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Brev från ANSWER "The
whole world is watching us die" APRIL
12: The World Stands Together Against War In
the face of Iraqi resistance to the invasion, the U.S. military strategy has abruptly shifted in the last few days.
Instead of posing as liberators, the U.S. high command
has called for open warfare against the Iraqi civilian
population. In the last 48 hours, hundreds of civilians have been shot down on the roadways, in their homes,
on their farms. The aerial bombings are becoming more
indiscriminate as missiles land in markets and residential
neighborhoods. The
Iraq war has suddenly taken on the worst features of the U.S. war in Vietnam. Facing a defiant and resisting population,
U.S. troops, under the direction of their officers,
treat all members of the population as suspect and
decide to shoot first and ask questions later. The U.S. soldiers have been lied to about their mission. They have
been sent to kill and be killed in a war for empire and
conquest, not liberation. U.S. casualties are mounting in this war that need not have happened. On
March 31, there was a massacre of civilians, mainly women and their children, whose crime was that they were driving
on a roadway in their own country. As their van approached
a checkpoint, U.S. soldiers destroyed their vehicle
with a barrage of 25mm cannon fire from one or more of their M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles. The Washington Post
quoted Capt. Ronny Johnson of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division
in his series of orders to the troops present: - "Fire a warning shot"
- "Stop [messing] around!" - "Stop him, Red 1, stop him!" -
"Cease fire!" - "You just [expletive] killed a family because you
didn't fire a warning shot soon
enough!" The
"shoot first ask questions later" strategy is not the
result of spontaneous actions by scared and edgy troops.
These are orders given the troops from the Pentagon
high command. "Everyone
is now seen as a combatant until proven otherwise," a Pentagon official is quoted in the Washington
Post of April 1, 2003. The Pentagon recognizes that
the shift in tactics will be understood as a brutal escalation
of force against the civilian population and that their earlier posture as "liberators" will be exposed.
"You'll see acts of kindness, medical care and the
like, but the large scale aid effort will have to wait,"
a Pentagon official told the Washington Post. In fact the new U.S. strategy now is deliberately preventing Iraqi
civilians in Nassiriya and other towns from receiving
food and water unless they cooperate with the occupation
forces. U.S.
Marine Operations Commander Lt. Colonel Paul Roche told reporters on March 31 that the U.S. strategy towards the
people of the city of Nassiriya included the use of food
and water as a weapon to terrorize and break the will of
the civilian population. In
the April 1 front page of the Washington Post, the Pentagon's new strategy is euphemistically referred to in the
headline "U.S. troops instructed to use tougher tactics." The
assault against civilians is being reported in greater detail and honesty by the world media outside the United States.
This change in U.S. tactics is, as the following report
shows, encouraging the most racist and homicidal tendencies
among U.S. soldiers at the front. It
is important to read the following passage from the UK Times of Sunday, March 30. It reports of a gruesome scene outside
of Nassiriya. Some fifteen vehicles, including a minivan
and a couple of trucks, were found destroyed and riddled
with bullets by the Times UK reporter Mark Franchetti: "Amid
the wreckage I counted 12 dead civilians, lying in the road or in nearby ditches. All had been trying to leave
this southern town overnight, probably for fear of being
killed by US helicopter attacks and heavy artillery. "Their
mistake had been to flee over a bridge that is crucial to the coalition's supply lines and to run into a group
of shell-shocked young American marines with orders to
shoot anything that moved. "One
man's body was still in flames. It gave out a hissing sound.
Tucked away in his breast pocket, thick wads of banknotes
were turning to ashes. His savings, perhaps. "Down
the road, a little girl, no older than five and dressed in a pretty orange and gold dress, lay dead in a ditch
next to the body of a man who may have been her father.
