Refugees Stream Out of Fallujah

[kayell]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=10&u=/ap/20040409/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_fallujah

FALLUJAH, Iraq - The people of Fallujah carried their dead to the city's soccer stadium and buried them under the field on Friday, unable to get to cemeteries because of a U.S. siege of the city.


As the struggle for Fallujah entered a fifth day, hundreds of women, children and the elderly streamed out of the city. Marines ordered Iraqi men of "military age" to stay behind, sometimes turning back entire families if they refused to be separated.


"A lot of the women were crying," said Lance Cpl. Robert Harriot, 22, of Eldred, N.Y. "There was one car with two women and a man. I told them that he couldn't leave. They tried to plead with me. But I told them no, so they turned around."

[qanda]

1. Oh God

Please tell me this is not my country that's doing this.

[saigon68]

16. Sorted into groups by age, sex, fitness, military age families broken

This type of Behavior is reminiscent of DARK TIMES Maybe some one else will comment.

My comment is below

The SS Einsatzgruppen



Einsatzgruppen action: mother and child victims during mass shooting near Ivangorod, Ukraine (1942)

http://www.datasync.com/~davidg59/einsatz.html

[tom_paine]

17. Yes the Busheviks are covering our Soldiers in disgrace

Atrocities forthcomign, as obviously as the Soviets or the Nazis who were Granpda Prescott Bush's Business Partners.

Nothing to say. Other than the Busheviks being slightly "kinder and gentler"...

IT IS THE SAME

[JohnOneillsMemory]

64. God help us. I have a relative who helped prosecute Nazis at Nuremburg.

This is too much to aknowledge without weeping.

[Just Me]

34. Will God remove the hatred incited at the hands of Bush Loyalists?

The whole world's hatred of the US will grow from these actions.

God will not remove the Bush Loyalists who are creating such hatred. Only we have the power to do that.

IMPEACH BUSH RIGHT NOW!!! CHARGE, TRY & CONVICT HIS LOYALISTS!!!

[TankLV]

61. I don't want to just defeat bush* and his gang of criminals.

I want them in prison for war crimes!

How can anyone NOT make the OBVIOUS COMPARISON?

THESE ARE GOING TO BE WAR CRIMES!

It's a broken record - but god, it gets worse and worse with each moment, doesn't it?

Repeat after me: BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER BUSH=HITLER

It IS starting folks! Not the way we imagined it - here on US soil - but IT IS STARTING!

[qanda]

62. Unfortunately, this morning on C-SPAN

I heard a lot of rational "Democrats" saying that we should just destroy them all to save our people. Most, in fact, thought we need more, not less, troops and more, not less, fire power to "correct" the problem. Just listen to our representatives and our candidate running for President and you will see the dilemma that we face-- most people in America don't see how America is being represented and honestly, I really don't think they care.

[Just Me]

70. Honestly, it's not that Americans don't care,...they simply do NOT,...

,...understand and their overwhelming NEED to BE good and caring actually blinds them to the truth of what is happening. Frankly, "the truth" is so overwhelming to them that it requires a step-by-step persistence to get them past their NEED to BE good,...and recognize that their government has been abhorent. Never deny the level of trust and loyalty that our people place in its government,...taking for granted that, that government will represent the best interests of its people.

[Layman]

77. IMPEACH BUSH RIGHT NOW!!! CHARGE, TRY & CONVICT HIS LOYALISTS!!!

You forgot the final important detail Just Me.
Imprisonment and/or Capital Punishment
If we let these perps walk then they'll just come back with more evil. Just like Dulles and his gang came back and whacked JKF after he fired them from the C.I.A. for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. If he had prosecuted and imprisoned them all he'd be alive today.

[EdGy]

56. this is EXACTLY what Serb extremist forces did in Bosnia

to Bosnian Muslims!

And it's exactly what the Croat extremist forces in Bosnia did to Bosnian Muslims.

The Bush regime sure learned its lessons well from extremists around the world.

[truthspeaker]

2. This is exactly what Serb troops did in Bosnia and Kosovo

George W. Bush, our very own Milosevic.

[tom_paine]

19. If Bunnypants* is ONLY AS BAD AS MILOSEVIC

I for one will be quite relieved.

I believe Bunnypants* has the capacity to be MUCH WORSE than a piker like Milosevic.

The only things stopping them: The Tattered and Wretched and Weak Remnants of the Old American Republic and an armed populace that would "damage the prize" if the Busheviks move too fast.

