Fallujah: The Root of the Anger
In the February issue of Extra!, there is a useful and comprehensive article (“Fallujah Slaughter Rewritten as Sacrifice”) about recent coverage of Fallujah and the U.S. military “heroes” of that slaughter.
However, there is only a sentence about the demonstration that was a trigger for the city’s anger at the US, and no mention of the cause of the citizens’ protest. When the US military first entered the city in 2003, they appropriated a large school to be their headquarters. The parents and children protested, and this was the crowd into which US snipers shot. Seventeen were killed, including women and children, and 70 were injured.
From Wikipedia:
On the evening of 28 April 2003, a crowd of 200 people defied a curfew imposed by the Americans and gathered outside a secondary school used as a military HQ to demand its reopening. Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne stationed on the roof of the building fired upon the crowd, resulting in the deaths of 17 civilians and the wounding of over 70. American forces claim they were responding to gunfire from the crowd, while the Iraqis involved deny this version, though conceding rocks were thrown at the troops. Human Rights Watch also dispute the American claims, and says that the evidence suggests the US troops fired indiscriminately and used disproportionate force. A protest against the killings two days later was also fired upon by US troops, resulting in two more deaths.
There is a Deep Dish tape by Brandon Jourdan and Jacquie Soohen that chronicles the Fallujah tragedy, available from DeepDishTV.org.
DeeDee Halleck
Professor Emerita,
UCSD Dept of Communication
Willow, N.Y.
TTP: What About TTIP?
I’m a subscriber to Extra! for a few months now, and I have to say you do a great job. Despite I am French, and so I don’t know the half of the journalists you speak about, I really enjoy the quality of your coverage.
I just read your article “TPP—‘The Largest Corporate Power Grab You’ve Never Heard Of’” (3/14), and it really surprised me.
In the European Union, especially in France, we are today in the exact same situation (a free trade pact secretly negotiated; no coverage from our corporate medias), but the free trade pact in question concerns the European Union and…the United States of America!
It is called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and it concerns the exact same sectors of the economy, empowers the same corporations at the expense of the elected governments…. The difference is that the institution which is charged to negotiate the pact with the USA is the European Commission, which isn’t elected either.
Why do you fear the TPP and not the TTIP? Did you even hear of that? This situation is very odd.
Jeremie Fabre
Eaubonne, France
The Editor Replies: The TTIP is very similar to the TTP—except that it gets even less US media coverage.
