The Battle for Iraq - Ethnic Cleansing
POSTED BY: Ghoulman
UPDATED: Sunday, June 22, 2025 01:22
VIEWED: 23789
PAGE 13 of 18
Naomi Klein's response to US Ambassadoor deserves to be posted here as well. It documents the deliberate intediction of Fallujah: doctors, reporters, and clerics, amounting to a total news blackout in which ANYTHING might be happening in the city. Taking the hospital, initally excused as having been done because the "bridge was litterd with explosives", was repeated in MosulSo, what was the military's excuse THAT time?
So we are dependent on what the military tells us... or choses not to tell us. (Not that they have ever lied before 
) And there has been d*mn little about Fallujah in the news lately, hasn't there? REMEMBER: It's not just the news behind the news, it the news behind the non-news.
W/o further ado, here is an excerpt from Naomi Klein's latest:
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Eliminating doctors
The first major operation by US marines and Iraqi soldiers was to storm Falluja general hospital, arresting doctors and placing the facility under military control. The New York Times reported that "the hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumours about heavy casual ties", noting that "this time around, the American military intends to fight its own information war, countering or squelching what has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons". The Los Angeles Times quoted a doctor as saying that the soldiers "stole the mobile phones" at the hospital - preventing doctors from communicating with the outside world.
But this was not the worst of the attacks on health workers. Two days earlier, a crucial emergency health clinic was bombed to rubble, as well as a medical supplies dispensary next door. Dr Sami al-Jumaili, who was working in the clinic, says the bombs took the lives of 15 medics, four nurses and 35 patients. The Los Angeles Times reported that the manager of Falluja general hospital "had told a US general the location of the downtown makeshift medical centre" before it was hit.
Whether the clinic was targeted or destroyed accidentally, the effect was the same: to eliminate many of Falluja's doctors from the war zone. As Dr Jumaili told the Independent on November 14: "There is not a single surgeon in Falluja." When fighting moved to Mosul, a similar tactic was used: on entering the city, US and Iraqi forces immediately seized control of the al-Zaharawi hospital.
Eliminating journalists
The images from last month's siege on Falluja came almost exclusively from reporters embedded with US troops. This is because Arab journalists who had covered April's siege from the civilian perspective had effectively been eliminated. Al-Jazeera had no cameras on the ground because it has been banned from reporting in Iraq indefinitely. Al-Arabiya did have an unembedded reporter, Abdel Kader Al-Saadi, in Falluja, but on November 11 US forces arrested him and held him for the length of the siege. Al-Saadi's detention has been condemned by Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists. "We cannot ignore the possibility that he is being intimidated for just trying to do his job," the IFJ stated.
It's not the first time journalists in Iraq have faced this kind of intimidation. When US forces invaded Baghdad in April 2003, US Central Command urged all unembedded journalists to leave the city. Some insisted on staying and at least three paid with their lives. On April 8, a US aircraft bombed al-Jazeera's Baghdad offices, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. Al-Jazeera has documentation proving it gave the coordinates of its location to US forces.
On the same day, a US tank fired on the Palestine hotel, killing José Couso, of the Spanish network Telecinco, and Taras Protsiuk, of Reuters. Three US soldiers are facing a criminal lawsuit from Couso's family, which alleges that US forces were well aware that journalists were in the Palestine hotel and that they committed a war crime.
Eliminating clerics
Just as doctors and journalists have been targeted, so too have many of the cle
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For what it's worth....
"The tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of Fallujans who fled the western Baghdad city before the US-led onslaught have more to be concerned about than just flattened houses, devastated infrastructure and bullet-ridden mosques.
The US occupation forces are planning a set of police state measures to be strictly applied to any of the battle-scarred city’s residents yearning to come back, reported the Boston Globe Saturday, Sunday December.
This includes funneling Fallujans to so-called citizen processing centers on the outskirts of the city to compile a database of their identities through DNA testing and scanning, according to the American paper. (This assumes that Marines will have complete perimeter control of the city- building a wall, perhaps?? SignyM)
Fallujans would also be forced to wear, at all times, badges displaying their home addresses while the use of cars would be banned inside the city, added the Globe. (Why don't they just make them wear a yellow star? SignyM)
...The successive air strikes have caused huge damage in the western Baghdad city, with dead bodies littering the streets.
