december 2004

How was an honorable fighting force subjugated, degraded, and turned into unrepentant killers of civilians?  We who prided ourselves as being above all other services, officers, NCOs, and enlisted who knew the difference between right and wrong on the battlefield and would die protecting the civilian population from excesses?  What has happened to us?

The 33-year-old Associated Press photographer stayed behind to capture insider images during the siege of the former insurgent stronghold.

 

"Everyone in Fallujah knew it was coming. I had been taking pictures for days," he said. "I thought I could go on doing it."

 

In the hours and days that followed, heavy bombing raids and thunderous artillery shelling turned Hussein's northern Jolan neighborhood into a zone of rubble and death. The walls of his house were pockmarked by coalition fire.

 

"Destruction was everywhere. I saw people lying dead in the streets, wounded were bleeding and there was no one to come and help them. Even the civilians who stayed in Fallujah were too afraid to go out," he said.

 

"There was no medicine, water, no electricity nor food ."

 

By Tuesday afternoon, as U.S. forces and Iraqi rebels engaged in fierce clashes in the heart of his neighborhood, Hussein snapped.

 

 

Hussein said he panicked, seizing on a plan to escape across the Euphrates River, which flows on the western side of the city

 

"I wasn't really thinking," he said. "Suddenly, I just had to get out. I didn't think there was any other choice."

 

In the rush, Hussein left behind his camera lens and a satellite telephone for transmitting his images. His lens, marked with the distinctive AP logo, was discovered two days later by U.S. Marines next to a dead man's body in a house in Jolan.

 

AP colleagues in the Baghdad bureau, who by then had not heard from Hussein in 48 hours, became even more worried.

 

Hussein moved from house to house " dodging gunfire " and reached the river.

 

"I decided to swim ... but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river."

 

He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he "helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands."

 

"I kept walking along the river for two hours and I could still see some U.S. snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim. I quit the idea of crossing the river and walked for about five hours through orchards."

 

He met a peasant family, who gave him refuge in their house for two days. Hussein knew a driver in the region and sent a message to another AP colleague, Ali Ahmed, in nearby Ramadi.

 

Ahmed relayed the news that Hussein was alive to AP's Baghdad bureau. He sent a second message back to Hussein that a fisherman in nearby Habaniyah would ferry the photographer to safety by boat.

 

"At the end of the boat ride, Ali was waiting for me. He took me to Baghdad, to my office."

 

Sitting safely in the AP's offices, a haggard-looking Hussein offered a tired smile of relief.

 

Aid Convoy Rejected By Michael Georgy and Omar Anwar

 

A Reuters correspondent who drove from north to south saw bloated and decomposing bodies in the streets, smashed homes, ruined mosques and power and telephone lines hanging uselessly.

 

Iraq's Red Crescent group has sent seven truck-loads of food and medicine to the city, but the U.S. forces have held up the aid at Falluja's main hospital, on the western outskirts.

 

A U.S. Marine commander said American forces were working to deliver assistance in the city themselves.

 

Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has said he doesn't believe any civilians were killed in the offensive, which has left "38 U.S. soldiers, 6 Iraqi troops and more than 1,200 insurgents dead." But witness accounts contradicted him.

 

A member of an Iraqi relief committee told Al Jazeera television he saw 22 bodies buried in rubble of one street in Falluja's northern Jolan district on Sunday.   "Of the 22 bodies, five were found in one house as well as two children whose ages did not exceed 15 and a man with an artificial leg," Mohammed Farhan Awad said.   "Some of the bodies we found had been eaten by stray dogs and cats. It was a very painful sight."

 

No help has reached civilians in Falluja since the assault began last Monday. Aid agencies have described the situation as a humanitarian disaster, basing their view on the accounts of refugees who have fled and images broadcast on television.

 

The Iraqi Red Crescent says it knows of at least 150 families trapped inside Falluja in desperate need of aid. One father of seven contacted by Reuters on Sunday said his children were sick from diarrhea and had not eaten for days.

 

 

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

 

Marines Self-Destruct

Robert S. Finnegan

Managing Editor

Southeast Asia News

    “There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to.  It has its ’finger men’ to point out enemies, its ‘muscle men’ to destroy enemies, its ‘brain guys’ to plan war preparations, and a ‘Big Boss, Supra-nationalistic Capitalism.  It may seem odd for me a military man, to adopt such a comparison.  Truthfulness compels me to do so.  I spent thirty-five years and four months in active service as a member of our country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps.

     “I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major General.  During that period I spent most of my life being a high-class muscle man for big business, Wall Street and the Bankers.  In short, I was a racketeer – a gangster for Capitalism. 

    “I suspected I was just part of the racket at the time.  Now I am sure of it.  Like most members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service.  My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups.  This is typical of anyone in the military.

     “  I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.  The record of racketeering is long.  I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers . In China I helped Standard Oil.

     “During those years I had, as the boys in the back room say, a swell racket.  I was rewarded with honors, medals, and promotion.  Looking back on it, I feel I could have given Al Capone a few hints.  The best he could do was operate in three city districts: I operated on three continents”. 

Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC, as quoted in Money, December 1951.  

    11/13/04 "ICH" -- If only we had a Smedley D.  Butler clone in the Corps today, Bush and his gang of Nazi wanna-be’s would certainly have their hands full.

Sickened by the deterioration of the Marine Corps - indeed what looks to be the destruction of anything resembling honor and fidelity - I must now relegate myself to the past , where we at least had a semblance of our duties to ourselves and to our country.  No more will I consider myself a part of today’s elite organization that began in Tun Tavern in 1775.  I cannot lend my name to the sycophantic, mindless robots that now fill out our ranks.  Marines who kill for fun.  Who kill without question.  Who kill for their false God, George Bush.

  How did this come to pass?  What has happened to us?

To see my kids – yeah, MY KIDS – in a video clip exulting over the killing of an unarmed civilian with overwhelming firepower was the end of my association with today’s Marine Corps.  Brain-dead Marine Corps Corporals and Sergeants mugging to the BBC camera, shouting “right on”, as they observe an unarmed Iraqi they have turned into hamburger from a fortified position with overwhelming firepower.

    Some warriors.  Perhaps their God Bush will give them absolution, and then hey, it’s right back to the killing.  Fundamentalist Christian rock before the battle, baptism in a water-filled dinghy by prostitutes wearing the cross of the chaplain.  Our slain comrades?  Let Bush take care of ‘em.

This is straight out of an acid-induced nightmare.

So my children go forth to slaughter innocent civilians in Fallujah. May your God Bush bury you in cheap metal caskets.  Perhaps the shedding of your blood will partially wash away the everlasting stain and disgrace you have brought upon us..  History will damn you.  You will know everlasting shame.

And a final warning to young Marines – should you fire on American civilians in some future domestic insanity, you will be destroyed by your own kind – that’s right kids – your parents in the “Old Corps” will see to it that the likes of you will never plague the earth again.

Robert S. Finnegan is the Managing Editor of Southeast Asia News, a former Non-Commissioned Officer in the United States Marine Corps and the lead investigator/Senior Editor for The Jakarta Post, Jakarta Indonesia  on the Bali bombings of 2002.He may be reached at seanews1@yahoo.com.

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