reveal-true-motive-for-libya-intervention/

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/muammar-gaddafi-the-african-who-cleansed-the-continent-from-the-humiliation-of-apartheid/

All of these articles speak to Gaddafi's commitment to African unity. He looked to the African south to make alliances, not to the Arab Middle East. This is why he had the respect of many African leaders. And with all information available on the internet, you have to pay close attention to it's sources. From what I've read of the "Islamic Legion", it was indeed made up of many people from neighboring countries and there was a lot of native Libyan resentment towards the darker-skinned Africans who fought under Gaddafi. It was not Gaddafi being racist towards darker-skinned Africans, but lighter-skinned Libyan (Arabs) who were being racist towards those in Gaddafi's employ. When NATO and Hillary Clinton decided it was time to take military action to murder Gaddafi, the racist Arab Libyans went on a killing spree of the darker-skinned Africans they hated.

https://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2011/07/07/libya-ethnic-cleansing/

As far as Syria and its government, the supposed Sunni/Shia divide is being used by the West to divide and conquer (the standard technique of imperialism) - creating false divisions among people where none had existed (or existed to the extent that it wasn't a reason for bloodshed). There are more Sunnis in Syria than any other group, and they make up a large part of the Syrian Arab Army that has been fighting ISIS and defending the religious minorities in Syria that ISIS has been attacking and butchering.

http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/33180-wikileaks-reveals-how-the-us-aggressively-pursued-regime-change-in-syria-igniting-a-bloodbath

Most of the sources I found on the "Sunni/Shia conflict" in the Middle East were Western-based, English language sites like Foreign Policy and other organs that spread the Western perspective as the only fact.

[merrily]

30. Cool of you to post from Germany to defend Hillary even though you claim not to like her much.

Very noble.

[EX500rider]

34. "Gun-deaths in the US are through the roof, compared to the rest of the world"-no, not really

The US is below the median & average for homicides worldwide.

(now you can walk that back and say you meant compared to western Europe...)




http://crimeresearch.org/2014/03/comparing-murder-rates-across-countries/

[jwirr]

18. Exactly.

[pnwmom]

21. Madeleine Albright didn't say that the death of those children was "worth the sanctions

we put on Iraq."

The situation is bad enough without you making stuff up.

[SamKnause]

22. Here is the video in her own words.

It has been posted on this site numerous times.

[6chars]

3. bummer, man

[G_j]

6. horror upon horror

just speechless

[Doctor_J]

7. The important part is that Cheney and his pals are still making huge money from it

Viewed through that lens it's a complete success.

[prayin4rain]

11. That's the sickening truth. Mostly about money. n/t

[Person 2713]

12. +1

[mountain grammy]

9. America's shame..

[JonathanRackham]

26. World shame.

[blackspade]

15. A disaster of our making.

Thanks Neocon scum.

[zalinda]

17. Unfortunately for Iraq

another Sadam may have to come into power, to stop ISIS. Saddam and some of the other dictators came into power because of warring factions or tribes within the country. Yes, they were horrible and sadistic, but the vast majority of people lived with security. The histories of these countries is one of turmoil, all the time. They are fighting among themselves all the time, they always seem to be in a state of civil war until some dictator comes in and brings a tenuous peace.

What needs to happen is scholars of the regions need to come together and try to figure out a peace plan that would be workable. With the plan, then the people of the world could come together and implement that plan. Right now there is no plan, and the world is agreeing on nothing, and the middle east is in chaos. When you are in among the chaos, there is no logical thought.

A REAL ethical solution has to sought, which includes putting on trial those that caused this chaos in the first place.

Z

[Marrah_G]

27. There is no non violent solution to ISIS

They can't be negotiated with as you would do in other conflicts. They are a death cult with zero respect for human life, often including their own. They would rather die for Allah in glorious battle.

[zalinda]

31. No one said to negotiate with them

The problem stems from the destabilization of the area. Whether we liked it or not Saddam and Gaddafi held their countries together, with less violence than there is now. The US caused the situation, and more bombing of civilians is not going to solve the problem.

The problem will only be solved by a grand meeting of people who know the culture, religion and history of the areas and military personnel. Bringing only the military in with their little knowledge and bombing the hell out of a place is not working. And going in and destabilizing more of the region is not the answer, which is what the Hillary gang wants to do.

I am ready to go buy a piece of land and live off the grid. If she gets in, expect all hell to break loose. She broke Libya with Obama's blessing, how much more damage can the US cause in the name of 'freedom'?

Z

[Act_of_Reparation]

32. "The US caused the situation"

In the sense that we took the lid off the trick jar of jumping snakes, yes we "caused" this. But that's a pretty shortsighted and not altogether useful way of looking at this. To have even the hope of a peaceful resolution to this conflict, we need to look at how the snakes got into the jar in the first place.

Looking at the 1000+ years of sectarian conflict between Shia and Sunni would probably be most instructive option.

[Marrah_G]

25. Isis is shooting people who try to leave

[Marrah_G]

28. New Vice report out

Road to Fallujah with Iraqi Spec forces, Posted 4 hours ago.

[pablo_marmol]

29. Not a good way to start my day.