meehawl

all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned

Collective Punishment

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Falluja, although heavily Sunni Arab, was hardly in Saddams pocket. Its imams got into trouble for refusing to obey his orders to praise him personally during prayers. Many inhabitants were Salafists (Wahhabism is a subset of Salafism), a group singled out for political persecution by Saddam … During the war, Falluja was not a hotbed of resistance. Its turn to resistance started on April 28 [2003], when U.S. troops opened fire on a group of 100 to 200 peaceful protesters, killing 15. They claimed they were returning gunfire, but Human Rights Watch investigated and found that the bullet holes in the area were inconsistent with that story — and, furthermore, every Iraqi witness maintained that the crowd was unarmed. Two days later, another three protesters were killed. These incidents caused many people in the area to join the resistance, forming their own groups … Violence back and forth and frequent collective punishment measures levied on the twon quickly turned it into a place seething with anger against the occupation — to an even greater degree than other places.

Earlier here.

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