US media applauds destruction of Fallujah

[RBHam]

By David Walsh
wsws.org
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/fall-n17.shtml
excerpt:
For all intents and purposes, the US military declared any male in Fallujah and any family unlucky enough to be caught in the hail of deadly fire legitimate targets for death. We will perhaps never know how many civilians have been slaughtered by US forces.

The chief United Nations human rights official, Louise Arbour, has called for an investigation of abuses, including the disproportionate use of force and the targeting of civilians. Arbour claimed that all violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws should be investigated, including “the deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, the killing of injured persons and the use of human shields.” The American media either ignores or brushes this aside.

In none of the US media commentaries is there a single expression of concern about not merely the moral, but the legal issues involved in the attack on Fallujah. The American military operation in the city is an illegal act of aggression in an illegal, aggressive war.

As Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists, has noted, the attack began with an act contravening international law: “They stormed and occupied the Fallujah General Hospital, and have not agreed to allow doctors and ambulances to go inside the main part of the city to help the wounded, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions.”

Cohn continues: “Torture, inhuman treatment, and willful killing are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, treaties ratified by the United States. Grave breaches of Geneva are considered war crimes under our federal War Crimes Act of 1996. American nationals who commit war crimes abroad can receive life in prison, or even the death penalty if the victim dies. Under the doctrine of command responsibility, a commander can be held liable if he knew or should have known his inferiors were committing war crimes and he failed to prevent or stop them. ... Bush’s aggressive war against the people of Iraq promises to kill many more American soldiers and untold numbers of Iraqis. Nuremberg prosecutor Justice Jackson labeled the crime of aggression ‘the greatest menace of our times.’ More than 50 years later, his words still ring true.”

[liberal N proud]

1. This is a sick and doomed nation.

This nation will suffer for these tragedies committed in our name.
How long will the world stand by while bush and his regime commit crimes against humanity?

[rodeodance]

2. it was not the people of Iraq that brought down the towers

but yet they are paying for it with their lives and the destruction of their cites/countryside.

IMMoral

[bowens43]

3. well we gotta kill someone, right?

This country, it's military, it's 'leadership' and it's citizens sicken me. We had the potential to be a great nation and after only a couple of hundred years we blew it. There is no place for wisdom, justice, compassion or honor in the republican controlled USA.

[Deja Q]

4. Could this be another reason why Pootie-Poot decided to do a new arms race

With Russia and China forging an alliance with trade and oil, Bush's soon-to-be-former-friend :tinfoilhat: knows there may be a strike some years down the road.

:shrug:

[lil-petunia]

5. you are missing the new equation

Iraqi = bad
Christian = good

Ergo, it is impossible for us good guy christians to do anything bad. And if we cause people to hate the US because we destroyed a city, well, we will just attack their city like Mosul. See? We DO have a plan after all.

OK, so the logic is weak, but logic iwas never the strong point with people of faith to begin with.


What pisses me off is the military announcement that less than 5% of the dead or captured fighters were foreigners. What the media misses is that the insurgents are now made up almost totally of Iraqi citizens. Therefore, we are fighting a civil war. One we created because of stupid planning and hubris.