... is Fallujah.
The July/August issue of Mother Jones has an amazing article by David Enders, a reporter who has returned to Fallujah.
If you thought the violence had ended in Fallujah, think again:
Eight months after the second invasion of Falluja, there is hardly a street that does not still feature a building pulverized during the assault. I had not been in the city since last July, when I was escorted out by three cars of mujahedeen -- that's when things were still relatively nice -- and though I had expected it, the destruction was still shocking.
The dome of one mosque I had previously used as a landmark was completely missing, large holes had been blown in others. Houses have been pancaked, it is hard to find a façade without the mark of at least small arms fire. As many as 80 percent of the city's 300,000-plus residents have returned, but the city has by no means returned to normal. On Sunday, the police were hard at work adding razor wire and new concrete blast barriers to the already sprawling fortifications around their main station in the center of town while US and Iraqi army patrols traversed the main street, the Iraqis firing their rifles in the air to clear traffic. Small arms chattered in the distance, followed by a response from a larger gun. The tension is palpable. Curfew begins at 10 p.m. but low-level fighting continues.
"They are killing one or two of us everyday," says an Iraqi soldier at one of the checkpoints into the city, a claim confirmed by local doctors.
"They" would be the rebels, or "insurgents", as the Bush administration would say. I thought the "insurgency" was in its last throes? Guess you were wrong, Mr. Cheney.
Continued below the fold.
The
Mother Jones article quotes from an interview with two Iraqi physicians. Did you know the rate of civilian casualties?
In the last week, they have received three civilian casualties of US fire, and say that this week has been below average -- normally, says Ahmed [an Iraqi doctor], they see one or two dead civilians every day, and that hundreds have been killed by coalition forces since the city was taken over by the US.
What's the price of "democracy"? Chaos, a virtual prison, and obviously, death:
Back at the hospital, Ahmed says he expects the fighting to continue. "Even civilian people will change to be fighters," he says. "We regard Falluja as a large prison." (People in Falluja will not talk directly about fighting, though all indications are that the new attacks are homegrown.)
The Iraqi army in Falluja, who don't mind telling a journalist that they are all from cities in the south, don't seem particularly thrilled to be here. (When the US tried recruiting Fallujis to fight in Falluja, they turned their guns on the US or turned them over to the guerillas.)
"Falluja -- death," says one of them, drawing a finger across his throat, a motion that I would like to go one day in Iraq without seeing someone make.
A very powerful article, indeed. And if words aren't enough to convince you, please check out the Fallujah photos on Dahr Jamail's site: