Fallujah: The Truth at Last

[amadeus]

The site says it's "news you won't find on CNN."

I think I see why.

 

[zulu9812]

The site says it's "news you won't find on CNN."

I think I see why.

Because it's not corporate-controlled?

 

[King Alexander]

But Zulu, can you believe that this incident is 100% correct? I mean, that's like Stalin behavior. Do the soldiers there have really lost their humanity and every respect for their own military laws? Are they forced to do such things against their will? Even if they were forced to, I can't imagine that all of them whould have execute the command but some would be willing to get jailed rather than execute the command: the soldiers also have a humane side(even if they lost some of it due to the craziness of the war/battlefileds).

 

[zulu9812]

I meant a leading role as in they seem to have great influence withinthe anti war movement and as for it having no "command structure" the police and government may wish it had one but I don't, why would I?

Out of all the anti-war demoss I have been on, I have never seen a Respect delegation, or heard any of their speakers. Respect is not the movement, does not control the movement, and does not influence the movement. The movement is spontaneous. Granted, there are organisations which try to turn the movement to their own end, such as the SWP, but they are not the movement.

The soldiers are simply doing their duty

So were the Nazis - oh wait, bad example in your case...

they are following the orders of a democratically elected government

How democratic do you think this country is? How democratic is non-PR system of election? Take my party for example, the Lib Dems. Their supporters are spread out across the country, rarely gathered in enough strength to win a constituency. The figure which always sticks in my head is a statistic from the 80s of the Liberal Party having 23% of the vote, but only 3% of the seats (they're doing better now - I think about 9% of the seats). Either way it is not democratic. And you won't believe the number of times I've heard criticisers of protestors say "oh if you don't like it, just vote them out at the next election" i.e. 'you shouldn't protest' - as if by voting we tacitly sign away our right to participate otherwise. That's not democratic. We have a leader who took a personal decision to go to war a year before he announced we actually did, bypassing civil society and parliament; the whole point about a democracy is that it's never up to one person, but our leader clearly thinks that it and believes in the absolute power of leadership and state. That is not democratic. Finally, even if we were democratic, our ideology of government, like our nationality, still does not automatically give us the moral high ground - our actions do. And this government's actions have been to start an illegal war in support of a foreign power in defiance of the British people.

and the majority are neither killers or torturers of civillians. The once that do torture have and will be prosecuted and as for killing civillians that is only to be expected in any warzone, like I said before in the confusion and atmosphere of combat mistakes are made but British troops do not target civillians.

Well, I started this thread talking about American soldiers: you hijacked it to talk about British ones. But I'll bite. The British Army generally has a good and professional reputation, and we sully it by allying ourselves with these dogs in the Whitehouse.

For me supporting a group that is killing your own soldiers is hard to understand, I just know that if British citizens were supporting an organisation that was trying to kill me while I was in the army I would have some words to say to him/her when I got back.

So you would support the British Armed Forces no matter what they did? Would you have supported them in colonial times, when they are little better than slavers (damn, bad example for you again)? Would you support them if they engaged in ethnic cleansing. Would you support them if a unit shot 30 civilians in a fortnight, ordered by their CO to do so (a story which was front-page news in the Independent on Sunday last year)?

Again British sodiers do not set up traps for families then massacre them, we do not target civillians. Being under stress makes you make mistakes and in a combat situation civillians can die when you make mistakes, that is not the same as killing a unarmed man in cold blood the killing of civillians is unfortunate yes but in war there will always be civillians killed.

It doesn't matter. When we say we are there to liberate Iraqis, not conquer them, we have an obligation to get it right as best we can. If 100,000 civilians get killed, that requires a serious reapprasial of British & American 'liberation' strategies.

 

[zulu9812]

Even if they were forced to, I can't imagine that all of them whould have execute the command but some would be willing to get jailed rather than execute the command: the soldiers also have a humane side(even if they lost some of it due to the craziness of the war/battlefileds).

