Sunday
Nov212004
Post-Election Disasters
Sunday, November 21, 2004 at 03:35AM 
The U.S. Marines' on-camera killing of an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner inside a mosque has escalated the visibility of the humanitarian catastrophe and the crisis of international illegality inherent in the Fallujah assault. Whatever the individual legal culpability of the shooter, the killing of an unarmed injured prisoner is a clear violation of international law - a war crime. The Marines' abandonment of injured prisoners (the group of five were shot, disarmed, allegedly treated, and then left behind by a different unit the day before) is another clear violation of international humanitarian law - also a war crime. The Pentagon's response, describing the shooting as a "tragic incident," indicates a much greater concern about the impact of the shooting on public opinion in Iraq and in the Arab world in general, than about holding the military accountable for war crimes. The message of the killing seems to be that the only safe Iraqis in Fallujah are dead Iraqis. We do not yet have good information regarding the number of civilians left in the devastated city, but it is clear that however many they are, they face catastrophic conditions with the U.S. military still refusing to allow aid convoys into the city. The New York Times described the city as "the other side of Armageddon." Uncounted buildings have been completely demolished, with many more damaged and rendered unlivable from massive firepower and holes blasted through walls to allow GIs to traverse areas without venturing into unsafe streets. The Pentagon has allocated only $40 million for the reconstruction of the destroyed city and its population of 300,000. [more]