Pictures from Fallujah -- another Jenin

Urban combat is hell...you're not there, so your opinion is crap :).

this is from a few weeks ago and written to British troops but it seems like a reasonable response:

The US has asked the British government to send you north to free up forces for another offensive against Falluja. I’m writing to ask you to refuse any orders to deploy to Baghdad or other areas currently under US control.

I was an ambulance volunteer in Falluja during the April siege. I went because my friend Salam, a doctor, said US troops were stopping medical supplies getting in, cut off water, food, electricity and had closed down the main hospital and controlled the road to the smaller one with snipers.

Salam was evacuated with bullet wounds; a missile from a US plane destroyed the ambulance in front of his. He and his crew were under fire, pinned inside the vehicle while their colleagues burned in the other one. He thought the marines wouldn’t shoot us because we’d look like their brothers and sisters. He was right: in daylight we moved medical supplies, evacuated people from the second hospital and homes in the firing line, picked up sick and injured people.

We went to bring two sick women from a house in US territory. Outside a man of about 60 was lying face down in the road, shot through the back. You don’t need me to tell you what it looks or smells like when a man’s chest isn’t inside his body any more.

We could see the lines of marines along the tops of the houses. Only when we got there did the family dare to come out, the sons screaming that he was unarmed, he just went out to get the car to take his wife to the clinic. The daughters whispered, “Baba, baba” [Daddy] as we walked them to safety.

Our clinic received countless sniper casualties, the US’s preferred method of controlling its areas: a small boy, trousers wet, shot in the head; an old woman carrying a white flag; a young woman shot in the jaw, all attempting to flee their homes in US territory. Aircraft pounded the town with missiles and cluster bombs. I think they denied using cluster bombs but there’s no mistaking the rhythmic sound of them exploding.

As it got dark we were asked to pick up a woman in premature labour in a US-held area, giving birth without light, water or medical attention. We were not visibly foreign any more and my ambulance, clearly marked as such in English with flashing lights and siren, was fired on by US marine snipers. We never got to her. I don’t know what happened to her.

Cars packed with families queued at the edge of town. Marines were firing at the cars. Troops inside the town had been threatening people to leave by sunset or they would be killed. As we left we were taken prisoner by Iraqi gunmen, afraid that we were spies. They, like the fighters near the clinic, were local men, fighting for their homes and families. If there are foreign fighters (other than US soldiers) in Falluja now it is because that space was created for them by the last attack. Another will only attract more.

An unnamed US official promises a “very bloody and nasty” fight within what another official indicated would be “the next few days” (Washington Post, Sat 16/10/04). Throwaway platitudes like “War is hell” are not good enough. There are choices. The choice to be complicit, to free up US troops to repeat that attack must be consciously made. Each one of you has to decide whether you accept that role.

I get quite a few e-mails from soldiers, US and British, who are angry at what’s happening. They, and you, didn’t risk your lives to go and make things worse.

In April, when Falluja was attacked, there were uprisings across the country, in Shia and Sunni areas alike. In Shuala, Baghdad, there was fighting all around the squatter camp where hundreds of homeless people are living. Even Iraqi organisations couldn’t help them and throughout April they got no aid supplies at all.

Even in Thawra, where US troops once had something like a welcome, there was fighting in the streets, in Najaf, in Nasariya, in dozens of towns and villages that never became news. Another attack on Falluja emphatically won’t make the country safer for elections.

British troops in Baghdad will sustain higher casualties than in the south, will take the brunt of the uprisings caused by US misjudgment and brutality. The UK government will not be there for you or your families when you are killed, maimed or poisoned by depleted uranium weapons.

Please, don’t go. Please don’t make yourselves complicit with the atrocities which will undoubtedly be committed against ordinary Iraqi people in Falluja. Please don’t put yourself closer to harm for the sake of an ill-advised attack that will only make things worse.

http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/10/1700182.php

You do know that "Jenin" never really happened, right?

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both concluded that there was no massacre in Jenin. I know it is difficult to gain new recruits without lying.

Of course Jenin "happened" - the question is, what happened? Was there a "massacre" - perhaps not, although clearly quite few innocent people were killed, as people are routinely killed in the course of Israeli military operations in civilian areas. Was there a war crime? Clearly there was. The mass demolition of civilian homes by an occupying power, as took place, is a flagrant breach of the fourth Geneva Convention. What Israel did here was to exaggerate the claims made, in order to refute them. They deliberately encouraged the formation of the idea of a massacre by refusing to allow in journalists, so fomenting precisely this kind of speculation. I would like to know, when will Israeli war criminals - are almost every Israeli citizen is war criminal for having served during the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory - be put on trial?

"Except in the case of Jenin, Zionists managed to convince the world that it was "anti-Semitic" to speak of a massacre."

You mean in the case of Jenin, various international human rights organizations--except those that take an absolutist stance on the perpetual innocence of the Palestinians, and guilt of the Israelis--determined there was no massacre.

