Women and children suffer as U.S. pursues offensive

By Fatih Abdulsalam

Azzaman, November 9, 2005

As U.S. troops pursue their new major border offensive for the seventh consecutive day, reports from the battlefields say innocent Iraqis are once again bearing the brunt.

It is wrong to blame ordinary Iraqis, wherever they live, for the surge in violence and attacks by anti-U.S. and government groups.

If the U.S., as the mightiest military power the world has ever known, cannot stop infiltration by foreign fighters, it is beyond the power of the hapless Iraqis living in border villages to do so.

If these fighters and their supporters can fiercely resist massive and disproportionate U.S. firepower, no one on earth should expect Iraqi women and children to take up arms and flush them out.

U.S. military officials only speak of the damage they inflict on insurgents and broadly deny Iraqi reports of civilian casualties.

In the absence of independent reporting it is hard to assess damage and casualties in the areas covered by this major offensive.

But Iraqi medics and Red Crescent officials available on the ground dispute U.S. claims and speak of scores of civilians killed and thousands of families fleeing these areas.

Killing and displacing civilians for the presence of rebels with the ability to fiercely resist U.S. military machine is tantamount to a crime against humanity.

Iraqi civilians should not be punished because of U.S. troops’ failure to crush the resistance.

There is no justification for the atrocities Iraqi civilians suffer at the hands of U.S. and Iraqi troops during these operations.Not every man in these areas is a rebel or insurgent and even if he is found to be connected to the insurgency, his wife, children and parents should not suffer as a result.

But unfortunately that is exactly what is happening, fuelling more anger and fury against the occupiers and their supporters.

Link Here