A very useful account despite some rather questionable musical references at the end

by Scott Morris ; November 19, 2005
ZNet | U.S.

"Swarming…the specter in broad daylight accosts the passerby.
-- T.S. Eliot, "The Wasteland"

"We have now awakened to the barbarians...Retribution has been visited on the barbarians,
and more will follow."
-- Naval War College Review

"Waste the motherfuckers!" screamed across the screen in the outrageous and hateful film "Rules of Engagement" (2000), and into the streets and neighborhoods of Fallujah in November 2004. The film is a Samuel L. Jackson military vehicle that celebrates US war crimes from Vietnam to the Middle East, the US slaughter of Muslim civilians, young children included, and Arab bloodletting in general. It is, of course, one film, among many, that prepares US audiences for real manifestations of US aggression and war crimes: torture, slaughter of civilians, children included, and Iraqi bloodletting, as was the case in the "wasting" of Fallujah.

See this VIDEO of American war crimes in Falluja.

This video is very graphic, but it reveals the barbarism of US imperialism.

The point of linking to this video is not to be shocking, but to encourage more serious and effective activism against imperialism.

For context, see the corresponding article by The Independent on the front page of the A&S website. Here's another one:

for pic and italian story see:
http://www.rainews24.it/Notizia.asp?NewsID=57784

US forces 'used chemical weapons' during assault on city of Fallujah
By Peter Popham
Published: 08 November 2005
The Independent

Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped
massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah
during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and
civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon.

by Ali Fadhil
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1387460,00.html

On November 8, the American army launched its biggest ever assault on the
Iraqi city of Falluja, considered a stronghold for rebel fighters. The US said

After Fallujah, Son Is Gone but Fervor Remains

Father Who Left Reluctantly Waits to Fight Another Day

By Anthony Shadid

Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 1, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Nov. 30 - In a cramped room that has become his refuge, with walls of
grimy plaster and sloppy brickwork, a man known as Abu Mohammed sat with his
children.

U.S. uses napalm gas in Fallujah – Witnesses
11/28/2004 1:45:00 PM GMT
Al Jazeera

The U.S. military is secretly using banned napalm gas and other outlawed weapons against civilians in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, eyewitnesses reported.

Falluja is not unique. Collective punishment is escalating in Iraq

Haifa Zangana
Wednesday November 17, 2004

The Guardian

In a statement that directly echoed George Bush, Qasim Daoud, Iraq's interim minister of state for national security, told a news conference at the weekend: "Mission accomplished ... Falluja has been liberated". He proudly recited the list of the dead - 1,400 terrorists, foreigners and Saddamists. And what about civilians, the women and children trapped in the fighting zone. Any casualties? He avoided the question.

By Pepe Escobar, for the Asia Times

"The bombs being dropped on Fallujah don't contain explosives, depleted uranium or anything harmful - they contain laughing gas - that would, of course, explain [Pentagon chief Donald] Rumsfeld's misplaced optimism about not killing civilians in Fallujah. 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. Just about everyone else is an insurgent, unless they can get a job as a 'civilian'."

A.G. Hopkins

The assault on Fallujah is intended to eliminate 'insurgents' from one of
the most important centers of opposition in Iraq and is therefore a
significant moment in the struggle to control the country. The term
'insurgent' has become the accepted way for both hawks and doves to refer to
armed opposition in Iraq and is now used as if its meaning were
unproblematic. The most recent studies, for example, assume a common
understanding of the word and concentrate instead on strategic, battleground
matters. Yet the term is far from being transparent and is also loaded with
political claims. To investigate it is to consider the nature of the enemy.
This is, self-evidently, an important exercise: we cannot claim to
comprehend the world unless we can be sure that we are describing it in the
most appropriate language. Ill-fitting descriptions may have far-reaching
consequences for public understanding and formal policy-making.

August 29, 2004
INSURGENCY

In Western Iraq, Fundamentalists Hold U.S. at Bay
By JOHN F. BURNS and ERIK ECKHOLM
NYT

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 28 - While American troops have been battling Islamic militants to an uncertain outcome in Najaf, the Shiite holy city, events in two Sunni Muslim cities that stand astride the crucial western approaches to Baghdad have moved significantly against American plans to build a secular democracy in Iraq.

Marines disband Fallujah forces
By Pamela Hess Pentagon correspondent
Published 8/14/2004 8:00 PM

FALLUJAH, Iraq, Aug. 14 (UPI) -- 1st Marine Division plans to dissolve the controversial "Fallujah Brigade" and the Iraqi police department in that turbulent city next week, clearing the way for a future decisive battle if the Iraqi government orders it.

read Tarek's blog at www.tarek.2y.net/iraq

The News From Planet Falluja

by CHRISTIAN PARENTI

[posted online on July 5, 2004]

Tariq is an upper-middle-class Canadian medical student of Palestinian origin. He is a Muslim, fluent in Arabic and English, very smart, very young, brave and a bit naïve. He is an obsessive computer geek with a tendency toward pedantry on matters technological. Over the past two years he has spent several months in Palestine doing solidarity work.

