The Guardian reports that U.S. troops carried out a massacre in Fallujah:
Let's look at just a handful of the 5% of civilian casualties the Americans concede they have inflicted.
These include the mother of six-year-old Haider Abdel-Wahab, shot and killed while hanging out laundry; his father, shot in the head; Haider himself, and his brothers, crushed but dug out alive after a US missile struck their house. They include children who died of head wounds. They include an old woman with a bullet wound - still clutching a white flag when aid workers found her. They include an elderly man lying face down at the gate to his house - while inside terrified girls screamed "Baba! Baba!" They include ambulance crews fired on by US troops - and four-year-old Ali Nasser Fadil, wounded during an air strike. The New York Times reporter who found the infant in a Baghdad hospital described him lying in bed, "his eyes wide and fixed on a spot in the ceiling". His left leg had been crudely amputated. The same reporter found 10-year-old Waed Joda by the bedside of his gravely wounded father. "American snipers shot at us as we were trying to flee Falluja," said Waed. [Ronan Bennett, "Who Will Speak Out?" The Guardian, April 17, 2004]
The Bush Ministry of Truth demands that we not equate Iraq with Vietnam, because it "sends the wrong message." What message does the war itself send?
I fervently hope that the reports of a Fallujah massacre are not true, but if it is true, it's important to understand why. First, war
is unspeakable brutality, and those who start wars must understand this. Second, it's a fact of nature that soldiers -- young men mostly -- under the terrible stress of mortal danger, 24/7 -- not knowing who the enemy is, not knowing when death will come -- will react. Ultimately, the fault lies not with the soldiers but with those who sent them.
You can't let slip the dogs of war and expect them to heel.