Some were willing to be jailed. I don't have a link handy, but there's a famous case last year of a US soldier deserting and then being jailed for 5 years: he says that he deserted be cause if he stayed he would surely commit war crimes. And yes, some soldiers do the right thing - as in the case of the female US soldier mentioned in the article.

 

[Britannia]

Out of all the anti-war demoss I have been on, I have never seen a Respect delegation, or heard any of their speakers. Respect is not the movement, does not control the movement, and does not influence the movement. The movement is spontaneous. Granted, there are organisations which try to turn the movement to their own end, such as the SWP, but they are not the movement.

Very well but they are a part of the movement and these are the people I'm talking about.

So were the Nazis - oh wait, bad example in your case...

So now your comparing British soldiers to Nazis?

How democratic do you think this country is? How democratic is non-PR system of election? Take my party for example, the Lib Dems. Their supporters are spread out across the country, rarely gathered in enough strength to win a constituency. The figure which always sticks in my head is a statistic from the 80s of the Liberal Party having 23% of the vote, but only 3% of the seats (they're doing better now - I think about 9% of the seats). Either way it is not democratic. And you won't believe the number of times I've heard criticisers of protestors say "oh if you don't like it, just vote them out at the next election" i.e. 'you shouldn't protest' - as if by voting we tacitly sign away our right to participate otherwise. That's not democratic. We have a leader who took a personal decision to go to war a year before he announced we actually did, bypassing civil society and parliament; the whole point about a democracy is that it's never up to one person, but our leader clearly thinks that it and believes in the absolute power of leadership and state. That is not democratic. Finally, even if we were democratic, our ideology of government, like our nationality, still does not automatically give us the moral high ground - our actions do. And this government's actions have been to start an illegal war in support of a foreign power in defiance of the British people.

This country is still democratic but I do support the PR system like you. You say that this was is illegal but it is not the British soldiers job to determine whether it is or it isn't illegal that is up to the politicians. It is our duty to go where we are sent, soldiers can't pick and choose which orders to follow and which once do not, unless he is ordered to target civillians.

Well, I started this thread talking about American soldiers: you hijacked it to talk about British ones. But I'll bite. The British Army generally has a good and professional reputation, and we sully it by allying ourselves with these dogs in the Whitehouse.

The American army gets a bad name but to me the Americans (the regular army and marines) were good professional soldiers who also do not target civillians intentially. Look, it is not for soldiers to decide whether the actual act of invading Iraq was legal or not but it is up to them to disobey an order to target civillians or to torture them and if they dont disobey that order they are punished.

So you would support the British Armed Forces no matter what they did? Would you have supported them in colonial times, when they are little better than slavers (damn, bad example for you again)? Would you support them if they engaged in ethnic cleansing. Would you support them if a unit shot 30 civilians in a fortnight, ordered by their CO to do so (a story which was front-page news in the Independent on Sunday last year)?

Lets put it this way, when I was in the army if I had been given an order to invade a country I would have carried it out just as nearly every single soldier in they army would have, in ethnic cleansing, no that is targetting civillians. And the story about a unit shooting 30 civillians they were most likely accidents which happen in a war, in other words not the intentional murder of civillians and if the Independent says otherwise then to be honest I wouldn't believe it, like I said before neither British or American troops target civillians.

It doesn't matter. When we say we are there to liberate Iraqis, not conquer them, we have an obligation to get it right as best we can. If 100,000 civilians get killed, that requires a serious reapprasial of British & American 'liberation' strategies.

Not the fault of the soldiers, the soldiers were given an order to invade Iraq and the carried it out excellently. If you expect an army to invade a country without any civillian casualties than you are delusional. If you want to blame someone for the Iraqi casualties blame the politicians not the soldiers.

 

[storealex]

"The truth at last" uhmm, yeah right...

It can only be true if it bad for America huh?

