A US Marine from Lima Company passes by Iraqis as he patrols the devastated city of Fallujah. (AFP/Hrvoje Polan)

By Nigel Parry
Electronic Iraq, 9 January 2005

Although April and November 2004 will be remembered as the months of the massive U.S. military assaults on Fallujah, casual news watchers may be surprised to learn that as recently as January 7th U.S. Marines continued to battle insurgents in the city, even employing airstrikes against what the US Central Command (CENTCOM) termed “militant targets”.

Strangely, there is limited focus in the media about the continued U.S. military actions in Fallujah. Visitors to CENTCOM’s website, found at www.centcom.mil, will not find much more.

A roundtable discussion with Francis Boyle, Michael Mandel, Liz Holtzman, H. Victor Conde, and Mark Levine
by Boyle et al and Mark Levine; January 09, 2005

War Crimes Roundtable

As the Abu-Ghraib prison scandal began to pierce through the public consciousness, Contributing Editor Mark LeVine brought together four leading experts on international and American constitutional law to explore the implications of the scandal and the larger issue of the violations of international and American law that have become part of the fabric of the US-led occupation of Iraq.

By Cliff Kindy, Christian Peacemaker Teams

Sheila Provencher and Cliff Kindy met with Haji Ali at a human rights office in central Baghdad. Haji Ali is a staff person for another human rights organization, Victims of American Occupation Prison Association. He says he is the person in the famous picture from Abu Ghraib Prison, a hooded detainee standing on a stool with electrical wires attached to his body. CPT has met several times with this group because of their direct connection to Iraqi detainees. It has been very difficult to get information to confirm media reports that the detainee population has doubled since the U.S. assault on Fallujah in November 2004.

Haji Ali said that they have contacts with all kinds of people, even the resistance. He continued, “U.S. prisons are the best training grounds for the resistance. Prisoners feel hopeless when they are mistreated. Will this treatment make U.S. citizens feel safe in Iraq or the Middle East? Kuwait has been the strongest ally of the U.S., but the people there reject the U.S. The United States is fighting terrorism and pushing people into being enemies.”

By Sgt. Kevin Benderman
January 10, 2005 (originally posted by Project for an Old American Century)

These are the chronological events that led me to conclude that I had no other choice than to refuse the deployment order to Iraq.

I was deployed to Iraq in March 2003 and returned in September 2003; while I was there I was with the 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. We staged our vehicles in Kuwait and then proceeded to move out into Iraq. We were carried on the back of heavy equipment transporters to about fifty miles south of Baghdad and then we downloaded the vehicles. We were in the vehicles while they were on the trucks, which I thought was a little odd considering that in the garrison environment those types of actions are considered unsafe and are therefore not allowed.

During the road march north through the country I saw the effects of what war does to people, those effect are such; homes were bombed, people were living in mud huts, people were obtaining their drinking water from mud puddles along the side of the road and were catching rain in buckets when it did rain, they begged us for food and water and we had enough, we would share it with the people that were there, the kids looked especially hungry and thirsty. The commander told us to stop giving the people food because they would get food from other sources after the trucks started bringing in relief supplies.

Somewhere along the route there was this one woman standing along side the road with a young girl of about 8 or 9 years old and the little girl’s arm was burned all the way up her shoulder and I don’t mean just a little blistered, I mean she had 3rd degree burns the entire length of her arm and she crying in pain because of the burns. I asked the troop executive officer if we could stop and help the family and I was told that the medical supplies that we had were limited and that we may need them, I informed him that I would donate my share to that girl but we did not stop to help her.

By Dahr Jamail

AMMAN, Jordan, Jan 11 (IPS) - It has been nearly two years since Fernando Suarez del Solar’s son Jesus, a lance corporal in the U.S. Marines, died during the invasion of Iraq.

The father’s grief is still fierce, but rather than succumbing to feelings of vengeance, he has chosen instead to bring medical aid to Iraqi children and speak out against what he believes is an unjust and ill-advised war.

Suarez has every right to be angry. He was initially told that his son, one of the first U.S. casualties, was killed by a gunshot to the head on Mar. 27, 2003. Later, Suarez was informed that his 20-year-old son was killed by a landmine.