Who's our enemy?

Marjorie says...

While most of us are still consumed by post-election stress disorder, the U.S. and its lapdog Britain continue to occupy and bomb Iraq. At this moment, the city of Fallujah is being bombed and destroyed.

A friend and I were wondering the other day whether or not the Iraqi people would look back on this historical moment and consider the Iraqi provisional regime as similar to the Vichy regime in France which collaborated with the Nazis. And this morning, I came across an article that describes the pull-out of the Sunni political party from that provisional government. The leader of that party, Abdul Hamid, said in a telephone interview with the San Francsico Chronicle that "After the attack on Fallujah, we decided to withdraw from the government because our presence in the government will be judged by history.”

Have any of you noticed a lack of reporting on what is going on in Fallujah? Talk about media propaganda and euphemistic verbiage of almost unparalleled proportions. I went looking for photos and real numbers of civilian casualties this morning and couldn’t find *anything* in the mainstream press. I read a lot about “fire” and targeted attacks, about how civilians would not be harmed, nothing about “bombing.” Aren’t we bombing the hell out of Fallujah? How can civilians not be killed in such conditions? So, I kept wandering around and finally made it into the blogosphere. Folks, this is where real news resides. And I found this blog that some of you might like to check out: http://www.underthesamesun.org/. Great analysis, great photos. Particularly, scroll down till you get to the photo of the handcuffed doctors and the destroyed hospital. I guess these doctors are our enemy. At one point, this blogger makes a point that some of us have made in the past, an important one for us to reflect on. He notes that the U.S. urged all civilians to leave Fallujah before the bombing began, except for males under the age of 45. No males under the age of 45 were allowed to leave. If we were citizens of Fallujah, would we leave our husbands, our sons, our brothers behind…simply because they were male? If no males under the age of 45 can leave, does that mean that we are at war with ALL males in Iraq? And why, again, are we occupying Iraq?

Speaking of morality and family values...within the context of U.S. power, and as U.S. citizens, where do each of us stand? Who are we?

In the context of the election, I suggest that neither party gives us options when it comes to imperialism. Both are imperialistic, both pursue U.S. hegemony, and both implicate their members in these pursuits.


Read the San Francisco Chronicle article at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/10/MNG6P9P2SM1.DTL.