Moderator Action: Warned for trolling
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Sigh...Zulu, I think I share your opinion about that war and Bush, but this article is blatant propaganda.
Of course, both sides use propaganda, so fiddling out a possible 'Truth about Fallujah' isn't easy. But, this crap is definitely not the the truth.

Before the assault, the US side told us Fallujah is a terrorist stronghold, and all innocent civilians were given enough time to leave the city, and as usual, their precission weaponry...
The Arab side (in the absence of a better name) told us there are only innocent, peaceful citizens, no fighters.

Now obviously, there was stiff resistance. Obviously, there were quite a lot of civilian victims.
Obviously, both sides lied - but isn't that what you'd expect?
Plus, there was that case of the GI murdering a hurt Iraqi with a headshot; a much more reliable story.

This article OTOH, is written in such a primitive way to upset the Arab world, I really wonder how it could be published anywhere less biased than Al-Jazeera...
Just look at all those keywords:

....we found a 17 year old woman. "I am Hudda Fawzi Salam Issawi from the Jolan district of Fallujah," she told me. "Five of us, including a 55 year old neighbour, were trapped together in our house in Fallujah when the siege began.
"On 9 November American marines came to our house. My father and the neighbour went to the door to meet them. We were not fighters. We thought we had nothing to fear. I ran into the kitchen to put on my veil, since men were going to enter our house and it would be wrong for them to see me with my hair uncovered. "This saved my life. As my father and neighbour approached the door, the Americans opened fire on them. They died instantly.

"Me and my 13 year old brother hid in the kitchen behind the fridge. The soldiers came into the house and caught my older sister. They beat her. Then they shot her. But they did not see me. Soon they left, but not before they had destroyed our furniture and stolen the money from my father's pocket."

Hudda told me how she comforted her dying sister by reading verses from the Koran. They were ordered to gather outside near the Jamah al-Furkan mosque in the centre of town.
When they reached the main road outside the mosque they heard a shout, but they could not understand what was being shouted. Eyad told me it could have been "now" in English. Then the firing began. US soldiers appeared on the roofs of surrounding houses and opened fire. ...
The five survivors, including the six month old child, lay in the street for seven hours. ...

...
Fallujah's main hospital was seized by the US troops in the first days of the siege. The only other clinic, the Hey Nazzal, was hit twice by US missiles. Its medicines and medical equipment were all destroyed. There were no ambulances-the two ambulances that came to help the wounded were shot up and destroyed by US troops.

We visited houses in the Jolan district, a poor working class area in the north western part of the city that had been the centre of resistance during the April siege.

They forgot the part with the incubator and the babies thrown out, me thinks. But otherwise, perfect.

A girl with the right belief, intact family, honored elder neighbor, Americans looting worthless iraqi money, destroying the furniture (but obviously not looking into the kitchen :crazyeyes: ), shooting people at the mosque (no, it could never have been at the market, city hall, football field), destroyed hospitals,....

Seriously - how can you believer anything of this BS?
No propblem with propaganda, but this is extremely silly propaganda.

Would be a lot more inclined to believe it if the story would feature a mid-age Iraqi Christian who went to the toilet (instead of the veil thing), and the shootings would have happened anywhere but not in front of a mosque.

Well, I did a google on Dr Salim Ismael and came up with none of the discrepencies you did, and the "Doctors for Iraqi Society" was founded by one Shaheen Riadh Jihad Abdullah, details of which can be found here

The discrepancies are there (if you feel like digging through 10 pages of Google hits ); but, the point is: They do not affect that doctor's credibility (how could he be wrong -he's a doctor!), they are easily explained by the fact each and every web article was copied again and again.

And the "Doctors for Iraqi Society": Your link (to the vita of Dr. Abdullah) is the absolutely only link not related to Salam and that article.
I have no clue if that society really exists, maybe it is a honorable medical organization - but one thing it is not: A reference.

 

[luiz]

Good post, Doc.

This article is propaganda aimed directly at the Muslim world(the british-muslim community, most probably).
Not only that, it is very poorly written and lacks creativity.

