Just like in Hue, they destroyed the city in order to 'liberate' it One of the most notorious phrases to come out of the Vietnam war was the statement by a US general that, during the 1968 Tet Offensive, the city of Hue had to be destroyed in order to 'liberate' it from the North Vietnamese. Just the same has happened in Fallujah, where US marines have set about giving a message to every town where resistance fighters are active: if they continue, the same will happen to your town.
The results of the attack on Fallujah were totally predictable. Today (November 15) the following is now obvious:
* Probably hundreds of Iraqi civilians have been killed. That was inevitable given the callous bombardment of the city with howitzers and massive bombing raids, the use of massive firepower within the city and probably too through the callous attitude to civilians of the invading troops.
* US troops are taking no prisoners from confirmed fighters and are intent on killing as many as possible.
* The city is in ruins, its houses, hospitals, shops and mosques destroyed - and its water and sewage systems probably wrecked as well. The 150,000 people who fled have nothing to come home to. Destroying the hospitals was the first deliberate act of the invasion.
* Hundreds of men were now allowed to leave the city, and now the marines are rounding up all fighting-age men and taking them off to an unknown fate, which in the light of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo is likely to be a brutal one.
* The Red Crescent is being prevented from taking medical and food supplies to the remaining civilians, on the excuse that such supplies are not needed. The truth is they don't want any outsiders to see what is happening in the city.
* The fighting is not over. The resistance fighters are fighting to the last with big supplies of small arms and RPGs.
* US figures on their own casualties are probably fictitious. The hundreds taken to hospital in Germany does not compute with just 38 killed.
The destruction of Fallujah is a war crime. Those responsible, and those who backed it up like Blair and his government, are war criminals. Every day the insurgency in Iraq is growing, with fighting erupting in numerous towns. Those who argue that the troops should stay until after the election to ensure 'order' are fooling themselves. The invaders have been rejected by the Iraqi people. The Iraqi Resistance need our solidarity.