“Those that scaped the fire were slaine with the sword; some hewed to to peeces, others rune throw with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatchte, and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fyer, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stincke and sente there of, but the victory seemed a sweete sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to inclose their enemies in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enimie.”
William Bradford, History of the Plymouth Plantation, of Captain John Mason’s attack on a Pequot village on the Mystic River

VHeadline.com guest commentarist Mary Beth Henry writes:  Terrorism. The deliberate massacre of civilians, the physical and psychological horror of it accomplishing both political and military objectives. Considering the account at the beginning of this article, this “strategy” is hardly a new one for the United States of America, even before it bore the name.

The bombing of Cambodia was what prompted such a nasty fiasco for Nixon, who was no doubt too busy comparing scripts for “painkillers” with Elvis to see it coming. The My Lai massacre, of course, did not help matters at all in selling the disastrous and monstrous lie that slaughtered so many in Vietnam.

And let us not forget Tokyo, and Dresden, Hamburg, and Nagasaki and Hiroshima, as well as innumerable other such sorties throughout the decades. Superior military technology deployed with minimal risk to the attacker, the maximization of casualties being more a psychological than a military strategy.

When one considers that the present administration and many in its “opposing” party view the war in Iraq as part of the “War on Terrorism,” the attack on Fallujah this week is a cruelly nasty twist of the blade of irony.

US Forces, under the command of the US government, have literally razed, with fire and bombs and bullets, a city of civilians -- women, children, and old people, forcibly preventing medical aid or food to enter the city, and shooting those who attempt to retrieve and bury the bodies of loved ones from the bloody, shattered streets.

Many in this country (USA) will call it a victory, and give praise to God.

Fallujah has been a black hole in terms of live and on-the-scene news coverage, of course, but some accounts have seeped out.

From Fadhil Badrani, an Iraqi journalist and resident of Falluja who reports regularly for Reuters and the BBC World Service in Arabic:

“It is hard to know how much people outside Falluja are aware of what is going on here.

I want them to know about conditions inside this city -- there are dead women and children lying on the streets.

People are getting weaker from hunger. Many are dying from their injuries because there is no medical help left in the city whatsoever.

Some families have started burying their dead in their gardens.”

From Omar Anwar, Reuters:

“Aid agencies say Falluja is ‘big disaster,’” November 12, 2004: “The Iraqi Red Crescent Society, which receives support from foreign agencies including the Red Cross and UNICEF, said on Friday it had asked U.S. forces and Iraq's interim government to let them deliver relief goods to Falluja and establish a medical team in the city's main hospital, but had received no reply.

"We call on the Iraqi government and U.S. forces to allow us to do our humanitarian duty to the innocent people," said Firdoos al-Ubadi, Red Crescent spokeswoman.

"This is their responsibility," she said, adding that judging by reports received from refugees and pictures broadcast on television, Falluja was a "big disaster".”

“US commanders say civilian casualties have been low, but residents dispute that, describing incidents in which non-combatants, including women and children, have been killed by shrapnel or hit by bombs.

In one case earlier this week, a 9-year-old boy was hit in the stomach by a piece of shrapnel. His parents said they couldn't get him to hospital because of the fighting, so they wrapped sheets around his stomach to try to stem the bleeding. He died hours later of blood loss and was buried in the garden.

Rasoul Ibrahim, a father of three, fled Falluja on Thursday morning and arrived with his wife and children in Habbaniya, about 12 miles to the west, on Thursday night. He said families left in the city were in desperate need.

"There's no water. People are drinking dirty water. Children are dying. People are eating flour because there's no proper food," he told aid workers in Habbaniya, which has become a refugee camp, with around 2,000 families sheltering there.

Ubadi from the Iraqi Red Crescent Society said many families taking refuge in Habbaniya and other villages nearby were suffering from diarrhoea and malnutrition and needed medicine as well as basic necessities such as lentils, sugar, bread, tea and candles.

She said a convoy of aid, including drinking water, food and medicine, was ready to leave for Falluja from Amiriya, a town to the south, but needed permission from US forces. She also called on international aid agencies to send more supplies.

More real, more desperate, more thunderous, yet unheard, are the voices of the people closest to this cruel obscenity.

From a young woman in Baghdad, who has, since the occupation began, posted the Riverbend Blog (during the periods of time in which she has electricity):

“Murder... People in Falloojeh are being murdered. The stories coming back are horrifying. People being shot in cold blood in the streets and being buried under tons of concrete and iron... where is the world? Bury Arafat and hurry up and pay attention to what's happening in Iraq. They say the people have nothing to eat. No produce is going into the city and the water has been cut off for days and days. Do you know what it's like to have no clean water??? People are drinking contaminated water and coming down with diarrhoea and other diseases. There are corpses in the street because no one can risk leaving their home to bury people. Families are burying children and parents in the gardens of their homes. WHERE IS EVERYONE?”

And this from Nesreen Melek, who wrote the poem, “To The Father in Fallujah Who Buried His Son in His Garden”

“There was a genocide in Fallujah Beth, people were burried under cement and Iron, so there will be no evidence for the American atrocities. They are killers but they always make sure not to leave their fingerprints. I am surprised about the media and the normal American people, can't they ask themselves did the Iraqi civilians who were killed during the invasion caused them any harm?

Iraqis need you and the other American to speak out for them, they are struggling with their daily live, thanks to the American government which turned their lives into hell.”

What kind of nation are we?

Are we a horrendous herd of feral swine rampaging across the planet, leaving nothing behind us but raw sewage, raw grief, and raw hatred?

Are we a nation of sacrificial lambs being led to certain slaughter by a small, insulated group of nihilistic ideologues?

The world needs to hear all of us to speak out with the answer to those questions. We must shout “ENOUGH!” ... loudly, in unison, in mourning and grief and horror that this blood should be put on our hands, if only to live with ourselves, and, really, if only to live at all.

Because the greater the threat our government poses to the world, the more danger we will be in ourselves. 

Beth Moore Henry lives near the US Texas Gulf Coast with her two children. She has worked as a technical writer for the aerospace industry, but finds her conscience better served selling books in a used bookstore. She does not pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, but to her neighbors, her fellow citizens, and to her brothers and sisters all over the world who, like her, simply want to live in peace and with sufficient resources to sustain herself and her family. Contact her at beth@axisoflogic.com

Photography: Santiago Padilla