We've had a lot of experience of US weapons/Journalist's view/Fallujah

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1208008,00.html



Patrick Graham was the first journalist into Falluja after the US ended its siege of the city on Friday. In this compelling dispatch, he reveals the devastation and the hurt left behind

Sunday May 2, 2004
The Observer

Standing at the open slit trench, one of five in Falluja's newest cemetery, Mustafa asks: 'Would they do this in New York or California?'

A sign nearby reads 'The Olympiads, Champions of Champions', the motto of Falluja's football team. This was their stadium, rows of cinderblock seats overlooking a dusty field. Beside one of the 50-yard trenches, sit a pair of Sunshine high-top sneakers, heavy with rotting blood and flies.

Fresh red paint on slabs of cement portray the city's recent history. 'Martyr, unknown, only bones', reads one grave marker. Another 'Martyr, unknown, White Opal license 31297, Baghdad, Iraq,' and in the same grave 'Shahida , headless, found beside Saad Mosque.'

'All these people were killed because of four dead American soldiers,' says Mustafa before ducking into a corridor to a smaller enclosure behind the field. This was the original makeshift cemetery before the dead overflowed into the football pitch - we lose count after 100.

'Snipers,' says Mustafa when he hears shots. Above, US jets fly low, followed by a loud explosion somewhere in the city. 'Bomb,' says Mustafa.

On Friday US Marines handed over control of Falluja to Major General Jassem Mohammed Saleh, who headed Saddam's infantry, and withdrew troops from positions close to the besieged city. Tanks left after pulling down barbed wire defences around the soft drinks factory where they had set up a base for the past three weeks.

Saleh is to take over as head of what US officials are calling the '1st battalion of the proposed Falluja Brigade' - a new force to police the Sunni stronghold of 1,000 men, many of them former members of Saddam's army and some insurgents.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1208008,00.html

sounds so beautiful, I can almost see the minaret towers in my mind. To think of them used as snipers nests, to shoot children, is more than sad...I just don't have the words.
I heard the calls to prayer from a minaret once, I thought it was the most lovely sound. A friend told me they are calling something like: "come and pray...do you want to thank God today?...isn't He wonderful?....come and pray."