 

[eyrei]

I think I will have to find something totally worthless to sell to the people that believe this article for thousands of dollars.

 

[Zardnaar]

I have no doubt that the US soldiers have abused or murdered Iraqi civilians. However this article seems to be a load of trash and probably hinders the anti war movement than help it.

Its already established abuse took place and to be fair Fallujah was probably one of the best urban assault scenarios in history.

1. The civilians were given plenty of warning to leave (most did)
2. The US took relatively light casualtiesfor urban fighting.
3. Although heavily damaged compare Fallujah to any WW2 city that was fought over and compare the difference.

US soldiers probably aern't any worse than another countrys soldiers and probably better than most in terms of human righht abuses.

 

[YNCS]

I remember in the 1960s reading much the same sort of propaganda coming out of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Except that Ho Chi Minh's propaganda ministry would have had the American soldiers raping the bodies of the dying.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

The raping part won't work well in the Muslimic world, since the victim would be dishonored as well - that's why I didn't expect to find it in this article...
Admittedly, there have been cases where such propaganda turned out to be true, but the victims didn't believe the articles, considering them to be exaggerations (Nazi Germany, and Red Army in 1945). But the Golf Wars are not such a case.

 

[zulu9812]

hmm: They forgot the part with the incubator and the babies thrown out, me thinks. But otherwise, perfect.

Why use American propaganda to insinuate that this article is arab propaganda? That just defies common sense, and you know it.

A girl with the right belief, intact family, honored elder neighbor, Americans looting worthless iraqi money, destroying the furniture (but obviously not looking into the kitchen :crazyeyes: ), shooting people at the mosque (no, it could never have been at the market, city hall, football field), destroyed hospitals,....

Seriously - how can you believer anything of this BS?
No propblem with propaganda, but this is extremely silly propaganda.

Would be a lot more inclined to believe it if the story would feature a mid-age Iraqi Christian who went to the toilet (instead of the veil thing), and the shootings would have happened anywhere but not in front of a mosque.

The reason that you think this is because you have applied your own western preconceptions to the scenario. We'll take the example of the families assembling at the mosque: to you, it seems very 'convenient' because it implies religious purity on behalf of the 'victims'. Did it ever occur to you that mosques might actually fulfill social functions, in the same manner that Christian churches used to, or even fulfill civic functions in the same manner as Shinto shrines in Japan. So, you say "(no, it could never have been at the market, city hall, football field)", when in actual fact the mosque is their equivalent. Additonally, you are happier with the concept of a "mid-age Iraqi Christian who went to the toilet" because that's what western society is like? But your western cynycism cannot mask the fact that maybe, just maybe, other cultures are religious.

The discrepancies are there (if you feel like digging through 10 pages of Google hits ); but, the point is: They do not affect that doctor's credibility (how could he be wrong -he's a doctor!), they are easily explained by the fact each and every web article was copied again and again.

After I read this, I actually did dig through 10 pages of Google hits. Thanks: it was a complete waste of time. I came across lots of instances of Dr, Salim, and Ismael but no glaring discrepencies that would indicate that he was a created character. I came across lots of doctors with combinations of the names, such as Dr. Salim Tamari, Mr. Abdi Ismael, Dr Salim Said Al-Wahabi and El Hadj Ismael Mohamed Gassim. I came across various professions, including doctors, administrators and boxing referees. I even came across countries like Ethiopia, the UAE and even the USA. Next time you might want to check that the entries are actually for all of the same name, are in the same country and are of the same profession. But if you would indulge me, please point these 'discrepencies' out (other than slight misspellings of his name, such as Salam or Saloum).

And the "Doctors for Iraqi Society": Your link (to the vita of Dr. Abdullah) is the absolutely only link not related to Salam and that article.
I have no clue if that society really exists, maybe it is a honorable medical organization - but one thing it is not: A reference.

