Yahoo! News - Not enough evidence to charge marine in point-blank Fallujah shooting: "
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US marine, captured on film killing a wounded Iraqi at point blank range during November's assault on Fallujah, will not be formally charged due to lack of evidence."
The November 13 shooting occurred during a search of a mosque in a widely broadcast incident that sparked worldwide outrage and was described by the International Committee of the Red Cross as a demonstration of "utter contempt for humanity."
In the incident, a trooper raised his rifle and shot point blank at an apparently unarmed, wounded Iraqi who was slumped against one of the mosque walls, in footage captured by an embedded cameraman working for the NBC network.
Although the insurgents were found to be unarmed, investigators said the one the Marine believed he had seen moving could have been reaching for a weapon.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Monday, February 21, 2005
Accused by American leaders of brain washing their people, of using state-sponsored propaganda
Watch Your Metaphors, Please! :: Intervention Magazine :: War, Politics, Culture
...
MARK SHIELDS: It’s a great screenplay. It's a great screenplay. It really is. The president spending political capital. Rich is right. Jim, we can’t call them town hall meetings. They aren’t town hall meetings; they’re pep rallies, they’re pre-selected. You can't get in there unless you've signed on, unless you've drunk the Kool-Aid and said you’re totally with the president. So these are not town meetings.
JIM LEHRER: [sternly] Watch your metaphors, please!
MARK SHIELDS: [defensively] It really is. They’re pep rallies. And I think Rich is absolutely right. The president is behind the eight ball on this politically.
This was on PBS, the American citizens’ television station. I was witnessing the chillingly tragic consequence of the Bush Administration’s attempts at public mind control.
This dawned on me because I’d just returned to the 'States' after having spent three weeks working on a project in recently freed Eastern Europe. The irony of this is that pre-Cold War communist countries were repeatedly accused by American leaders of brain washing their people, of using state-sponsored propaganda, and a plethora of other approaches to public mind control. Now, the Bush Administration had successfully accomplished with subtlety what the Soviet Union had been unable to do with its heavy handed approach.
In Bush’s world, American journalists must be careful of what they think -- and especially say – when their comments are carried on the airwaves.
...
MARK SHIELDS: It’s a great screenplay. It's a great screenplay. It really is. The president spending political capital. Rich is right. Jim, we can’t call them town hall meetings. They aren’t town hall meetings; they’re pep rallies, they’re pre-selected. You can't get in there unless you've signed on, unless you've drunk the Kool-Aid and said you’re totally with the president. So these are not town meetings.
JIM LEHRER: [sternly] Watch your metaphors, please!
MARK SHIELDS: [defensively] It really is. They’re pep rallies. And I think Rich is absolutely right. The president is behind the eight ball on this politically.
This was on PBS, the American citizens’ television station. I was witnessing the chillingly tragic consequence of the Bush Administration’s attempts at public mind control.
This dawned on me because I’d just returned to the 'States' after having spent three weeks working on a project in recently freed Eastern Europe. The irony of this is that pre-Cold War communist countries were repeatedly accused by American leaders of brain washing their people, of using state-sponsored propaganda, and a plethora of other approaches to public mind control. Now, the Bush Administration had successfully accomplished with subtlety what the Soviet Union had been unable to do with its heavy handed approach.
In Bush’s world, American journalists must be careful of what they think -- and especially say – when their comments are carried on the airwaves.
Official Total of 1,532 US Dead to date: possibly thousands not counted? (U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German
TBRNews.orgThe Bush Butcher’s Bill: 30 US Military Deaths in Iraq from 1 through 13 February 2005 – Official Total of 1,532 US Dead to date (and rising) | by Brian Harring, Domestic Intelligence Reporter
U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals are not counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005.
Note: There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq. We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFP than are reported officially. The educated rumor is that the actual death toll is in excess of 7,000. Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded, this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 1,400+ now being officially published. When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources. Ed
U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals are not counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005.
Note: There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq. We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFP than are reported officially. The educated rumor is that the actual death toll is in excess of 7,000. Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded, this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 1,400+ now being officially published. When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources. Ed
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Fallujah the safest place in Iraq, says US: "We're burning firewood to keep warm." government has not paid out any compensation money so far
Telegraph | News | Fallujah the safest place in Iraq, says US: "Fallujah the safest place in Iraq, says US
(Filed: 19/02/2005)
There is a phrase American officers have started using to describe the battered streets of Fallujah. They are calling it the safest place in Iraq."
Four months after the US military swept through the city in the biggest urban offensive since the Vietnam war, the insurgents who once controlled the city and used it as a springboard for violence elsewhere have gone. Attacks on American or Iraqi security forces are few.
...
On every street is the grim testimony of the insurgents' demise: Piles of rubble and buildings riddled with bullet holes.
The destruction left the city without power and water for weeks, a ghost town of rotting corpses and sewage-filled streets. Services have returned only sporadically.
"Basically, we emptied out the city and let the people back in one by one," said Major Wade Weems, who commands one of two marine reconstruction teams. "We've purified the town of every insurgent element."
...
"We're burning firewood to keep warm. The ministries are finished," he said. The Iraqi government has not paid out any compensation money so far, although assessment teams have been processing claims for weeks.
(Filed: 19/02/2005)
There is a phrase American officers have started using to describe the battered streets of Fallujah. They are calling it the safest place in Iraq."
Four months after the US military swept through the city in the biggest urban offensive since the Vietnam war, the insurgents who once controlled the city and used it as a springboard for violence elsewhere have gone. Attacks on American or Iraqi security forces are few.
...
On every street is the grim testimony of the insurgents' demise: Piles of rubble and buildings riddled with bullet holes.
