Chris Floyd: Fallujah Revisited: Bush, Petraeus Prepare 'Cleansing' of Sadr City

Fallujah Revisited: Bush, Petraeus Prepare 'Cleansing' of Sadr City
Written by Chris Floyd
Friday, 09 May 2008

I.
George W. Bush and David Petraeus are preparing to make a new Fallujah in Sadr City, home to two million Shiites in Baghdad. Thousands of people are already fleeing the area before the full-scale slaughter and destruction begin. As in Fallujah, the multitudes who cannot escape will be trapped in a "free fire zone", subjected to ruthless bombardment and ground assault. Thousands -- perhaps tens of thousands -- of innocent civilians stand in the shadow of imminent death.

The assault is part of the run-up to the coming attack on Iran -- an attempt to secure the rear of that new front by destroying Iraq's Shiite nationalist forces. It is also part of an on-going effort to eliminate the strongest rival to the Shiite extremists that Bush has installed in office in Iraq, before the conquered land's fall elections.

The preliminary assault on Sadr City has already begun, of course. As the BBC notes, in the last seven weeks around 1,000 people -- most of them civilians -- have already been killed by the Bush-Petraeus "surge" into the area. Petraeus is frantically building high-walled ghettos in Sadr City, slicing neighborhoods in half, sundering families, destroying communities and livelihoods. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is circulating leaflets in Sadr City districts, warning the people to leave -- or else.

This, you understand, is liberation. This is freedom. This is the glorious "surge" to victory. As Tacitus noted:

A rich enemy excites their cupidity; a poor one, their lust for power. East and West alike have failed to satisfy them.... To robbery, butchery, and rapine, they give the lying name of "government"; they create a desolation and call it peace.

more...

http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1505/135/

as well as many, many others in the Bush Administration.

We will be dying from this for generations.

That's the whole point of this exercise. Junior wants to guarantee an endless supply of enemies to feed to the Military-Industrial complex. Long after he is gone, his evil legacy will remain.

Iraqi military orders Sadr City residents to evacuate
By Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers



BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces, after more than of 40 days of intense fighting, on Thursday told residents to evacuate their homes in the northeast Shiite slum of Sadr City and to move to temporary shelters on two soccer fields.

The military's call indicated the possibility of stepped-up military operations and came as Iraqi security forces raided a radio station run by backers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr. In the southern port city of Basra, militants launched rockets that struck a coalition base, killing two contractors and injuring four civilians and four coalition soldiers.

Sadr City has been a battleground since late March, enduring U.S. airstrikes, militia snipers and gunbattles between U.S. and Iraqi forces and the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to Sadr.

Already some 8,500 people have been displaced from the sprawling slum of some 2.5 million people, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent. For weeks, food, water and medical shortages have affected about 150,000 people, aid agencies said.

Two soccer fields in east and northeast Baghdad are expected to receive some 16,000 evacuees from the southeast portion of the city where the fighting has been most intense.

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/36436.html

nt

Crying and exclaiming their leaders were crazy. We have almost that same sense of helplessness. How can we stop this murdering madness? The Iraq war is long lost and we're going to bring so much more suffering? And then attack Iran?

And are now going to be systematically destroyed for the "betterment of the nation"

Echoes of Warsaw.

because what's happening in Sadr City right now is the most under-reported story in the American media today.

From: Earth Times

EXTRA: Iraqi government prepares for 'big push' into Shiite enclave

Baghdad - The Iraqi government has asked residents of Baghdad's Sadr City to leave their homes in preparation for an imminent offensive against loyalists of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a politician from his bloc said Thursday. Fighting between government and US troops and al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia raging since the end of March has left around 1,000 people dead and over 2,500 wounded, many of them civilians.

"Iraqi and US military preparations are underway to move into Sadr City," Asma al-Musawi, a member of al-Sadr Bloc, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The government has told people in two of the 79 neighbourhoods that make up Sadr City to leave their homes in preparation for a push into the area, al-Musawi said.

"The area is on the brink of a big humanitarian disaster," she warned.

More at: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/204154,extra-iraqi-government-prepares-for-big-push-into-shiite-enclave.html

We live in shame for allowing this travesty to continue.