Obliterated Fallujah & "The ’horrid case’ against my country is that the people either support mass murder or really don’t care enough to change it"

From an exchange between two Blog sites, Fountainhead and Another Day in the Empire:

An email received yesterday:

"You expect to sell your art work to Americans while you publish the most incredible lies. I just bet you are an American too. Re: your article about Fallujah published in Anwaar Hussain?s hate blog.

How do you know that the photos by Dhar (sic) Jamail weren’t taken in the aftermath of the war? Where did you get them? Where exactly did Dhar Jamail get them? Unless you can answer these questions, don’t state your horrid case about your own country as if it were fact.

In fact, this "article" was a blog entry posted here on March 18 and reposted on March 19 on Anwaar Hussain’s blog, Fountainhead.

I was unfamiliar with Mr. Hussain’s blog until this email arrived. "Anwaar Hussain is not afraid to speak out on issues facing the muslim world at large. He is an ex-F-16 fighter pilot from Pakistan Air Force. A Masters in Defense and Strategic Studies from Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad, he now resides in United Arab Emirates," notes a short bio. I presume Hussain is a Muslim and since he lives in the Middle East he has more right to write about Iraq than either the woman who sent the above email or I. But then according to this ill-informed (and brainwashed) American, Hussain is running a "hate blog" and I post lies.

As for the images posted on Dahr Jamail’s blog, here is an explanation. It took about thirty seconds to track down the following with a Google search: "Two weeks ago [late November, 2004] someone was allowed into Fallujah by the military to help bury bodies. They were allowed to take photographs of 75 bodies, in order to show pictures to relatives so that they might be identified before they were buried," writes Jamail on his blog.

These pictures are from a book of photos. They are being circulated publicly around small villages near Fallujah where many refugees are staying.

Information with some of the photos is from those identified by family members already. One of the family members who was looking for dead relatives, shared these photos which were taken from that book.

Al Jazeera had nothing to do with the images.

Unfortunately, millions of Americans are unable to accept the fact their government is engaged in massive war crimes in Iraq. It does not matter what evidence is presented?they continue to believe what the Bush Ministry of Lies and Propaganda tells them. If not for brave souls such as Jamail, I would not be able to "state [my] horrid case about [my] own country as if it were fact." Fox News sure the hell does not report the truth about what is really happening "on the ground" in Iraq.

"Weary of the overall failure of the US media to accurately report on the realities of the war in Iraq for the Iraqi people and US soldiers, Dahr Jamail went to Iraq to report on the war himself," writes Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches.

His dispatches were quickly recognized as an important media resource and he is now writing for the Inter Press Service, The NewStandard and many other outlets. His reports have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald and Islam Online, to name just a few. Dahr’s dispatches and hard news stories have been translated into Polish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Indonesian, French, Chinese and Arabic. On the radio, Dahr is a special correspondent for Flashpoints and reports for the BBC, Democracy Now!, and numerous other stations around the globe.

Dahr has spent a total of 8 months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country. Dahr uses the DahrJamailIraq.com website and his popular mailing list to disseminate his dispatches.

In fact, the stupidity of the woman quoted in the email above verges on criminal. "The evil of the Nazi ideology did not come out of nowhere. The brutalization of thought and the lack of moral inhibitions had a history," said German chancellor Gerard Schroder recently. "One thing is clear: The Nazi ideology was willed by people and carried out by people."

Bush was "re-elected" and what is going on in Iraq - from the murder of more than 100,000 people to the rape and torture gulag - is a fact "willed by people and carried out by people" through their so-called representatives.

Indeed, as this blog has argued for years now, the "horrid case" against my country is that the people either support mass murder or really don’t care enough to change it. No more evidence than the election last November is required. "

Fallujah: A "Horrid" Case of a Crime Against Humanity March 21, 2005

Dr. Hafidh al-Dulaimi, the head of the Commission for the Compensation of Fallujah citizens has reported the following destruction that has been inflicted on Fallujah as a result of the American attack on it:

- 7000 totally destroyed, or nearly totally destroyed, homes in all districts of Fallujah.
- 8400 stores, workshops, clinics, warehouses, etc.. destroyed.
- 65 mosques and religious sanctuaries have been either totally demolished and leveled with the ground or whose minarets and inner halls have been demolished.
- 59 kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools and technical colleges have been destroyed.
- 13 government buildings have been leveled.
- Destruction of the two electricity substations, the three water purification plants, the two railroad stations and heavy damages to the sewage and rain drainage subsystems throughout the city.
- The total destruction of a bridge to the West of the city.
- The death of 100,000 domestic and wild animals due to chemical and/or gaseous munitions.
- The burning and destruction of four libraries that housed hundreds perhaps thousands of ancient Islamic manuscripts and books.
- The targeted destruction (which appears to be intentional) of the historical nearby site at Saqlawia and the castle of Abu al-Abbas al-Safah.
Dr. al-Dulaimi has asked all relevant international organization to visit and document the destruction to Fallujah.........

The Head of the Compensation Committee reveals in numbers the Fallujah Tragedy March 21, 2005 (Islam Memo news item in Arbic - my translation)
PS: This news item is now traslated on Jihad Unspun:
Fallujah Damage From US Offensive Reported As Promise To ?Rebuild? Discounted March 22, 2005

UN: Fallujah cost nears $500 million March 14, 2005

"Many media outlets self-censored their reporting on the Iraq invasion because of concerns about public reaction to graphic images and content, according to a survey of more than 200 journalists by American University’s School of Communications.

... One of the most significant findings was "the amount of editing that went into content after it was gathered but before it was published," the study stated. Of those who reported from Iraq, 15% said that on one or more occasions their organizations edited material for publication and they did not believe the final version accurately represented the story (my italics). Of those involved in war coverage who were in newsrooms and not in Iraq, 20% said material was edited for reasons other than basic style and length.
Media Self-Censored Some Iraq Coverage March 18, 2005

Dead children in ’Liberated’ Fallujah

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