[Paco]

74. Well Said!!!

Thanks for stating the obvious Tom Paine. Sometimes the simple truth is staring one right in the face!!

:dem:

[cjbuchanan]

3. This is just crazy

How can we do this?

Not a good Friday.

[aquart]

31. Is this Good Friday?

[truthspeaker]

4. from that article:

"It is hard to differentiate between people who are insurgents or civilians. It is hard to get an honest picture. You just have to go with your gut feeling," he said.

But don't you dare compare it to Vietnam.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

55. "Why'd you kill him?"

"Gut feeling, your honor."
"Case dismissed."

[htuttle]

5. Sounds like the US military is getting new advice...

...from all those 'former' Mukhabarat agents they hired last year.

Wonder if they brought in 'Chemical Ali' and asked him for advice on how to properly supress the Iraqi people?

[Mattforclark]

7. You're telling me

that we fired the entire Iraqi army but kept on Mukhabarat agents?

................ well then ................

I didn't know that. Do you happen to have any more info about it?

[htuttle]

11. Yes, as a matter of fact I do have more information about it

Here's just one link. Google reveals dozens more:

US 'using Saddam's spies to combat terrorism'
8/25/2003

The United States has covertly begun the wholesale recruitment of Saddam Hussein's most feared former spies in an attempt to combat a rising tide of attacks by Saddam loyalists and Islamists from across the Arab world, it was reported yesterday.

The recruitment has focused on members of the Mukhabarat, the ousted regime's foreign intelligence service, and has been "extensive", involving up to a few hundred agents, according to the Washington Post quoting unnamed US officials.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1028911,00.html
(more at link)

[Robbien]

32. And BaghdadBurning's blog can confirm that

She writes that the citizen's security concerns are the street thugs of al-Sadr and the Mukhabarat hired by the IGC.

[Mikimouse]

6. All that remains to really give definition to this scenario...

is for the US to order its buglers to play deguello and then level the entire city and put the survivors to the sword. What say you now, fellow Texans, remind you of anything?

I posted this in another thread, but apparently too late for it to be seen, as no one responded. It seems even more appropriate here, so I am reposting it.

[Beetwasher]

8. Is This A Prelude to Leveling the City???

Oh Shit...

[FlemingsGhost]

9. This nation will pay dearly for the ensuing massacre.

God be with the martyrs of Fallujah...

[AirAmericaDude]

27. God be with the martyrs of Fallujah?

It sound like you're rooting for the forces against our troops. Are you? Where do you get the notion that "This nation will pay dearly for the ensuing massacre?"

Do you have some inside information that our troops are planning a massacre?

[FlemingsGhost]

29. "Rooting?" War is not a sporting event.

Make no mistake, the streets of Fallujah will be awash in blood of
the men of Fallujah.

May they find "Paradise."

[Name removed]

58. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[aquart]

36. We invaded a nation that did not attack us. They're fighting back.

We have no right to kill even one of them. We have no right to be there.

WE are the criminals.

That is George Bush's gift to us.

Do I want a single American soldier killed or wounded? NO!

But don't you dare ask me to root for our men to be murderers.

[AirAmericaDude]

42. Watching CNN I saw...

Massive efforts to give the people of Iraq a chance. New schools, computers, burkaless teachers talking english on TV, new phone, water and electric service. All sorts of good news.

Sould these rebels be allowed to stop the good progress? I don't think so.

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AirAmericaDude]

44. Whay are you addressing me? Your minions awaits...

A narrow view of the world events. Ignorance indeed...

[FlemingsGhost]

46. Where are my manners, Dude?

Welcome to DU. Enjoy your stay...

LOL.

:hi:

[Just Me]

49. Are you in Iraq? Are you an Iraqi who watched your child incinerated

by indiscriminate US bombs? Are you personally involved in the loss of any of the over 8,000 deaths or tens of thousands of disabled innocent Iraqis who did NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING to hurt a hair on the head of any American citizen?

I didn't think so.

You're welcome to hang out, though :hi: and ascertain where "ignorance" hits on anyone's scale!!! :D

[NMDemDist2]

47. burkaless teachers ??

Iraq was one of the most progressive middle eastern countries as far as women were concerned. You just didn't see burkas on the street except from the EXTREMLY religious. Women were a major part of the workforce and the students in Iraq. Do I sniff a troll here?

[FlemingsGhost]

50. The tomb, it doth loom.

Is that the tapping of stone-carving I hear?

