Blogs > Liberty and Power > The New Crusaders

Nov 8, 2004

The New Crusaders




Well...the invasion of Fallujah is now underway with the first brave target being the city's main hospital. ABC Action News reports,"The invaders used special tools, powered by .22 caliber blanks, to break open door locks. A rifle-like crackle echoed through the facility. Many patients were herded into hallways and handcuffed until troops determined whether they were insurgents hiding in the hospital.

"Dr. Salih al-Issawi, head of the hospital, said he had asked U.S. officers to allow doctors and ambulances go inside the main part of the city to help the wounded but they refused. There was no confirmation from the Americans.

"'The American troops' attempt to take over the hospital was not right because they thought that they would halt medical assistance to the resistance,' he said by telephone to a reporter inside the city. `But they did not realize that the hospital does not belong to anybody, especially the resistance.'

"During the siege of Fallujah last April, doctors at the hospital were a main source of reports about civilian casualties, which U.S. officials insisted were overblown. Those reports generated strong public outage in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world, prompting the Bush administration to call off the offensive."

Congratulations to the courageous invaders. Applause for the new Crusaders against Islam who wield high-tech machine-guns rather than swords, who ride atop tanks rather than horses. With only 10,000+ troops the brave Crusaders have managed to break down the doors of a neutral hospital, to prevent doctors from treating those in need, and to handcuff patients for interrogation. Admittedly, they fall one step short of the old tried-and-true method of medieval Crusaders who killed the innocent indiscriminately and then"let God sort them out" from the guilty. But the invasion is still young; give them time. More than anything else, however, the Americans have aggressively shut down an embarrassing source of information on the human costs of their invasion. Now the only"facts" to emerge on matters such as civilian casualties will be the ones sanitized by American military filters. Or, at least, that's what they hope for. Military"truth", military"music", military"justice", military"intelligence"...none of them bear any relationship to the real concepts.

What bravery will be next? Is there an old folks home the Crusaders will occupy? How about an orphanage? The mosques go without saying.

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Aeon J. Skoble - 11/8/2004

See my comment to Tex's post above.


John Arthur Shaffer - 11/8/2004

This won't play well on al Jazeera, even though our puppet Allawi supposedly authorized it.


chris l pettit - 11/8/2004

under any version of international law, the occupation, targeting, utilizing, or anything of hospitals is strictly prohibited. This has been official since the very first Geneva Convention back in the mid 1800's. This is not only a crime against humanity, but also a war crime of the gravest order. Thus the nature of the "heroic" US forces. it is just too bad that these innocent, uneducated, brainwashed kids have to be the ones to pay the price. They are not educated in international warfare...just how to kill and savage (as militaries have to be to be effective). The commanders and policy makers in the US are those responsible for these trangressions and those that should face charges.

Bunting's piece in the Guardian illustrates what we can expect from Falluja and beyond. I would note that the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their protocols sought out to limit civilian casualties in war and punish the transgressors...and we have seen an astronomical rise in the number of civilian casualties..."precision strikes" indeed...any video one can watch will show how "precision" they are...what a joke...

What a disgrace our nation is...along with those complicit and supportive of its actions...

CP
www.wicper.org