Slave-Like
Another humiliating proposal, which even triggered debate among Marine officers in control of the city, is to force all Fallujan men to work in military-style battalions, reported the Globe.
They would work in such fields as construction, waterworks, or rubble-clearing platoons and get paid, it added...
Model City
The US occupation forces and the interim government repeatedly said they wanted to make Fallujah a “model city,” where they can maintain the security that has eluded them elsewhere, according to the Globe.
The US forces maintain that the use of such coercive measures is allowed by the martial law imposed last month by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
“It's the Iraqi interim government that's coming up with all these ideas,” Major General Richard Natonski, who commanded the Fallujah assault, said of the plans for identity badges and work brigades.
The interim government declared on Sunday, November 7, a state of emergency across the war-torn country, except for the Kurdish-run north, which gives it sweeping powers.
In an unusual criticism of the bloody situation in war-torn Iraq, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) lambasted Friday, November 19, “utter contempt” for humanity shown by all parties.
“As hostilities continue in Fallujah and elsewhere, every day seems to bring news of yet another act of utter contempt for the most basic tenet of humanity: the obligation to protect human life and dignity,” said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the ICRC's director of operations.
Red Crescent Forced Out
The Iraqi Red Crescent complained Sunday it had been forced to leave the war-battered city on US military orders.
“Multinational forces asked the IRC to withdraw from Fallujah for security reasons and until further notice,” the organization's spokeswoman Ferdus al-Ibadi told Agence France-Presse.
The IRC distributed food, water and blankets to around 1,500 people in the city, whose population was around 300,000 before a massive assault by US-led forces began on November 8.
The US military had since Thursday been interviewing military-age males who came to the IRC for food aid as well as testing them for gun powder, an AFP correspondent said.
There had been friction between the IRC and the US military as the agency was prevented from distributing aid throughout the city.
US occupation forces have for many days banned relief teams from entering war-battered Fallujah to help the wounded and bury the dead."
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=2551
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Well that's a heck of a way to avoid anyone doing a body count. Just let 'em die and rot where no one can see them. Mission Accomplished!
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The fact is that 40 percent of Iraqis say their country is better off since the war, at least 35 percent want the United States to stay.
Hearts and minds in the bag. Way impressive numbers. Yawn.
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I did some quick checking. The Geneva Conventions and Protocols, and the Hague Protocol clearly forbid the destruction, targeting, commandeering and occupation of hospitals, medical facilities, and medical personnel. They forbid the targeting of civilians, and forbid selected portions of the population from being targets on the basis of, for example, sex. They forbid the blocking of civilian relief agencies. They also clearly put the onus on the army to maintain peace and order, and normal civilian services.
Haven't looked up yet whether or not violations of the above are subject to war crimes prosecutions.
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I did some quick checking. The Geneva Conventions and Protocols, and the Hague Protocol clearly forbid the destruction, targeting, commandeering and occupation of hospitals, medical facilities, and medical personnel. They forbid the targeting of civilians, and forbid selected portions of the population from being targets on the basis of, for example, sex. They forbid the blocking of civilian relief agencies. They also clearly put the onus on the army to maintain peace and order, and normal civilian services.
Haven't looked up yet whether or not violations of the above are subject to war crimes prosecutions.
Geneva Convention:
Quote:
Chapter III. Medical Units and Establishments
Art. 19. Fixed establishments and mobile medical units of the Medical Service may in no circumstances be attacked, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict. Should they fall into the hands of the adverse Party, their personnel shall be free to pursue their duties, as long as the capturing Power has not itself ensured the necessary care of the wounded and sick found in such establishments and units.
The responsible authorities shall ensure that the said medical establishments and units are, as far as possible, situated in such a manner that attacks against military objectives cannot imperil their safety.
Art. 20. Hospital ships entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea of 12 August 1949, shall not be attacked from the land.
Art. 21. The protection to which fixed establishments and mobile medical units of the Medical Service are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy. Protection may, however, cease only after a due warning has been given, naming, in all appropriate cases, a reasonable time limit, and after such warning has remained unheeded.
