Picture emerges of Falluja siege (BBC)

[gottaB]

A truce has brought a reduction in violence in the Iraqi city of Falluja after US troops fought insurgents there during a two-week siege.

There was little media access during the fighting, but eyewitness reports are now emerging.

Humanitarian workers speak of US gunmen firing at ambulances and civilians.

They say makeshift clinics were overwhelmed because of a bridge closure which cut off access to the main hospital.

***

Picture emerges of Falluja siege....

[bluedog]

1. oh gawd.

from same link

She also said she met an old woman, shot in the abdomen, who was still clutching a white flag.


Tens of thousands fled the city during the fighting
"Her son said she had been shot by US soldiers," Ms Wilding said.

Dr Obaidi also said he had seen the body parts of a family in a bombed-out house: "There were seven women and five children. I saw the head of a child away from the body. Only one girl, aged four, had survived," he said.

US officials say their operations have been "extraordinarily precise".

Gen. Sanchez said civilian casualties were "absolutely regrettable", but were a fact on a "battlefield of this nature in an urban environment".

Gen. Kimmit, also blamed militants who "hunker down inside mosques and hospitals and schools, and use the women and children as shields" for the civilian suffering.

[gottaB]

3. The "Civilian Shield" Argument

They try to have it both ways. If Iraqi civilians are killed by US attacks and it can't be plausibly denied, they trot out the civilian shield argument. If a lot of civilians are killed, they call it the "al jazeera effect" and launch projectiles to address the issue.

But look. Take the story of the family who lost a young niece in a mortar attack. First it was written as fact that the mortar had come from Iraqis firing upon US Marines. Then, in later reports, that fact became a claim made by Marines.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=498429

What precipitated the change? NPR policy about attributions? Was there evidence of somebody making a counter claim?

And what about the logical follow up. Who's repsonsible for the safety of these families? Haven't US forces in Falluja hunkered down in schools? Yes they have. Routes to hospitals? Yes. Do the people firing upon the US Marines regard the Abbas family as "civilian shields"? I doubt it. Could it be that the very claim of "civilian shields" is outlandish? Has it been substantiated? I don't know.

On the face of it the claim is absurd.

[kalian]

2. Its like the Warsaw ghetto uprising....

the Nazis are going to make an "example" out of them when they do
go in... :mad:

[Dover]

4. How can these "soldiers" ever return to a normal life after either

perpetrating or witnessing these kinds of killings. How does one recover one's humanity?

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. the picture is emerging

and the way it is, we need the ICRC to do its job like they did after Jennin.

I am sorry to say it, but if ONE ambulance was found transporting explosives or fighters, they all became fair game... a cruel reality of war, but a reality nonetheless

This was the case in El Salvador in the 1980s, and at Jennin.

Oh and I speak from knowledge, I used to be a Red Cross Medic and WAS SHOT AT once, when one of my crews did somethign stupid... very stupid... and that shooting was quite legal under the Geneva Convention.

This is why ALL Red Cross workers across the world know you do NOT load an armed combatant into your ambulance.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

7. Jessica Lynch's ambulance was shot at when Iraqis tried to return her!

This really exemplifies the irony of the US 'humanitarian rescue' of Iraqis from...oh yeah-US policies.

Destroying to save indeed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Again what part of ICRC INVESTIGATION

you do not get.

This has to be INVESTIGATED by a NEUTRAL party and let the chips fall where they may

For the record, if ONLY ONE AMBULANCE abused the standard, whether becuase it was stolen, or the crew was forced or what have you, it affects ALL AMBULANCES in the combat zone.

I know about the Jessica Lynch story, and it woudl not be surprising to me that it is under investigation as we speak, and YOU WOULD NOT hear about it, as the ICRC tends to work in the shadows, in many ways.

Also for the record this one will take about the same time as the El Salvador investigation took, on the neighborhood of two years. By the time the investi8gators got on the field it became a matter of he said, she said....

[Dhalgren]

12. Well, there is one problem with this ICRC

investigation thing. If the US is ingaged in an illegal war, then every action and reaction stems from that primary fact. If the US Marines were not in Faluja, then their killing innocent civilians would not be an "arguable" topic. If I am in your house, killing your family, you don't bring in the authorites to check and see if I stole your jewelry or if you just planted it on me. The "crime" of firing on ambulances is ridiculaous - we are in Iraq, killing Iraqi citizens FOR NO DAMNED REASON! Who fucking cares whether we are also firing on ambulances or milk trucks or school buses!? Our soldiers are murdering people as we speak, that's the issue. How they are murdering them is simply academic.

[daleo]

17. It may be a cruel reality of war

But it doesn't justify shooting on any ambulance from that point on, at least in a legal sense. Such reasoning lacks proportionality. In the case you cite, your crew did something stupid, which may have justified shooting at your ambulance, but it wouldn't make every ambulance in the country fair game from the point onward. I would be surprised if you could point out an article in the Geneva Convention that could reasonably be construed that way.