[Just Me]

51. It is so wonderful when people like you pierce through "ignorance"!!!

You are my kinda' warrior!!!

[ultramega]

65. "My children were slaughtered, but hey, I got new phone

service." whoopee.

Your headline gives it all away "Watching CNN I saw..."

These aren't "rebels" my friend.

And 400 dead and 1000 wounded in Fallujah is not "giving them a chance".

Not that we went over there to "give them a chance."

Let me remind you.

We went over there because Iraq was an "imminent threat" because they had "weapons of mass destruction". We were told they were involved in 9/11, but this was apparently only a "matter of emphasis".

We were hoping to also "win their hearts and minds".

So what we are reduced to is three blatant lies and one miserable failure of a policy

If you really listened to AirAmerica, you would know that.

[janx]

63. They are planning (by now executing) another massacre.

How is the strafing of Fallujah by C-130s going to avenge the killing and mutilation of four "contractors"?

There's no way U.S. forces will ever find the Iraquis who killed those men.

Do they have to massacre hundreds of others who had nothing to do with it?

[Jacobin]

76. The "americans" in that city are NOT my troops

They are conquering, invading infidel hordes who are committing atrocities to steal oil for Bush's criminal friends.

Don't EVEN suggest that they are there for any reasonable defense of this nation.

Don't EVEN suggest that, sir.

[pmbryant]

10. This does not sound good

:wtf:

?????????

[VolcanoJen]

12. OMG.

OMG, OMG, OMG.

:-(

[ConcernedCanuk]

13. Gawwwd, I feel sick -

[twilight]

14. Good Friday Massacre, Part II

... You go to Iraq, you go without God! - Pope John Paul II, March 2003 ... but nobody listened did they?

:nuke:

:dem: :kick:

[salinen]

15. Holy wars again

I hope an asteroid hits.

[AirAmericaDude]

28. Where should the asteroid hit?

And why should my family suffer from it?

[salinen]

35. The White House

I hope your family isn't visiting when it hits.

[aquart]

38. Nuh uh. Crawford.

Vacation Boy ain't in the White House.

[Just Me]

52. Vacation Boy also is NOT in charge,...

,...and the "armageddon plan" keeps those freon neocons in different places. It would take a slew of asteroids to rid us of this lot.

[markses]

39. Why should families in Fallujah be hit with Daisy Cutters?

If you support it, then you have no moral defense for your own family. That's the problem with the might makes right argument so favored among our bizarre and murderous right wing ideologues.

[AirAmericaDude]

41. Why should a family member die by a lightning strike?

If you support it, then you are game for it.

[markses]

48. The what now?

What the hell are you talking about?

[mmm]

54. I have no idea what it means, but it kinda tickles my funny bone

Maybe he will re-post
a better example of the point he is trying make.

[kdmorris]

67. How the hell

does a lightning strike (pure freaking accident cause by a natural event) have ANY similarity to a Daisy Cutter (a man made device for intentional destruction)? WHAT the hell are you talking about?

[tlcandie]

68. Daisy Cutter and lightning strike both equal to God's hand ?

:shrug: Seeing as how this is a crusade and led by God and his faithful American administration to right the horrors of the third world Iraq, then lightning aka Daisy Cutters are all fair game because it is the hand of God at work to better our world?

:shrug: Best I can come up with, but that is a lot of assumptions..!

[Just Me]

71. Quite presumptious to put upon nature or "God" actions by man, huh?

You're right,...to compare a lightning bolt to a bomb is just,...silly. A bolt of lightning is not (as far as I know *LOL*) within humanity's control whereas a bomb is man-made and man-used.

[NNN0LHI]

18. Are we putting dead Iraqis into mass graves yet? n/t

[Robbien]

33. Yep, it was called a football field just three days ago

But now Mass Grave of Fallujah is an appropriate name.

[leftchick]

20. What The Hell?!?

This is beyond comprehension!! I think I am going to be sick....

[proud patriot]

21. I just went through the entire 236 slideshow from Iraq

:-(

[pinerow]

22. We must not forget who sent these soldiers there and why...

As long as we continue to enable this administration, those numbers will continue to rise...and also let us not forget that it isn't only our children, fathers and mothers dying in Iraq...All life is sacred and one is not worth more that the other.

[Aidoneus]

23. forget it..

