
Another major war crime by western imperialism is imminent, with echoes of
Fallujah.
Yes, Fallujah, where thanks to the corporate media
while Americans saw stories of rugged "Marlboro Men" winning the day against Satan, they were spared shots of engineers cutting off water and electricity to the city – a flagrant war crime under the Geneva Conventions, as CounterPunch notes, but standard practice throughout the occupation. Nor did pictures of attack helicopters gunning down civilians trying to escape across the Euphrates River – including a family of five – make the TV news, despite the eyewitness account of an AP journalist. Nor were tender American sensibilities subjected to the sight of phosphorous shells bathing enemy fighters – and nearby civilians – with unquenchable chemical fire, literally melting their skin, as the Washington Post reports. Nor did they see the fetus being blown out of the body of Artica Salim when her home was bombed during the "softening-up attacks" that raged relentlessly – and unnoticed – in the closing days of George W. Bush's presidential campaign
The crime will be committed against the town of Marjah, which has a population greater than that of Bath.
As is normal, in a tradition which goes as far back as the Indian mutiny, the British corporate media is playing its part as imperial terror’s cheerleader and truth-twister.
The BBC is happy to convey the news that the military motives behind this "operation" are of the very purest variety:
to maintain security for the local population.
In the
Mail on Sunday we have a heart-warming photo:
Corporal Tony Duncan gives sweets to Afghan children.But sadly the enemy is coldly indifferent to the kiddies.
Boys as young as 12 are being used by the Taliban to plant bombs designed to kill and maim British troops in Afghanistan.If these little kiddies end up getting killed obviously it won’t be anything to do with Britain or the USA, although an old Afghan hand warns us that
The offensive is expected to see heavy casualties on both sides, with civilian casualties "inevitable".Or to put it another way:
US Marines, frustrated and enraged over casualties suffered at the hands of an unseen enemy who is able to attack and then blend back into the local population, will be unleashed against the town in a violent military assault, with predictable results.Our lads are also raring to go:
Lance Corporal Nick Richards, 22, from Llanelli said: 'People are saying that this is the biggest assault of this kind since Vietnam, so everyone wants to be a part of it.Vietnam! What a fabulous war that was!
Indeed
Anything that they saw was deemed to be hostile in Fallujah. It reminds you of the free-fire zones in Vietnam Back to Lance Corporal Richards:
'We are proud to be part of the big picture of change in Afghanistan. It's definitely going to have a big impact on Helmand in getting rid of the Taliban and bringing stability to the area.A loyal soldier of the Third Reich would have framed his war effort in much the same terms.
Britain is an expert in
peacemaking and
bringing stability.
What is about to happen is a terrorist attack by the west, which is seeking to terrorise the population of the town into fleeing. Some are, some aren’t.
Many people were afraid to leave their fields and brave the bad winter roads, villagers said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said there was no way to count the number of people who have left Marjah.But, hey, let's focus our attention not on those pesky Afghans but on this cute dawg:
Treo, an eight-year-old black labrador, has spent the past five years sniffing out bombs and weapons hidden by the Taliban. Yet as a puppy he was a badly behaved rebel in danger of being put down until intensive Army training turned him into the gutsy canine described by his handler, Sergeant Dave Heyhoe, as the best military dog he has served alongside. The sub-text of this is clear. If only we could get our badly behaved young people into uniform and pack them off to an outpost of empire, how much better everything would be for everybody.
Meanwhile
a Marjah resident, an elder reached by phone, who was not prepared to give his name, said he had evacuated his family a week ago because he feared "the worst attack ever". "Always when they storm a village the foreign troops never care about civilian casualties at all. And at the end of the day they report the deaths of women and children as the deaths of Taliban," he said. Currently reading Jacques Roubaud's
The Loop.
I knew, although without knowing, and today I can’t remember how I knew, that the people whom the Vichy radio and newspapers were calling “terrorists” were, by a mysterious alchemy, our friends.What literary critics call
point of view.