And its pretty clear there wasn't a masscre by the pictures taken after the assault.

If the IDF had wanted to massacre people, a lot more Palestinians would have been killed. In fact, the IDF took an extremely measured stance by limiting airstrikes and risking their own ground forces in house-to-house firefights. Much of the damage done to the infrastructure was the result of demolitions--that were rigged by the Palestinians themselves-- to blow up when the IDF forced their way into buildings.

Jenin wasn't a "massacre." In three days of fighting, 50something palestinians, most of whom were armed hamas and islamic jihad terrrorist organization members, and 20something israelis, died.

And the person a few posts up claiming that ISRAEL is responsible for inflating the numbers only so they could refute them is INSANE. Palestinians, and antisemites on the left, inflated the numbers, claiming thousands, then hundreds, were dead.

It's a shame how people have to take the truth and INTENTIONALLY LIE to try to demonize Israel, as the scumbag who started this topic, and the retard a few posts up, has done.

Also, "Oliver," an insane lunatic above, said this: "I would like to know, when will Israeli war criminals - are almost every Israeli citizen is war criminal for having served during the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory - be put on trial?"

In other words, Oliver wants "almost every Israeli citizen" put on trial.

In other words, Oliver is a friggin NUTJOB.

He probably leads a "peace activist" organization, hahahaa.

We on the left need to get rid of bigots, antisemites and racists, and keep them OUT of peace movements, because all they do is demonize the cause.

WHy is it that israel killing 55 muslims people, most of whom were armed terrorists, over a three day period in heated gun exchanges that also resulted in over 20 israeli soldiers dying -- "JENIN" -- gets mentioned daily, has movies made about it, propaganda every day, thousands of websites about it, dishonest lies calling it a "brutal massacre" when it clearly was not, etc.... but Bosnia ROUNDING UP 8,000 muslims and slaughtering them in a true massacre, is forgotten about?

Why has the leftist peace activist world been hijacked by antisemites who exaggerate what israel does wrong and promote dishonest propaganda about it almost daily, while minimalizing much worse stuff done by pretty much everyone else? How come when Israel breathes funny, everyone accuses it of doing something bad? And if something crappy does happen, tens of thousands of fake "peace activists" around the world scream about it, exaggerate it, and try to make movies and websites about it? And when bad things are done to Israel, why do so many on The Left just blame those things on Israel, or say those things didn't even happen? And when ACTUAL really bad things happen elsewhere in the world, why do so many leftist peace activists say "Who cares, if we can't blame Israel for it, we're not interested?"

Those who were armed were not "terrorists," but freedom fighters, heroes every one, who were defending their homes and their families from racist aggressors.

"Those who were armed were not "terrorists," but freedom fighters, heroes every one"

LOL!!! he saem heroes that strapped explosives to a 10 year old boy. When the israel Libertion Fighters went to help the kid get out of the fire zone, the boys father detonated the explosives....some heroes

[Also
by James Black Friday, Jul. 01, 2005 at 10:32 AM

WHy is it that israel killing 55 muslims people, most of whom were armed terrorists, over a three day period in heated gun exchanges that also resulted in over 20 israeli soldiers dying -- "JENIN" -- gets mentioned daily, has movies made about it, propaganda every day, thousands of websites about it, dishonest lies calling it a "brutal massacre" when it clearly was not, etc.... but Bosnia ROUNDING UP 8,000 muslims and slaughtering them in a true massacre, is forgotten about?

Why has the leftist peace activist world been hijacked by antisemites who exaggerate what israel does wrong and promote dishonest propaganda about it almost daily, while minimalizing much worse stuff done by pretty much everyone else? How come when Israel breathes funny, everyone accuses it of doing something bad? And if something crappy does happen, tens of thousands of fake "peace activists" around the world scream about it, exaggerate it, and try to make movies and websites about it? And when bad things are done to Israel, why do so many on The Left just blame those things on Israel, or say those things didn't even happen? And when ACTUAL really bad things happen elsewhere in the world, why do so many leftist peace activists say "Who cares, if we can't blame Israel for it, we're not interested?"]

"James Black"
"Bobby Twofingers"
"Frank"
"the Prof"
"Peaceful Activist(s)"
"quantitative nutcase"

all one and the same

--Richard

"It's far more likely that was done by undercover Zionist provocateurs"

LOL!!!! Every time a moslem anywhere murders innocent people it MUST BE THE JEWS!!!! LMFAO

Jenin wasn't a massacre ? demolishing over 100 homes in the middle of the camp with buldozers and slaughtering over 50 whom most are NOT militants is not a massacre ? .. that is if the real number is 50.
Why didn't Israel allow the international community to investigate what happened ? what are they afraid of if they have nothing to hide ?
Saying Jenin didn't happen or was not a massacre is equal to saying that the holocaust (which happened over 50 years ago, and revealed under the authority of the victorious, and the defeated wasn't able to reply to it) is a fabrication ! or that the jews who were killed were armed .. Give me a f#$%ing break ...