http://www.juancole.com/2005/03/fallujah-tent-city-awaits-compensation.html
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Fallujah, Tent City, Awaits Compensation
<snip>
Readers often write in for an update on Fallujah. I am sorry to
say that there is no Fallujah to update. The city appears to be in
ruins and perhaps uninhabitable in the near future. Of 300,000
residents, only about 8 or 9,000 seem to have returned, and apparently
some of those are living in tents above the ruins of their homes. The
rest of the Fallujans are scattered in refugee camps of hastily
erected tents at several sites, including one near Habbaniyyah, or are
staying with relatives in other cities, including Baghdad.
The scale of this human tragedy-- the dispossession and displacement
of 300,000 persons-- is hard to imagine. Unlike the victims of the
tsunami who were left homeless, moreover, the Fallujans have witnessed
no outpouring of world sympathy. While there were undeniably bad
characters in the city, most residents had done nothing wrong and did
not deserve to be made object lessons--which was the point Rumsfeld
was making with this assault. He hoped to convince Ramadi and Mosul to
fall quiet lest the same thing happen to them. He failed, since the
second Fallujah campaign threw the Sunni Arab heartland into much more
chaos than ever before. People forget how quiet Mosul had been. And,
the campaign was the death knell for proper Sunni participation in the
Jan. 30 elections (Sunnis, with 20 percent of the population, have
only 6 seats in the 275 member parliament).
However much a cliche it might be to say it, the US military really
did destroy Fallujah to save it.
posted by Juan @ 3/13/2005 06:17:00 AM