Art. 22. The following conditions shall not be considered as depriving a medical unit or establishment of the protection guaranteed by Article 19: (1) That the personnel of the unit or establishment are armed, and that they use the arms in their own defence, or in that of the wounded and sick in their charge. (2) That in the absence of armed orderlies, the unit or establishment is protected by a picket or by sentries or by an escort. (3) That small arms and ammunition taken from the wounded and sick and not yet handed to the proper service, are found in the unit or establishment. (4) That personnel and material of the veterinary service are found in the unit or establishment, without forming an integral part thereof. (5) That the humanitarian activities of medical units and establishments or of their personnel extend to the care of civilian wounded or sick.
Art. 23. In time of peace, the High Contracting Parties and, after the outbreak of hostilities, the Parties thereto, may establish in their own territory and, if the need arises, in occupied areas, hospital zones and localities so organized as to protect the wounded and sick from the effects of war, as well as the personnel entrusted with the organization and administration of these zones and localities and with the care of the persons therein assembled.
Upon the outbreak and during the course of hostilities, the Parties concerned may conclude agreements on mutual recognition of the hospital zones and localities they have created. They may for this purpose implement the provisions of the Draft Agreement annexed to the present Convention, with such amendments as they may consider necessary.
The Protecting Powers and the International Committee of the Red Cross are invited to lend their good offices in order to facilitate the institution and recognition of these hospital zones and localities.
Nothing in here about occupying a hospital, just about attacking one.
So would the occupation of a hospital by the forces of the legitimate
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Geezer- "So would the occupation of a hospital by the forces of the legitimate government and its allies for it's protection from insurgents, and the continued operation of that hospital after verifying the identity of the staff and patients violate this rule?"
The VERY first part of your statement- "legitimate government {of Iraq}"- is very much in question. If a government is installed by an illegally invading force, is it a legitimate government? Find me some evidence or point of law to provide even a shred of justification for your statement.
The second part "for it's {the hospital's} protection from insurgents" is pure supposition on your part and contradicts the military's own explanation. The official military reason for occupying and intedicting the hospital was NOT what you stated, it was because the bridge to the hospital was supposedly littered with explosives. Now, if the real reason had been to protect the hospital from insurgents, why didn't the military just say so? Why make up some cock-and-bull about the bridge? (I'll leave you to work that one out for yourself. 
)
The third part- about continued operation- is something I have not seen evidence of. True, patients and doctors were not dumped out on the street (they were just handcuffed to the floor and the doctors' cell phones were confiscated... I know, because they "might have been" insurgents calling home, right?) but on the other hand, the hospital could not accept patients during the initial part of the invasion. I honestly do not have a fix on when the hospital started accepting patients again... do you? And if it's unavailable it's out of operation, especially during the time it would have been most needed. Since there is next to no news coming out of Fallujah, I personally don't know whether the hospital is in operation even now. Provide a timeline with evidence please.
However, you did manage to skate around the entire point of my posts. I think you're fighting a rear-guard action here, Geezer. 
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Naomi Klein's response to US Ambassadoor deserves to be posted here as well. SNIP!
Sure does! And my thanx once again.
It's sad that bodies are still being picked up in Fallujah while the US Military, following White House orders (and hey, the new Intel Bill will make that even easier for Der Fuhrer in Washington to order troops directly), refused to let aid into a city "cleansed" of "insurgents".
That's the thing, we can see Fallujah is little more than a crater now but no one questions this act. Tell me, why is destroying an entire city, making refugees or 200,000 people, considered an acceptable solution to America?
Shame.
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At this point Geezer, they're not being "picked", they're being shoveled, swept or hosed. I tell you, if the military is going to make a "model city" of Fallujah, they first must get rid of that smell. Leave a body lying around long enough, and the smell just permeates whatever it touches. Can't wash it out, that's for sure.
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QUOTE]Originally posted by SignyM:
At this point Geezer, they're not being "picked", they're being shoveled, swept or hosed. I tell you, if the military is going to make a "model city" of Fallujah, they first must get rid of that smell. Leave a body lying around long enough, and the smell just permeates whatever it touches. Can't wash it out, that's for sure.
Not sure I understand the genesis of this post. Are you mistaking Ghoul's post above for mine?
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