[daleo]

24. 4 steps to leveling a city, like the RW talk-shows said would happen

1 - Call a short truce.
2 - Allow (some) women and children to leave, if they are willing and able and can get out in a short window of time.
3 - Exclude Al-Jazeera (and any other media) from city.
4 - Call Russian President, to prepare him for what is to come - i.e don't be alarmed by a few big explosions (we will give you a pass in Grozny next time).
5 - Bombs away.

I hope I am wrong, but it looks ominous.

[aquart]

30. I wish I didn't believe you.

For the first time in my life, I'm beginning to wonder if I haven't wronged the Germans.

I do not want this. But my country is doing it. I DO NOT WANT THIS.

I cannot hate the Iraqis. I cannot consider them the enemy. WE are THEIR enemy. WE attacked THEM. Are they not right to fight back? That has no business being a question. They are right to fight back. They are right to hate. WE created the hate. No one else.

What is wrong with this nation that BushCo is not in jail?

[aneerkoinos]

25. Srebrenica in the making?

Levelling the town because "Marines allways win"?

[htuttle]

26. Srebrenica....

...or maybe Lidice, or Guernica, or...(the list unfortunately goes on...)

[Layman]

78. It does, doesn't it?

My Lai, Cambodia, Wounded Knee, Leadville, Kent State...

[markses]

37. Hmmmm...I guess the Marines couldn't take the town conventionally

The most celebrated fighting force in the world held off by a rag tag army of insurgents with AKs and RPGs? Their attempts to take the city have been a failure, so now they're shifting to mass destruction?

The whole history of the Marine Corps will be disgraced if a massacre occurs Fallujah. Bellau Woods, Peleliu, the Chosin Resevoir, Hue City and Khe Sanh - a proud history of sacrifice and toughness - all about to be disgraced and dishonored by plain and simple murder in the name of the Marine Corps. Semper Fidelis, Marines. Be faithful, always, to your tradition as warriors, and reject the new paradigm of the Daisy Cutter.

[bemildred]

40. There are tactical reasons to keep the men in town.

At least that way they know where they are. If I was
running the resistance, I'd be looking into flank or rear
attacks on the marines positions along about now.

I don't know that that is the motive, maybe they do intend
to bomb the shit out of the place, but keep it in mind.
History does not suggest that, short of WMD, bombing the
shit out of the place will help all that much anyway. It's
a town of 300,000 or so, it's not small.

[DivinBreuvage]

57. This is a good point.

The Germans bombed and shelled the crap out of Stalingrad over and over and over again and all it did was give the Soviets more places to hide and made it harder for the Germans to move their vehicles through the town. The Russians did the same thing to Grozny and it didn't work for them either.

[bemildred]

59. Thank you.

I think there is a decent shot that the reason they want
al Jazeera out of there is to reduce the risk of getting
their ass kicked in public, too. Time will tell.

[sspiderjohn]

45. I am so ashamed of my country

nt

[NMDemDist2]

53. oh no " C131 gunships in fallujah"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x476292

[janx]

60. This was predictable. As soon as I heard that the

women, children, and elderly were being urged to leave the city, I knew another massacre was in the making.

The cease fire served to provide a window for some innocent Iraqis to get out and for those people afraid to venture from their homes to emerge and collect the hundreds of bodies strewn among the streets of Fallujah--some of which had been there for over 24 hours, baking in the sun during the day. One article even mentioned a dog pulling at one of the corpses.

And these people couldn't even take their dead to the cemetaries because the roads were blocked, so they had to convert a football stadium into a mass grave.

This is the administration's idea of revenge for the killing and mutilation of four mercenaries.

Incredible.

[Tinoire]

66. Lidice! Oradour-sur-Glane!

Men and boys of Lidice, massacred by the Germans June 10, 1942, in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. The Germans also razed the town. The murderers hung the mattresses, seen in the photo, to prevent their bullets from ricocheting.


LIDICE!


The annihilation of the Czech town of Lidice is one of the most notorious instances of the Nazi practice of reprisal.

On May 27, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, head of the RSHA, the Reichsprotektor of Czechoslovakia, the man who had convened the Wannsee Conference only four months previously, was severely wounded in a grenade attack on his car near Prague by two Czech parachutists sent from London by the Czech government-in-exile. The two Czechs managed to leave the scene and took refuge in the Karl Borromaeus Church in Prague.

On June 4, Heydrich died of his wounds. The Nazis swore revenge: they ordered the execution of ten thousand Czechs and threatened the expulsion of millions. The Karl Borromaeus Church, where the assassins and more than one hundred members of the Czech resistance were hiding, was besieged. Everyone in the church was killed by the SS.

