Fw: [ANSWER]: Iraqis can't turn off the TV to make the war go away

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg@tin.it>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "A.N.S.W.E.R." <answer.general@action-mail.org>
To: <answer.general@action-mail.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 4:52 AM
Subject: [ANSWER]: Iraqis can't turn off the TV to make the war go away


> "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.*
>
> -------------------------------------
>
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