'This is the only fun the kids get - shooting at the US sitting ducks'

Who exactly are the Iraqi resistance?

In a remarkable essay, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad joins the front-line anti-American fighters in Kerbala, Falluja and Sadr City...

ZNet | Iraq

Control of Security Forces

by Dahr Jamail; The NewStandard; June 14, 2004

Baghdad , Jun 14 - Even as authorities for the US-run occupation cede a greater share of security responsibilities to Iraqi forces, spokespeople for the Iraqi police and paramilitaries in many areas of the war-torn country say they lack the legitimacy and tools necessary to carry out their duties. With the transfer of official sovereignty to a US-sanctioned governing body just over two weeks away, officials with both the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and the Iraqi Police complain they are understaffed, under-equipped and undermined by the US.

By Aladdin Saad

TAJI, Iraq (Reuters) - Guerrillas detonated a car bomb outside an Iraqi security force base just north of Baghdad Sunday, killing nine people and wounding dozens in the latest attack on Iraqis cooperating with occupying troops.

THE STRATFOR WEEKLY

03 June 2004

Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia

By George Friedman

Summary

The United States has clearly entered a new phase of the Iraq campaign in

www.albasrah.net

Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Sunday, 16 May 2004 and Monday, 17 May 2004. Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice.

Deadly April Battle Became a Turning Point for Fallouja
By Tony Perry, Patrick J. McDonnell and Alissa J. Rubin
LA Times Staff Writers
May 17, 2004

FALLOUJA, Iraq — The insurgents came at the Marines in relentless, almost suicidal waves. By the time the two-hour firefight in the Jolan district of this Sunni Muslim stronghold was over, dozens of anti-American fighters and one Marine were dead.

postde at www.lefthook.org, a journal by and for american youth on the radical left.

*******************************************
The Enemy is Within

- by M. Junaid Alam

Every nation has learned, or should have learned, an important lesson: Freedom is worth fighting for, dying for, and standing for - and the advance of freedom leads to peace.

Falluja fighters hit US morale

Friday 30 April 2004, 13:17 Makka Time, 10:17 GMT

Under cover of darkness, US Marine snipers hunting the fighters of Falluja have spent a long night on Iraq's desert sand, emerging with little but frustration. 

Siege of Fallujah provokes second mutiny

By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
April 29, 2004
The Independent

A second unit of the Iraqi armed forces has mutinied at Fallujah after being involved in heavy fighting with insurgents Ali Allawi, the Iraqi Defence Minister, said yesterday.

Fleeing Fallujans killed as crisis deepens

Thursday 29 April 2004, 12:50 Makka Time, 9:50 GMT - Al Jazeera

US soldiers have fired on a minibus full of civilians near a checkpoint on the outskirts of the besieged Iraqi town of Falluja.

US forces to pull out of Falluja

George Wright and agencies
Thursday April 29, 2004
The Guardian

US forces today announced an end to their siege of Falluja, saying they will pull out immediately to allow a newly-created, Iraqi security force to secure the city.

Remember Falluja

By Orit Shohat
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/421014.html

During the first two weeks of this month, the American army committed war
crimes in Falluja on a scale unprecedented for this war. According to the

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed in clashes with guerrillas in the Iraqi flashpoint town of Falluja and two were killed when a building they were searching exploded in Baghdad Monday, a U.S. military spokesman said.

U.S. Troops to Begin Patrols in Fallujah
Monday April 26, 2004 12:01 AM
By JASON KEYSER

Associated Press Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - U.S. troops will begin patrols with Iraqi security forces in Fallujah, the military said Sunday, as the United States backed down from warnings of an all-out assault that could spark new bloodshed and deepen anti-American sentiment.

Uneasy truce in the city of ghosts

Rory McCarthy talks to survivors of the US forces' assault on Falluja, the bloodiest battle of the uprising, which doctors say killed up to 600 Iraqis

Rory McCarthy

Battle for Falluja Rouses the Anger of Iraqis Weary of the U.S. Occupation
By EDWARD WONG
April 22, 2004, New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 21 — After suicide car bombs ripped into the relative calm of the southern city of Basra on Wednesday, merchants in a middle-class neighborhood here directed words dripping with venom at the American occupiers.

US destroying Homes in Falluja
Al Jazeera, Wednesday April 21

Ferocious fighting in the Iraqi town of Falluja has grown so intense that US occupation forces have begun destroying buildings and homes.

For background info on the globalization of slums, see Davis' incredible article in the latest New Left Review.
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The Pentagon as Global Slum Lord
By Mike Davis

The young American Marine is exultant. "It's a sniper's dream," he tells a Los Angeles Times reporter on the outskirts of Fallujah. "You can go anywhere and there so many ways to fire at the enemy without him knowing where you are."