In Lezaky, a village east of Prague, where the assassins' radio transmitter was discovered, every adult was killed. The children were forcibly removed to Germany for "reeducation," a process that only two of them survived.

At dawn on June 10, all the residents of Lidice, a village ten miles outside Prague, were taken from their homes. They were shot in batches of ten at a time behind a barn. By late afternoon, 192 men and boys and 71 women had been murdered. The other women were sent to concentration camps. The children were dispersed, some to concentration camps, although a few who were considered sufficiently Aryan were sent to Germany. The SS then razed the town and tried to eradicate its memory. The name of Lidice was expunged from all official records.

<snip>

http://www.zchor.org/lidice1.htm

====

In 1942 the Germans destroyed the Chech village of Lidice in revenge for the assasination of Reinhard Heydrich. All of the men in the village were killed,
the women were sent to a concentration camp and only 16 children survived.

Concert for Lidice - Bela Bartok


We have long surpassed the Nazi imoorality of Lidice.... The French have a beautiful movie about this- it's called Seven Men at Daybreak. Heart-breaking.


===============




By June 5, 1944, Lammerding issued a memorandum to 58th Corps on the subject of anti-terrorist measures, in which he formally outlined the repressive measures to be effected against civilians in areas in which resistance units were operating. On June 9, Das Reich divisional headquarters issued an Order of the Day, "The Position with Regard to Guerilla Bands and Tactics for Combatting Them", which more extensively and explicitly outlined the scope of reprisals the division was to take (at the minimum) for infractions against the established order. These and other actions by the OKW Command and Lammerding set the background for subsequent mass reprisals against civilians in France and were consistent with Waffen SS activities by this and other units on the Eastern Front in preceding years.

<snip>

A worse reprisal occurred in Oradour-sur-Glane. This operation was the direct responsibility of Major Otto Dickmann, commanding the 1st battalion of the Der Fuhrer regiment. The incident that instigated this was the disappearance of Dickmann's counterpart from the 3rd battalion, Major Helmut Kampfe. Kampfe was a close friend of Dickmann, who assumed he was captured and killed by resistance units. Dickmann and Kampfe's successor (Hauptsturmfuhrer Kahn) selected Oradour as a likely site for reprisal. The exact reasons for this are not known.

On June 10, 1944, the SS occupied the town. The entire population of the town was rounded up. Men were separated from women and children. The women and children were herded into a church. The men were locked in 5 garages and barns, where they were shot. The buildings were then torched. The church with 400 women and children locked inside was also razed to the ground. The SS reported 548 "enemy" killed, with one SS dead and one "wounded". Post-war investigators estimated 393 residents of the town, 167 people from the surrounding countryside, 33 people from Limoges and 55 from other areas were killed during this rampage.

There were no official German sanctions for these or other SS atrocities. Rather, they were viewed only as an "excess of zeal", with no repricussions for any of the participants. The chivalric values of the SS were reserved only for the "deserving".

http://www.dasreich.ca/oradour.html

THEIR BLOOD IS ON THE HANDS OF EVERYONE WHO EVER SUPPORTED THIS WAR!

[tlcandie]

69. Seems too familiar and heartrending...unspeakable..unseeable

Mind and heart numbing...gut wrenching.

From the article...

<snip>
There were no official German sanctions for these or other SS atrocities. Rather, they were viewed only as an "excess of zeal", with no repricussions for any of the participants.
<snip>

I think the women of Fallujah sensed what was going to happen which is why they were in tears and many would not leave without their men. Women have a way of knowing these things beforehand most times.

Maybe it won't happen, but everything points to it happening based on history.

[htuttle]

73. How could the German people let things like that happen?

I used to ask myself that.

I don't anymore -- I've seen it firsthand now.

[Barkley]

72. Falluja is Bush's "Sabra" & "Shatila"! What's Next? An Apartheid Wall?

After Falluja I wonder if the U.S. GI will now feel safer in Iraq?

[symbolman]

75. Bush's

"Bad Friday"...

Going to go for a "Black Easter"?

[WinningDoubt]

79. Oh my God! Do we have boxcars and gas ovens ready too?

Are we to deliver the final solution to Fallujah? The Arab world will destroy us for this holocaust!!!

[rocktivity]

80. What to they plan to do--turn the town into a concentration camp?

THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WE'RE TRYING TO LIBERATE!!!!

:headbang:
rocknation

[oceanpoetry]

81. it is horrific...

I am so sickened. And on Easter weekend - truly sick.