Freedom and Democracy in Fallujah

"The total number of victims is still unknown. In fact, many of them are not born yet." IPS

 “Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.” Independent

Remember Iraq? That country that was crippled by Western sanctions and then mercilessly attacked, occupied and thrown into sectarian strife and civil war, remember? You don't hear much about it these days, never mind the the specific details of what life entails for the unfortunate souls of certain shattered cities in the country. The US government doesn't want you to know the truth about what happened in Fallujah. This video was repeatedly taken down from YouTube without any explanation. If the horrendous consequences of the use of depleted uranium by the US military in Fallujah became widely known and understood, more people might question future wars of conquest. The lost generation in Fallujah could easily be the lost generation of Bradford or Derry or Portland in years to come. Don't think they wouldn't use this weaponry against their own populations if things got out of hand. We're heading in that direction. On the periphery of Empire, the dark-skinned people can easily be sacrificed for imperial ends, all in the name of freedom and democracy, with the corporate media largely complicit in this rendering of innocents 'non-people'. They have the power to determine what is worthy of news and what is not. But this will come back to haunt the peoples of the West when they are on the receiving end of the tyranny to come. That is unless we speak out and act now.

With 'humanitarian intervention' on the rise again and the drum beats of war beating louder for an attack on Iran, opposition to Empire is more crucial than ever. Many were fooled by the propaganda on Libya that enabled that country to be attacked and carved up by western backed militias, often aided by al-Qaeda. Many more are fooled by the message that we 'need to intervene' in Syria, as if 'we' (i.e Western elites) were interested in anything but stealing other countries' resources and keeping their populations subjugated. Fallujah shows what happens to a place that dares offer resistance to the US when it has decided to occupy a foreign country. Afghanistan is still experiencing the same brutality. Drones have killed countless civilians on the borderlands with Pakistan. Fallujah is just one tragedy in a series of tragedies on an epic scale. Obama continues Bush's war of terror without looking back on the devastation in its wake. It is inevitable that this insatiable desire for never ending expansion and exploitation will result in the entire imperial edifice crashing down, as has happened with all empires, but this time the damage to the world could be apocalyptic given the multiple environmental, economic and social crises we face. We can't afford to ignore the continued expansion of the US Empire.