What is a dishonourable medical organisation? And who are you to say that it is not a reference? What is it then? A reference is something that is used to back up a statement, and more importantly can be looked at. Just because you didn't like it does not make it a non-reference. I'm not quite sure why you get hung up on what 'group' he says he's part of, or how that affects his credibility (he was still there, he still saw what went on, and he's still willing to tell people about it).

Good post, Doc.

No it wasn't. It was someone who didn't feel capable of addressing the message, so attacked it's 'credibility'. He used faux academic 'research' to dress up the fact that he didn't agree with it because it wasn't western enough.

This article is propaganda aimed directly at the Muslim world(the british-muslim community, most probably).
Not only that, it is very poorly written and lacks creativity.

The article is aimed at Socialists, most of whom will be white, lower-middle class students. If the article really was propaganda, it would have been written to be more appealing to a western mind; as it was, it was written from the perspective of an eastern one.

I think I will have to find something totally worthless to sell to the people that believe this article for thousands of dollars.

I'm your customer. Come on then, let's hear yer sales pitch.

I have no doubt that the US soldiers have abused or murdered Iraqi civilians. However this article seems to be a load of trash and probably hinders the anti war movement than help it.

Its already established abuse took place and to be fair Fallujah was probably one of the best urban assault scenarios in history.

1. The civilians were given plenty of warning to leave (most did)
2. The US took relatively light casualtiesfor urban fighting.
3. Although heavily damaged compare Fallujah to any WW2 city that was fought over and compare the difference.

US soldiers probably aern't any worse than another countrys soldiers and probably better than most in terms of human righht abuses.

Aah! Some rational conversation at last! It's actually very simple to join the dots. It is well known that before the attack, the Americans did tell the civilian population to leave. It is also well known that some did, and some didn't. We also know that the Americans said that they would regard all males of military ages (which they defined as 15-65) as threats, since they had told civilians to leave, thus any left would be insurgents. Leaving aside the catastrophic detail that it's infinitely more likely that the insurgents would leave and the civilians stay, if we take the American statements at face value then the claims in the article make more sense. If the Americans are shooting anything that moves (because they are given to the understanding that anyone left is to be treated as hostile until proven otherwise) then it makes perfect sense that Americans in house-to-house clearing operations would burst into building and shoot the adult males. It also makes sense that the American soldier would take the girl to her family, since he isn't a male of military age. The mosque massacre, if it is true, would be an unforgiveable war crime. Even if we assume that it was not sanctioned tactics, but the work of "a few bad apples", perhaps those bad apples thought that the megaphones and subsequent ambush would be a good way to lure out men of military age. Who knows - but it's still a war crime.

2. The US took relatively light casualtiesfor urban fighting.

Perhaps the US took light casualties because the vast majority of the insurgents had left, and thus the US were actually fighting raw recruits (sacrifical lambs, if you will) and civilians?

 

[Fromeast]

Anyway, as a stand-by, I'd rather trust what the Americans said.

 

[Fromeast]

By the way,is it a real American BBS?!

oh,my God

 

[silver 2039]

People who bump 3 year old threads deserve to be castrated with a rusty spoon and force fed their own testicles.

 

[sourboy]

If you live in a warzone, you have to expect a certain level of targeting. Is this story true? Who knows. Could be one persons propaganda. Let's face it, if there's a war in your backyard, you leave. If you're not smart enough to leave, then you have no right to cry when the battle includes you.

 

[silver 2039]

If you live in a warzone, you have to expect a certain level of targeting. Is this story true? Who knows. Could be one persons propaganda. Let's face it, if there's a war in your backyard, you leave. If you're not smart enough to leave, then you have no right to cry when the battle includes you.

Yes because its so easy to leave right? I mean its not like you need to gather people and belongings...and its not like you don't have a place to go...I mean the desert has hotels surely?

 

[Masquerouge]

Anyway, as a stand-by, I'd rather trust what the Americans said.

Why the THREE-YEAR-OLD BUMP?