For Fallujan refugees, it's the worst of times

[leftchick]

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-19/1105683584261640.xml

BAGHDAD -- Wafat Hassan is at hope's end, her tale a long stream of woe that has all but dried her tears.

After losing her husband, her house and her hometown, she and her five children, the youngest age 4, wound up at a Baghdad mosque-turned-refugee camp for Fallujans turned out of their city. About 930 people have come to call the camp home.

"What have we done to deserve this?" she cries. "When can we move back to our homes? Shall we be away from our homes forever?"

Two months after Fallujah became a major battleground between U.S. forces and insurgents, many of those who fled are floundering. To them, the upcoming election seems a universe away.

"You give a drowning man a life jacket," said Sheik Hussein Zubayee, a Fallujah native who turned the Mostafa Mosque he oversees into the makeshift camp. "You don't give him a sandwich."

During the last six months of 2004, U.S. troops, aided by Iraq's nascent armed forces, stormed not only Fallujah but other centers of the insurgency, including Tal Afar, Samarra and Ramadi. The stated goal was to root out militants determined to disrupt the Jan. 30 vote.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. the unstated goal

was to destroy Iraqi towns and create a population that will hate America for years to come.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. And then the ununstated goal was to get a govt that would dance to

Amurkan corporations demands... not to mention honor the 100 rules that Bremer chiseled in stone for them.... this has been quite an interesting display of do as I say, not as I do.

[Crackingham]

3. Nobody cares about them. They're just "collateral damage."

[no_to_war_economy]

4. we flatten the city and still dont have control

Dahr Jamil writes ..

He gives me a quick rundown of what he knows of Fallujah, telling me that the military controls two main checkpoints into the city and the main road which divides what is left of the demolished city. “There are still 25 attacks each day by the mujahideen there against the occupiers,” he says, “And the resistance is in control of large areas of the city to this day.”

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000167.php