Ramadi: it is happening again
All too familiar pattern is seen as refugees flee a US attack
(Photo © IRINnews.org)
IRIN reports that Ramadi, Iraq residents are
Worried that the offensive could proceed as it did in nearby Fallujah, where the majority of the city’s population was forced to flee during a near three-month long campaign, many Ramadi families are taking personal effects and food supplies and heading to relatives’ houses in the capital, or to the same camps where residents from Fallujah fled….citizens, exhausted by ongoing violence, are afraid and are choosing to leave before the situation worsens. “They want to destroy the whole area and build a New York City there, and for that they are tearing down everything. We want to live in peace. We are tired of fighting and bombs. God, please protect us,” Muhammad Farhan, a father of five, who was fleeing the city with his family, told IRIN.
The escalating US offensive apparently “came quickly and without warning.”
If the endgame is the same as that which befell Fallujah, this city, once with a population of 400,000, will be flattened as well.
March 1st, 2005 at 21:44
There was an excellent PBS documentary on last week where this US Army officer was interrogating a local [pillar of the community] and our guy said something about how the people in the Iraqi guy’s village knew full well who’s planting these IEDs that are killing our boys. It’s not a big mystery. It takes a lot of work and coordination to set those devices up —and the locals are seing it happen.
If these people want to be a part of a new Iraq, then let them name names and point fingers. They know who the bad guys are in their towns. But if these Saddamite bastards and sympathizers want to play games, they’re going to die. Period.
March 2nd, 2005 at 01:06
Come on Toby, flattening a city in the manner of Fallujah is an out-and-out war crime.