The destruction left the city without power and water for weeks, a ghost town of rotting corpses and sewage-filled streets. Services have returned only sporadically.
"Basically, we emptied out the city and let the people back in one by one," said Major Wade Weems, who commands one of two marine reconstruction teams. "We've purified the town of every insurgent element."
...
"We're burning firewood to keep warm. The ministries are finished," he said. The Iraqi government has not paid out any compensation money so far, although assessment teams have been processing claims for weeks.
Iraq: suicide bombers and attacks: 55 dead, 91 dead in two days ...
Excite News: "Suicide Bombings, Attacks Kill 55 in Iraq | Feb 19, 9:28 PM (ET) | By MAGGIE MICHAEL
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Eight suicide bombers struck in quick succession Saturday in a wave of attacks that killed 55 people as Iraqi Shiites marched and lashed themselves with chains in ritual mourning of the 7th century death of a leader of their Muslim sect. Ninety-one people have been killed in violence in the past two days. ...
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Eight suicide bombers struck in quick succession Saturday in a wave of attacks that killed 55 people as Iraqi Shiites marched and lashed themselves with chains in ritual mourning of the 7th century death of a leader of their Muslim sect. Ninety-one people have been killed in violence in the past two days. ...
Friday, February 18, 2005
How The US Murdered a City: Fallujah
How The US Murdered a Ccity: "Fallujah: The Truth at Last | Doctor Salam Ismael took aid to Fallujah last month. This is a report of his visit. | 02/17/05 - -
IT WAS the smell that first hit me, a smell that is difficult to describe, and one that will never leave me. It was the smell of death. Hundreds of corpses were decomposing in the houses, gardens and streets of Fallujah. Bodies were rotting where they had fallen-bodies of men, women and children, many half-eaten by wild dogs.
A wave of hate had wiped out two-thirds of the town, destroying houses and mosques, schools and clinics. This was the terrible and frightening power of the US military assault.
...
In Saqlawiya, one of the makeshift refugee camps that surround Fallujah, 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."
...
Through the ruins That is why we decided to go into Fallujah and investigate. When we entered the town I almost did not recognise the place where I had worked as a doctor in April 2004, during the first siege.
We found people wandering like ghosts through the ruins. Some were looking for the bodies of relatives. Others were trying to recover some of their possessions from destroyed homes.
Here and there, small knots of people were queuing for fuel or food. In one queue some of the survivors were fighting over a blanket.
I remember being approached by an elderly woman, her eyes raw with tears. She grabbed my arm and told me how her house had been hit by a US bomb during an air raid. The ceiling collapsed on her 19 year old son, cutting off both his legs.
...
But in most of the houses, the bodies were of civilians. Many were dressed in housecoats, many of the women were not veiled-meaning there were no men other than family members in the house. There were no weapons, no spent cartridges.
It became clear to us that we were witnessing the aftermath of a massacre, the cold-blooded butchery of helpless and defenceless civilians.
Nobody knows how many died. The occupation forces are now bulldozing the neighbourhoods to cover up their crime. What happened in Fallujah was an act of barbarity. The whole world must be told the truth.
IT WAS the smell that first hit me, a smell that is difficult to describe, and one that will never leave me. It was the smell of death. Hundreds of corpses were decomposing in the houses, gardens and streets of Fallujah. Bodies were rotting where they had fallen-bodies of men, women and children, many half-eaten by wild dogs.
A wave of hate had wiped out two-thirds of the town, destroying houses and mosques, schools and clinics. This was the terrible and frightening power of the US military assault.
...
In Saqlawiya, one of the makeshift refugee camps that surround Fallujah, 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."
...
Through the ruins That is why we decided to go into Fallujah and investigate. When we entered the town I almost did not recognise the place where I had worked as a doctor in April 2004, during the first siege.
We found people wandering like ghosts through the ruins. Some were looking for the bodies of relatives. Others were trying to recover some of their possessions from destroyed homes.
Here and there, small knots of people were queuing for fuel or food. In one queue some of the survivors were fighting over a blanket.
I remember being approached by an elderly woman, her eyes raw with tears. She grabbed my arm and told me how her house had been hit by a US bomb during an air raid. The ceiling collapsed on her 19 year old son, cutting off both his legs.
...
But in most of the houses, the bodies were of civilians. Many were dressed in housecoats, many of the women were not veiled-meaning there were no men other than family members in the house. There were no weapons, no spent cartridges.
It became clear to us that we were witnessing the aftermath of a massacre, the cold-blooded butchery of helpless and defenceless civilians.
Nobody knows how many died. The occupation forces are now bulldozing the neighbourhoods to cover up their crime. What happened in Fallujah was an act of barbarity. The whole world must be told the truth.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses: 4 Iraqi civilians killed
MSNBC - U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses: "Four men say they witnessed shooting of unarmed civilians | By Lisa Myers & the NBC investigative unit | Updated: 7:43 p.m. ET Feb. 15, 2005
There are new allegations that heavily armed private security contractors in Iraq are brutalizing Iraqi civilians. In an exclusive interview, four former security contractors told NBC News that they watched as innocent Iraqi civilians were fired upon, and one crushed by a truck. The contractors worked for an American company paid by U.S. taxpayers. The Army is looking into the allegations.
...
"These aren't insurgents that we're brutalizing," says Craun. "It was local civilians on their way to work. It's wrong." ...
There are new allegations that heavily armed private security contractors in Iraq are brutalizing Iraqi civilians. In an exclusive interview, four former security contractors told NBC News that they watched as innocent Iraqi civilians were fired upon, and one crushed by a truck. The contractors worked for an American company paid by U.S. taxpayers. The Army is looking into the allegations.
...
"These aren't insurgents that we're brutalizing," says Craun. "It was local civilians on their way to work. It's wrong." ...
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