- Murder...
-
- People in Falloojeh are being murdered. The stories coming
back are horrifying. People being shot in cold blood in the streets and
being buried under tons of concrete and iron... where is the world? Bury
Arafat and hurry up and pay attention to what's happening in Iraq.
-
- They say the people have nothing to eat. No produce is
going into the city and the water has been cut off for days and days. Do
you know what it's like to have no clean water??? People are drinking contaminated
water and coming down with diarrhoea and other diseases. There are corpses
in the street because no one can risk leaving their home to bury people.
Families are burying children and parents in the gardens of their homes.
WHERE IS EVERYONE???
-
- Furthermore, where is Sistani? Why isn't he saying anything
about the situation? When the South was being attacked, Sunni clerics everywhere
decried the attacks. Where is Sistani now, when people are looking to him
for some reaction? The silence is deafening.
-
- We're not leaving the house lately. There was a total
of 8 hours of electricity today and we've been using the generator sparingly
because there is a mysterious fuel shortage... several explosions were
heard in different places.
-
- Things are deteriorating swiftly.
-
- More on Falloojeh crisis here:
-
- Aid agencies say Falluja "big disaster"...
- http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=620124§ion=news
-
- Eyewitness: Smoke and Corpses...
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4004873.stm
-
- Iraqis will never forgive this- never. It's outrageous-
it's genocide and America, with the help and support of Allawi, is responsible.
May whoever contributes to this see the sorrow, terror and misery of the
people suffering in Falloojeh.
-
- - posted by river @ 1:30 AM
- Friday, November 12, 2004
-
- One of Those Weeks...
- These last few days have been explosive- literally.
-
- The sounds seem to be coming from everywhere. I've gotten
tired of running upstairs and out on to the roof to find out where it's
coming from. It feels like the first days of the war sometimes- planes,
explosions, bullets, smoke... roads cut off.
-
- We haven't attempted to leave the house but an uncle
who was supposed to visit called to say he wouldn't be able to come because
so many roads were blocked. Many people were told not to go to work and
students stopped going to college yesterday. It's one of those weeks. Some
areas in Baghdad seem to be cut off by armed gangs.
-
- Eid is in a couple of days and that means there's Eid
cleaning to do. The water was cut off all day today and the electricity
was gone too. This seems to be happening all over Baghdad- we heard about
the same situation in several areas. Can someone say 'collective punishment'?!
WE didn't kidnap your relatives Allawi... it was Zarqawi, remember?!
-
- Falloojeh is still being destroyed and the stories we
hear are mixed. It's difficult to tell what's true and what isn't. All
we know is that there are dozens of civilians being killed. They also say
18 Americans have died and over a hundred are wounded.
-
- Mosul is also a mess. They are saying there isn't a tank
or patrol car in sight in that city.
-
- Read more about the situation at Juan Cole [http://juancole.com/]-
would love to say more but the generator is going to be turned off in a
couple of minutes.
-
- - posted by river @ 1:57 AM
- Wednesday, November 10, 2004
-
- Rule of Iraq Assassins Must End...
-
- I'm not feeling well - it's a combination of the change
of weather and the decline in the situation. Eid is less than a week away
but no one is feeling at all festive. We're all worried about the situation
in Falloojeh and surrounding regions. We've ceased worrying about the explosions
in Baghdad and are now concerned with the people who have left their homes
and valuables and are living off of the charity of others.
-
- Allawi declared a "State of Emergency" a couple
of days ago... A state of emergency *now* - because previous to this week,
we Iraqis were living in an American made Utopia, as the world is well
aware. So what does an "Emergency State" signify for Iraqis?
Basically, it means we are now *officially* more prone to being detained,
raided, and just generally abused by our new Iraqi forces and American
ones. Today they declared a curfew on Baghdad after 10 p.m. but it hasn't
really made an impact because people have stopped leaving their houses
after dark anyway.
-
- The last few days have been tense and heart-rending.
Most of us are really worried about Falloojeh. Really worried about Falloojeh
and all the innocents dying and dead in that city. There were several explosions
in Baghdad these last few days and hardly any of them were covered by the
press. All this chaos has somehow become uncomfortably normal. Two years
ago I never would have dreamed of living like this- now this lifestyle
has become the norm and I can barely remembering having lived any other
way.
-
- My cousin kept the kids home from school, which is happening
quite often. One of the explosions today was so close, the house rocked
with the impact and my cousin's wife paled, "Can you imagine if the
girls had been at school when that happened- I would have died."
-
- Dozens of civilians have died these last few days in
Ramadi, Falloojeh, and Samarra. We are hearing about complete families
being killed under the rain of bombs being dropped by American forces.
