[Peace-discuss] Telling Tim about Falluja...

[C. G. Estabrook]

[...of course he should already know.  Using the text that Mort circulated
this morning, I faxed the following to our representative in the federal
government.  His Washington fax number is 202.226.0791. --CGE]

Timothy V. Johnson 
US House of Representatives

Dear Tim:

The ongoing US military assault on Falluja, a city about twice the size of
Champaign-Urbana, makes the world see the US as a colonial conqueror.
America's overwhelming military advantage -- and the tactics used -- are
reminiscent of the German Blitzkrieg. Americans die -- and many more
Iraqis do -- and Americans are also brutalized by what they are made to
do.  A British paper (these things don't appear in the US press) quotes a
US sniper at Falluja: "... Building's gone. I got my kills, I'm coming
down. I just love my job."

The US occupation forces have destroyed one emergency hospital and
occupied another in Falluja -- the idea seems to be that, if civilians do
not get to hospitals, civilian casualties will not be known to outsiders.
Large parts of the city have been leveled by bombs and artillery;
electricity and water have been shut off for the civilian population, who
are now subjected to 24 hour curfews.  The US military told the media that
armored bulldozers (probably made in Illinois) are cutting swaths through
built-up areas to avoid alleys and streets that might be booby trapped --
tactics copied from the Israelis, who left one fourth of the Jenin Refugee
Camp destroyed in a similar fashion. Our taxes paid for both.

It's not appropriate for you to say that these are not your concerns as a
congressman.  You are the local representative to the federal government,
one of only three whom the residents of this district have, and the one
supposedly closest to local constituents.  It is up to you to protest the
mass murder being carried out in our name.  You -- and therefore we -- are
complicit with the Bush administration's aggressive war.  That's what the
Germans were condemned for at Nuremberg.

Regards, 
Carl