Here are a few more articles concerning the current US meltdown and Fallujah.
Extremism in the defence of liberty
Paul Robinson says that some well-respected hawks are threatening civilisation by advocating terror tactics in the war on terror
Thus, in a rabid, but sadly not untypical, response to the murder of four Americans in Fallujah, the journalist Joseph Farah urged us ‘to make an
example’ out of the Iraqi city. ‘We may need to flatten Fallujah,’ he wrote. ‘We may need to destroy it. We may need to grind it, pulverise it and
salt the soil. ... Here’s an opportunity to show that it doesn’t pay to resort to barbarism and terrorism.’ (Irony is not Farah’s strong point.)
The American army didn’t go quite as far as Farah suggested — in response to the four murders it has killed a mere 600 people in Fallujah, and that
does, I suppose, show restraint of a sort. But it is hardly an advertisement for the discriminate and proportionate use of force. Since today we have
the technical means to reduce collateral damage, and since we justify our wars in terms of protecting the innocent, we have a special obligation to
take every measure to do so. We will not be fulfilling that obligation if we continue to shed blood on the scale of recent weeks in Iraq. If we cannot
govern the Iraqis without killing them, we should leave their country immediately.
www.antiwar.com...
US Starting From Square One in Iraq, One Year Later
by Jim Lobe
April 24, 2004
US efforts to suppress the insurgency in Fallujah were, by all accounts, politically disastrous. With hundreds of Iraqis – including women and
children – killed in the fighting, the city quickly became a rallying cry for both Sunnis and Shias but also nationalists and Islamists fed up with
the CPA's incompetence and the humiliations of occupation.
"I am convinced now (that the CPA) created a situation where Iraqis are in total psychological revolt," Gailan Ramiz, a U.S.-educated political
scientist in Baghdad, told the Christian Science Monitor this week.
www.antiwar.com...
Sunni leader warns of nationwide uprising if Fallujah is hit
Fri Apr 23, 9:25 AM ET Add Mideast - AFP to My Yahoo!
BAGHDAD (AFP) - A Sunni Muslim leader warned that the US-led coalition would face an uprising throughout Iraq (news - web sites) if its forces attack
the flashpoint city of Fallujah, which has been besieged by US marines since April 5
"I have an urgent message for US forces. You have overstepped the red line. Make sure you do not strike Fallujah again," Sheikh Ahmad Abdel Ghafur
Samarrai said during Friday prayers at a Baghdad mosque.
"We will not allow the shedding of Iraqi blood. If you strike again, the whole of Iraq, from north to south, from east to west, will become
Fallujah," the Sunni cleric said.
news.yahoo.com...
/afp/20040423/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_us_fallujah_sunni_040423132513
By IAN FISHER and STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Published: April 24, 2004
AGHDAD, Iraq, April 23 — The American authorities increased the pressure on besieged insurgents in the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Falluja on Friday
with a series of blunt warnings that if they did not lay down their arms, United States soldiers would attack within days.
A senior Bush administration official in Washington said that although a decision had not been made to attack pending a final round of negotiations,
"there isn't much time left." He said the administration felt a sense of urgency because the insurgents had turned over only outdated weapons and
because Falluja faced an imminent human crisis, with residents in dire need of food and medicine
www.nytimes.com...
nternational/middleeast/24IRAQ.html?ex=1083817466&ei=1&en=be3f9e32e733c14a
Things are definitely not looking good. God help us, for we have opened Pandora's Box.
You don't have any concept of Mesopotamia or its people or frankly, anything else about this
situation. You've demonstrated that time and again. 