It is all irrelevant though, as Bush threw out regard for the Geneva Convention long ago.

[Elidor]

6. Check out this evolving denial:

Three days into the siege, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, denied that troops were firing on ambulances.

"If we're shooting vehicles, it's because those vehicles have shot at us," he said.

US officials have said that on one occasion, an insurgent gunman was seen fleeing in an ambulance, and that weapons have been found in an aid convoy west of the city.

Coalition military spokesman Brigadier General Mark Kimmit said that there have been "a lot of people running around the city with blankets on their vehicles asserting that they are ambulances".

First, Sanchez says US troops are not firing on ambulances.

Then he says that if they are shooting at ambulances, it's because ambulances are shooting at US forces. He has just contradicted himself.

Then we have a vague assertion by unnamed officials, followed by Kimmit explaining why it is not just permissible, but sound policy to fire on ambulances. Our troops are being led by butchers.

:nuke:

[mmm]

9. Good points

We are targeting ambulances. We shouldn't be there at all...
and we are targeting ambulances.

[anarchy1999]

8. I am sorry, I want our troops to be held accountable. No ifs, ands

or buts. THIS IS CRIMINAL! It is like our soldiers think they are playing a video game. The name of the game: JUST KILL!

[Dhalgren]

15. You know, you are right.

When a round from a tank is fired into a house where women and children are hiding, a US soldier fires that round - on purpose and with deadly intent. The same is true when an ambulance is fired upon or when anyone seen on a street is simply gunned down with questions asked later - an American person is actually doing this; not some vague "they" or the government or the Army, but an actual person who is either responsible for his/her actions or not. Is each soldier responsible for each of his/her individual actions or not?

[74dodgedart]

19. I would be careful to pass judgement...

The troops should never have been put in this type of position. That doesn't make it right.

I've never been in combat. I imagine it's confusing and scary as hell. I'm not going to pass judgement on these guys who are stuck in a $hitty, life and death situation.

I don't know how you come home after you've been in something like that.

[damnraddem]

11. And the US is getting ready to attack again.

Maybe they'll bomb the hospitals and clinics first, this time -- so they don't have to bother with shooting at ambulances. Then Dubya can say 'mission accomplished' and tell us again how most Iraqis love us.

[Say_What]

13. Democracy NOW reported all of this on April 13!!

<clips>

We get a report from Baghdad with Free Speech Radio News' Aaron Glantz who speaks with Fallujah residents fleeing the besieged town. They describe digging mass graves, snipers and bombers killing people inside their homes, attacks on ambulances and the increasing anger and resentment towards U.S. occupying forces. The new Intifada in Iraq has wrested control from the occupying U.S. forces and thrown the country into chaos. U.S. soldiers are coming under daily attack throughout Iraq and the number killed since the beginning of the invasion has jumped to 665.

The number of Iraqis killed this month alone is much higher. The streets are not safe for anyone with soldiers, military contractors, journalists and aid workers alike at risk of being attacked or kidnapped.

transcript....

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/13/1443247

[Say_What]

14. Massacre in Fallujah: Over 600 Dead, 1,000 Injured, 60,000 Refugees

From Democracy NOW April 12:

<clips>

The U.S. siege of Fallujah continues and reports are emerging of a massacre of Iraqi civilians at the hands of U.S. troops. We go to Iraq to get a report from Free Speech Radio News' Aaron Glantz who interviews Iraqis fleeing Fallujah as well as a producer with Al-Jazeera television who says he and fellow journalists were targeted by U.S. snipers in the town. The town of Fallujah is under siege and there are reports of a massacre of Iraqis at the hands U.S. troops. The death toll in the town has now topped 600 with over 1,000 injured.

Local hospitals reported the majority of the dead were women, children and the elderly. The U.S. maintains 95 percent of those killed were members of the resistance. This according to the Guardian of London.

More than 60,000 women and children fled the city during a brief ceasefire on Friday but the US blocked any men of military age from leaving. Dozens of bodies have been buried in the city's soccer stadium after US forces blocked roads heading toward the cemetery.

The attack on Fallujah has galvanized major portions of the Iraqi population against the U.S. Middle East analyst and University of Michigan professor Juan Cole writes "There is a danger that the vindictive attitude of the Americans ... will push the whole country to hate them. A hated occupier is powerless even with all the firepower in the world."

transcript...

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/12/1423251

[seemslikeadream]

16. butchers

[gottaB]

18. Thanks, I've seen some of Glantz's reports

And others that corroborate the basic facts.

It's kind of noteworthy that the BBC is now reporting this too.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

20. for the death of those 4 Blackwater mercenaries we killed 1,000 in Falluja

"topped 600 April 12th"...and i read last week "over 700" topped means over...it is now the 23rd :(