The phone lines in those areas seem to be cut off. We've been trying to
call some relatives in Ramadi for the last two days, but it's next to impossible.
We keep getting that dreadful busy tone and there's just no real way of
knowing what is going on in there. There is talk of the use of cluster
bombs and other forbidden weaponry.
-
- We're hearing various stories about the situation. The
latest is that 36 American troops have been taken prisoner along with dozens
of Iraqi troops. How do people feel about the Iraqi troops? There's a certain
rage. It's difficult to sympathize with a fellow-countryman while he's
killing one of his own. People generally call them "Dogs of Occupation"
here because instead of guarding our borders or securing areas, they are
used to secure American forces. They drive out in front of American cars
in order to clear the roads and possibly detonate some of those road mines
at a decent distance from the American tanks. At the end of the day, most
of them are the remnants of militias and that's the way they act.
-
- And now they are being used in Falloojeh against other
Iraqis. The whole situation is making me sick and there's a fury building
up. The families in Falloojeh have been relegated to living in strange
homes and mosques outside of the city... many of them are setting up their
families inside of emptied schools and municipal buildings in Samarra and
neighboring areas. Every time I see Allawi on tv talking about his regrets
about 'having to attack Falloojeh' I get so angry I could scream. He's
talking to the outside world, not to us. Iraqis don't buy his crap for
a instant. We watch him talk and feel furious and frustrated with our new
tyrant.
-
- I was watching CNN this morning and I couldn't get the
image of the hospital in Falloojeh being stormed by Iraqi and American
troops out of my head- the Iraqis being made to lay face-down on the ground,
hands behind their backs. Young men and old men... and then the pictures
of Abu Ghraib replay themselves in my mind. I think people would rather
die than be taken prisoner by the Americans.
-
- The borders with Syria and Jordan are also closed and
many of the highways leading to the borders have been blocked. There are
rumors that there are currently 100 cars ready to detonate in Mosul, being
driven by suicide bombers looking for American convoys. So what happens
when Mosul turns into another Falloojeh? Will they also bomb it to the
ground? I heard a report where they mentioned that Zarqawi 'had probably
escaped from Falloojeh'... so where is he now? Mosul?
-
- Meanwhile, Rumsfeld is making his asinine remarks again,
-
- "There aren't going to be large numbers of civilians
killed and certainly not by U.S. forces,"
-
- No- there are only an 'estimated' 100,000 civilians in
Falloojeh (and these are American estimations). So far, boys and men between
the ages of 16 and 60 aren't being counted as 'civilians' in Falloojeh.
They are being rounded up and taken away. And, *of course* the US forces
aren't going to be doing the killing: The bombs being dropped on Falloojeh
don't contain explosives, depleted uranium or anything harmful- they contain
laughing gas- that would, of course, explain Rumsfeld's idiotic optimism
about not killing civilians in Falloojeh. Also, being a 'civilian' is a
relative thing in a country occupied by Americans. You're only a civilian
if you're on their side. If you translate for them, or serve them food
in the Green Zone, or wipe their floors- you're an innocent civilian. Everyone
else is an insurgent, unless they can get a job as a 'civilian'.
-
- So this is how Bush kicks off his second term. More bloodshed.
-
- "Innocent civilians in that city have all the guidance
they need as to how they can avoid getting into trouble,"
-
- How do they do that Rumsfeld? While tons of explosives
are being dropped upon your neighborhood, how do you do that? Do you stay
inside the house and try to avoid the thousands of shards of glass that
shoot out at you from shattering windows? Or do you hide under a table
and hope that it's sturdy enough to keep the ceiling from crushing you?
Or do you flee your house and pray to God you don't come face to face with
an Apache or tank or that you aren't in the line of fire of a sniper? How
do you avoid the cluster bombs and all the other horror being dealt out
to the people of Falloojeh?
-
- There are a couple of things I agree with. The first
is the following:
-
- "Over time you'll find that the process of tipping
will take place, that more and more of the Iraqis will be angry about the
fact that their innocent people are being killed..."
-
- He's right. It is going to have a decisive affect on
Iraqi opinion- but just not the way he thinks. There was a time when pro-occupation
Iraqis were able to say, "Let's give them a chance..." That time
is over. Whenever someone says that lately, at best, they get a lot of
nasty looks... often it's worse. A fight breaks out and a lot of yelling
ensues... how can one condone occupation? How can one condone genocide?
What about the mass graves of Falloojeh? Leaving Islam aside, how does
one agree to allow the murder of fellow-Iraqis by the strongest military
in the world?
-
- The second thing Rumsfeld said made me think he was reading
my mind:
-
- "Rule of Iraq assassins must end..." I couldn't
agree more: Get out Americans.
-
- - posted by river @ 1:02 AM
-
- http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
|
