Ten years on, the US are helping to destroy Fallujah again

Conflict and carnage on a scale unseen since the height of the Occupation nearly a decade ago have broken out in Iraq’s Anbar Province. Over 140,000 people have been made homeless since fighting started at the end of last year. According to the UN, 65,000 people fled the fighting in the towns of Fallujah and Ramadi in one week alone.

Some commentators see the violence as a spillover from the Syrian conflict. Others analyse it in terms of Sunni tribesmen in dispute. When Iraq’s corrupt government earned a rebuke from the usually inert UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who called on Nuri al-Maliki to address the root causes of the conflict, the Iraqi prime minister retorted, “We do not hold dialogue with al-Qaeda.”

The pernicious narrative, peddled by the Iraqi Government and picked up in the mainstream media, that Al-Qaeda had taken over Fallujah, was a long way from the truth. But it helped to secure an immediate delivery of arms to the Iraqi regime from its US puppeteers to help quell the protests in Anbar.

For protests is what they are. They began over a year ago, demanding the freeing of tens of thousands of detainees held without charge by the security forces. Brutal torture and rape - regardless of gender - are widespread in Iraq’s jails. Last year alone, the state executed 169 people, putting it third in the league behind China and Iran.

The Iraqi Government’s accusation of an external Al-Qaeda takeover was made to justify a ferocious siege and bombardment of the Fallujah and Ramadi.  As Iraqi activist Haifa Zangana has pointed out, “Al-Maliki selectively chooses not to mention the regime's own militias: Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Iraqi Hezbollah, the Badr brigades, factions of the Mahdi army and the Mokhtar army. The latter's leader has bragged on Baghdadiya TV, about their responsibility for several attacks. No investigation has been done and no one was arrested. There is also hardly any mention of the Iraqi Special Forces inherited from the occupation, especially trained by Colonel James Steele under US ambassador John Negroponte and attached now directly to al-Maliki's office. Above all, there is no mention of the plethora of foreign-led special operation agents, private security contractors, and organised networks of professional killers, some of whom, many Iraqis believe, are protected by the regime, in the shadow of the US' biggest embassy in the world, in the fortified green zone in Baghdad.” http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/01/here-list-real-forces-behind-violence-iraq-201411613100570815.html

Government shelling of the towns in Anbar Province has been intense. Human Rights Watch has accused the regime of “indiscriminate mortar fire in civilian neighbourhoods” and “killing its own citizens unlawfully”.  http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/01/09/iraq-protect-anbar-residents-abuses. Hundreds of people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced.

The Pentagon is considering following up its arms shipments with the deployment of more troops in the region to train Iraqi forces. This would be fitting, given the atrocities the US military inflicted on this unhappy country along with a deliberate sectarian set of state institutions. It is almost ten years since the first round of collective punishment was inflicted on Fallujah - by US forces.

The 2004 bombardment was a war crime. NGO's and medical workers estimated that between 4,000 and 6,000 mostly civilians were killed. In addition, 36,000 of the city's 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines, and up to 200,000 residents were forced to flee.

Months later, the US admitted that it had used white phosphorous as a battlefield weapon in the assault on Fallujah. A documentary on the Italian RAI channel showed images of bodies recovered afterwards, which it said proved the incendiary, similar in effect to napalm, had been used against men, women and children who were burned to the bone. Unconfirmed reports suggest the Iraqi regime is using similar munitions this time around.

One commentator who has seen through the current misinformation is former US marine Ross Caputi. Writing in The Guardian, he said, “I am having flashbacks to my time as a marine during the second siege of Falluja in 2004. Again, claims are being published that al-Qaida has taken over the city and that a heavy-handed military response is needed to take the city back from the control of terrorists. The first time around, this claim proved to be false. The vast majority of the men we fought against in Falluja were locals, unaffiliated with al-Qaida, who were trying to expel the foreign occupiers from their country. This week, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior's assertion that al-Qaida's affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, has taken over half of Falluja is being parroted in headlines by almost every major media network. But again, it appears that the role of al-Qaida in Falluja is being exaggerated and used as a justification for a military assault on the city.” http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/10/iraq-fallujah-destruction-alqaida-maliki

Here is a list of the real forces behind the violence in Iraq

Haifa Zangana

Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi novelist, artist and activist. Among her books are "Dreaming of Baghdad" and "City of Widows: An Iraqi woman's account of war and resistance". She co-authored "The Torturer in the Mirror" with Ramsey Clark and Thomas Ehrlich Reifer.

During his visit to Iraq on January 14, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced concern about the deteriorating security  situation. In his joint press conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Ki-moon urged all political leaders to "address the root causes of the problems", calling for "political cohesion" and "political dialogue, inclusive dialogue".

Ban Ki-moon was immediately rebuffed by al-Maliki, who said: "Talk about dialogue in Al-Anbar is rejected because we do not hold dialogue with al-Qaeda". He seemed to be saying there is no one in the province worth talking to. In doing so, al-Maliki resorted to his usual rhetoric accusing Anbar's population of being 'terrorists', despite the fact that protesters, along with five other provinces, have been peacefully demonstrating since December 2012. His statements were obviously intended to legitimise a sectarian-inspired brutal military campaign against the protestors.