Half his head was missing. "Nearby,
in a battered old Volga, peppered with ammunition holes, an Iraqi woman - perhaps the girl's mother - was dead,
slumped in the back seat. A US Abrams tank nicknamed Ghetto
Fabulous drove past the bodies. "This
was not the only family who had taken what they thought was a last chance for safety. A father, baby girl and
boy lay in a shallow grave. On the bridge itself a dead
Iraqi civilian lay next to the carcass of a donkey." The
UK Times article also documents that in Iraq, just as in Vietnam, the U.S. soldiers are being trained to wage war
against a civilian population by dehumanizing those whom
they are killing. "I'll
Just Kill Him" "As
I walked away, Lieutenant Matt Martin, whose third child, Isabella, was born while he was on board ship en route
to the Gulf, appeared beside me. "
'Did you see all that?' he asked, his eyes filled with tears. 'Did you see that little baby girl? I carried her body
and buried it as best I could but I had no time. It really
gets to me to see children being killed like this, but
we had no choice.' "Martin's
distress was in contrast to the bitter satisfaction
of some of his fellow marines as they surveyed
the scene. 'The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy,' said Corporal Ryan Dupre. 'I am starting
to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin'
Iraqi. No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill
him.' " Crimes
Against Humanity George
Bush and the high command are guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes. What we are witnessing is a
full-scale massacre carried out from the land, the air and
the sea assault. The U.S. media presents the war as carefully
packaged propaganda and trivializes the actual human costs of the war by turning it into something of a spectator
sport. But the Iraqi people cannot escape this war
and they cannot turn off their television to make it go
away. Again,
it is the non-U.S. press that reveals the extent of the criminality of the war. A
March 29 Reuters article entitled "Iraqis Delirious with Grief After Missile Attack" described the Friday night attack
by U.S. bombs in a poor section of Baghdad. Arouba Khodeir,
39, while "wailing hysterically and hitting herself
in the face and chest, as women around her were trying to calm her down," spoke of her 11-year-old son Karar
who died outside the house with his friends: " 'My son
had his head blown off,' screamed Khodeir. 'Why are they
hitting the people? Why are they killing the children? Why are they doing his to us? Why are they attacking
civilians? Didn't Bush say on TV that he won't attack
civilians. But these people who died are all civilians?
Is this a target?' she wailed, pointing at the dried blood of her son still splashed on the walls." "The
Whole World is Watching Us Die" The
report also described the killing of Shaza Shallum, 20, who was "holding her baby and walking with two relatives
when the explosion sent a shard of shrapnel through
her neck. Six-month-old Fatma was found alive in her
dead mother's arms and brought by neighbors to her grandmother. The wails of the mourners drowned the cries of
the hungry infant." One
of the people living in this neighborhood told Reuters: "We are helpless people. It is all out of our hands.
Why cannot the world find a solution? The whole world
is watching us die and is doing nothing to help us." The
full article can be found at http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=AIXRWPJ3C5TXOCRBAEOCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=2471290 On
April 12, people of conscience all over the world are marching, rallying, and carrying out massive protests in solidarity
with the suffering people of Iraq. The people who
are being killed are not our enemies, they are our sisters
and brothers. They must not be allowed to think that the world is "doing nothing" as the violence is
inflicted upon them. Thousands of
young men and women in the U.S.
armed forces either oppose the war or are going through
a process of questioning about the mission. It is crucial that the people of the United States come together to
demand: Stop the War Against Iraq / Bring the Troops Home
Now.
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT APRIL 12 In
Washington, huge numbers of people will gather at the Washington
Monument at 12 noon. Joint U.S. actions will take
place in San Francisco and Los Angeles. BUSES,
VANS AND CAR CARAVANS WILL TRAVEL FROM THE EAST COAST, MIDWEST AND SOUTH to be at the White House on Saturday,
April 12. For a listing of transportation being organized
from cities around the country, go to: http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/a12/a12transp.html If
you are ORGANIZING TRANSPORTATION, fill out the easy-to-use form at http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/a12/index.html#a12transp
so that we can
help spread the word to others (if the link does
not take you directly to the form, scroll down) To
DOWNLOAD LITERATURE, go to http://internationalanswer.org/campaigns/resources/index.html If
you cannot download and print the flyers and stickers, you can pick up stacks at A.N.S.W.E.R. offices around the country,
or you can call us at 202-544-3389 and request a packet
of flyers. Please make your request immediately so they
can be sent in time for massive distribution. To
make a tax-deductible DONATION to support the work of the anti-war movement, go to http://www.internationalanswer.org/donate.html Please
check the April 12 page on the A.N.S.W.E.R. website at http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/a12/index.html
frequently for additional organizing information. This will
include additional pieces of downloadable literature; a
daily update to the list of cities organizing transportation;
logistical information; & more. *The
National March to Stop the War on Iraq comes in the midst of the long-planned Latin America Solidarity Coalition
(LASC) Mobilization Against Military and Economic
Intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean. A.N.S.W.E.R.
encourages participation in the LASC public plenaries including major Latin American speakers on Friday
and Saturday at 7:00pm and the LASC rally and demonstration
ending at the World Bank and IMF on Sunday, April
13. Visit the LASC web page at http://www.lasolidarity.org for details.* ------------------------------------- FOR
MORE INFORMATION http://www.InternationalANSWER.org
http://www.VoteNoWar.org
info@internationalanswer.org New York 212-633-6646 Washington 202-544-3389 Los
Angeles 213-487-2368 San Francisco 415-821-6545 To
make a tax-deductible donation, go to http://www.internationalanswer.org/donate.html Sign
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