Fallujah: This is our Guernica by J. Steele and Dahr Jamail

[leftchick]

I have thought this since last April when the destruction of Fallujah began. Every report brings worse stories. The latest....


This is our Guernica

Ruined, cordoned Falluja is emerging as the decade's monument to brutality

Jonathan Steele and Dahr Jamail
Wednesday April 27, 2005
The Guardian

~snip~

Burhan Fasa'a, a cameraman for the Lebanese Broadcasting Company, reported during the siege that dead family members were buried in their gardens because people could not leave their homes. Refugees told one of us that civilians carrying white flags were gunned down by American soldiers. Corpses were tied to US tanks and paraded around like trophies.

Justin Alexander, a volunteer for Christian Peacemaker Teams, recently found hundreds living in tents in the grounds of their homes, or in a single patched-up room. A strict system of identity cards blocks access to anyone whose papers give a birthplace outside Falluja, so long-term residents born elsewhere cannot go home. "Fallujans feel the remnants of their city have been turned into a giant prison," he reports.

Many complain that soldiers of the Iraqi national guard, the fledgling new army, loot shops during the night-time curfew and detain people in order to take a bribe for their release. They are suspected of being members of the Badr Brigade, a Shia militia that wants revenge against Sunnis.



~snip~

In the 1930s the Spanish city of Guernica became a symbol of wanton murder and destruction. In the 1990s Grozny was cruelly flattened by the Russians; it still lies in ruins. This decade's unforgettable monument to brutality and overkill is Falluja, a text-book case of how not to handle an insurgency, and a reminder that unpopular occupations will always degenerate into desperation and atrocity.

[ananda]

1. but..

.. where's the art

.. the sensibility

.. the outrage?

Picassos are sorely missed these days.


Sue

[gpandas]

2. thanks for the link,

i would really like to see a video of a fly over.

[leftchick]

3. I am sorry...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1471011,00.html

mu husband kicked me off the puter!