The question is: Will the siege, bombardment and military onslaught on Fallujah and Ramadi in Anbar province , put an end to the terrorist acts and  frequent car explosions taking place in markets, cafes and mosques and in various Iraqi cities? Will the highly publicised US-Iraqi franchised "war on terror" in Anbar put an end to the endemic suffering of Iraqis?

Hardly so. Explosions continue unabated in many cities, even with the launch of Maliki's military assault on Falluja and Anbar. And despite the countless official statements of arresting and killing scores of "al-Qaida emirs" (leaders), as well as members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In Arabic, the ISIS has an acronym that reads as Daaish, which sounds comical, and in Baghdadi dialect is close to "Dagash" that translates to "phoney".

What Maliki chooses to ignore and what Ban Ki-moon has singled out is precisely what the protest movement has been demanding all along: looking at the root causes of the problems. In Iraq's case, they are sectarianism, corruption, lack of basic services, violations of human rights, increasing unemployment and organised gangs and militias flourishing under a kleptocratic government.

The Maliki government has been harvesting over $100bn a year for some time now, from the nation's oil wealth.That amounts to about $20,000 a year per average Iraqi household of 7 people, except that Iraqis are left deprived of basic commodities. The wealth is squandered or stolen, a situation illustrated byTransparency International as: "Massive embezzlement, procurement scams, money laundering, oil smuggling and widespread bureaucratic bribery have led the country to the bottom of international corruption rankings, fuelled political violence and hampered effective state building and service delivery."

Terrorism thrives through official corruption, since any officer has a price for letting go of a car or a convict. The officers themselves pay to get their positions, and they have to cover the costs for acquiring them. The Maliki regime blames all terrorist acts on al-Qaeda, and recently on Daaish. Iraqis, however, suspect an abundance of diverse actors according to where and when a terrorist act is committed, including the regime itself, its security officers who strive to increase their funding  and its officials who resort to covering up tracks, burning documents and eliminating rivals.

Al-Maliki also selectively chooses not to mention the regime's own militias: Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Iraqi Hezbollah, the Badr brigades, factions of the Mahdi army and the Mokhtar army. The latter's leader has bragged on Baghdadiya TV, about their responsibility for several attacks. No investigation has been done and no one was arrested. There is also hardly any mention of the Iraqi Special Forces inherited from the occupation, especially trained by Colonel James Steele under US ambassador John Negroponte and attached now directly to al-Maliki's office.

Above all, there is no mention of the plethora of foreign-led special operation agents, private security contractors, and organised networks of professional killers, some of whom, many Iraqis believe, are protected by the regime, in the shadow of the US' biggest embassy in the world, in the fortified green zone in Baghdad. Added to this list is Iran and its using of  Iraq as a battle ground to settle scores with the US, or making their presence felt in the ongoing bargaining about its regional role.

Al-Maliki's political alliance, originally designed by the US-led occupation and carried on by the same players despite the fallacy of an electoral process, proved to be a complete failure leading the country from one disaster to another. A political process based on a sectarian-ethnic quota is the Frankenstein created and nurtured by the US and the UK to divide and conquer by positioning themselves to be the indispensible arbitrator. But like all rootless monsters, and oppressive subservient rulers navigating between masters, it has grown beyond the control of its creator planting the seeds of fragmentation and animosity.

The squabbling of the politicians, calling themselves partners in al-watan (homeland), has developed, in some cases, into a full-blown bloody clashes, such as when security forces raided the home of MP Ahmed al-Alwani in Ramadi, which led to the killing of his brother and five guards.

Under current Iraqi law, 48 offenses are subject to the death penalty. Men as well as women are executed in an unprecedented rate. Just in 2013, 169 people were executed, the highest such figure since the 2003 US-led invasion, placing it third in the world, behind China and Iran. Iraq's justice system is "too deeply flawed to warrant even a limited use of the death penalty, let alone dozens of executions at a time," the United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay said, warning that the death penalty undermines efforts to reduce violence and achieve a more stable society. Torture, sexual abuse and the threat of rape and actual rape are frequently inflicted on detainees, regardless of their gender.

Adding to its crimes against Iraqi people, the US continues to deliver to al-Maliki's regime weapons and equipment, abetting its militarisation and uncontrollable violence against civilians.  

The Iraqis themselves believe that no future without full political and economic sovereignty, equal citizenship and respect of human rights. Otherwise the madness of revenge will continue to prevail. 

Basra: Profiting from their Destruction, the British are Back

Global Research reports (January 9th): In December 2007, Major General Graham Binns, Commander of British Forces in Basra, handed illegally occupied Basra Province back to the Iraqis.

However, Major General Binns, who commanded the 7th Armoured Brigade when it led the siege of Basra in 2003, is back in Basra with a new hat on. In the revolving door between the US and UK armies and mercenary companies, Binns, who left the army in 2010, joined one such, Aegis Defence Services, who have been employed by the New Governor of Basra, Majid al-Nasrawi.

Amongst other things, states the Major General: “Aegis will be asked to provide help with setting up specialised CCTV detection and checkpoint systems across the city, establishing a “ring of steel” security system to thwart suicide bombers.” Sounds just like old times.

Read more here:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/basra-profiting-from-their-destruction-the-british-are-back/5364358