Eyewitness to Life in Wartime

According to reports from eyewitnesses in the streets of Fallujah, U.S. troops committed all manner of atrocities including opening fire on Iraqi citizens who were carrying white flags and attempting to surrender, running over the wounded with tanks, and dumping bodies into the river.



Of course, the sources of these reports are not considered to be credible. They are not embedded reporters working alongside U.S. forces and the Pentagon has refused to release any official reports and the city remains closed to outside observers or international relief organizations.



We have no way of really knowing what is going on in Fallujah. We can only guess. We might simply accept at face value the mainstream media stories of American valor. But then there are the puzzling stories like the two below ... and there was that video of U.S. soldiers executing a wounded Iraqi in a mosque ... and a few months back we were shocked by those photos from the prison at Abu Gharib showing torture that was first denied and then admitted by the Pentagon (and, it turns out, sanctioned by Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales).



Fortunately we can get a glimpse of what life is like in Fallujah through independent reports like the blog of Kevin Sites (the photographer who caught the execution shooting on video) and the dispatches of Dahr Jamail, an independent U.S. correspondent in Iraq.



However, even though we could learn about the horrors we are inflicting on the people ever day, it's a lot easier to stop with the published reports that the Iraq will hold free elections, as scheduled, in January.



Twenty years ago Jackson Browne wrote:

On the radio talk shows and the T.V.,

You hear one thing again and again,

How the U.S.A. stands for freedom,

And we come to the aid of a friend.

But who are the ones that we call our friends--

These governments killing their own?

Or the people who finally can't take any more,

And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone.



There are lives in the balance,

There are people under fire.

There are children at the cannons,

And there is blood on the wire.

And it hasn't really changed much.



Inter Press Service (Italy) - "Unusual Weapons" Used in Fallujah



Bay View (CA) - Fallujah refugees: "Old ladies with white flags were killed by the Americans!"