Talk:Fallujah killings of April 2003

This is it?

This is it? This is all you have to say about one of the most gruesome massacres in modern history? Do you pretend we cannot hear and cannot see? There's a million views of the documentaries on the Fallujah massacres online on youtube and everywhere else. There are several documentary films made ( I guess they are "not notable enough") — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.215.33.243 (talk) 05:30, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

If you want to improve the article, go right ahead. If you can write on an article's talk page, you can edit an article. Also, remember to sign your posts with four tildes next time. Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 06:52, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

HRW intro inconsistent with HRW report itself

The intro to the Human Rights Watch report is being used to drive the tone of the article rather than the report itself which appears to be introducing inconsistencies and possible important omissions.

The introduction to the Human Rights Watch report reads https://www.hrw.org/news/2003/06/16/iraq-us-should-investigate-al-falluja

"The 18-page report, "Violent Response: The U.S. Army in al-Falluja," challenges the U.S. military's assertion that its troops came under direct fire from individuals in the crowd of protesters on April 28. Human Rights Watch found no conclusive evidence of bullet damage on the school where the soldiers were based. In contrast, buildings facing the school had extensive multi-caliber bullet impacts that were inconsistent with U.S. assertions that soldiers had responded with "precision fire.""

This information that is inconstant with what is written in the report itself. The exact section reads: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraqfalluja/Iraqfalluja-04.htm#P273_41771

"The lack of bullet marks on the school and perimeter wall contrasts sharply with the walls across the street, which bear the marks of more than 100 rounds-smaller caliber shots as well as heavy caliber machine gun rounds-shot by U.S. soldiers. The facades and perimeter walls of seven of the nine homes across from the school had significant bullet damage, including six homes that had been hit with more than a dozen rounds each.

In many of the houses, the machine gun rounds were clustered in one spot, suggesting that U.S. soldiers were shooting at a target, rather than firing indiscriminately. The field of fire was wide, but concentrated in areas.

No bullet marks were found on the upper levels of the houses, despite U.S. soldiers' claims that they had targeted gunmen on the roofs across the street. It is possible that U.S. soldiers shot high, thus accounting for the lack of damage." [FYI elsewhere the report makes it clear the shooting was done at night where vision was severely impaired.]

So from the report itself it does appear the US Soldiers were firing at particular targets in concentrated areas and the report's introduction appears to be editorializing.

Suggest rewriting article to reflect the HRW report's facts more than the Human Rights Watch report's editorial introduction:

According to the soldiers on the ground, the 82nd Airborne soldiers inside the school responded to "effective fire" from inside the protesting crowd. Though some Iraqis reported gunfire heard from a nearby street, no one in the crowd was shooting at U.S. soldiers. Human Rights Watch did not find clear evidence that the US forces had come under small arms attack. Chipped walls, numerous broken windows and classrooms with littered with stones, though, were consistent with rock throwing. It also found evidence that U.S. soldiers "were shooting at a target, rather than firing indiscriminately. The field of fire was wide, but concentrated in areas."(ref) https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraqfalluja/Iraqfalluja-04.htm#P273_41771 (ref>). The mayor of Falluja, Taha al-`Alawani who was not present during the shooting, stated he received information that some "bad people" from Saddam's regime, wanted to cause trouble, shot at the school then immediately left. It was also believed from the US side provocateurs took advantage of an otherwise peaceful demonstration. (ref) https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraqfalluja/Iraqfalluja-05.htm#TopOfPage (ref)

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If there are no scholarly objections, I shall check back here in a couple of weeks or so and make the changes

Also the LEGACY section needs to be reworked since while the article may refer to the Fallujah incident, it does so in a way that the US should not criticize Israeli BECAUSE of the problems it had in Fallujah: IE

"The uproar over Israel's actions aboard a Gaza-bound vessel proves that the world holds the Jewish state to an impossibly high standard. For their own sake, Americans should think twice about joining this flood of international condemnation. or This is hardly the first time that my friends and neighbors have been strangely focused on Israel’s alleged misdeeds. Many complained about the collateral damage in Gaza associated with Israel’s 2009 Operation Cast Lead, intended to stop Hamas from firing thousands of missiles into its southern cities. Yet these same friends were completely unaware of the destruction wrought by America’s armed forces in Fallujah less than two years after the April 2003 incident described above. The U.S. Army destroyed nearly one-fifth of the city — and damaged far more — in its effort to crush the insurgency that had taken root there."

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Not sure at this time how to rewrite that section or even if it is applicable because the Foreign Policy article is an editorial and uses the Fallujah incident as an example for its assertions, or maybe that is the point of it --not to criticize XXXXnation for human rights because of what happened to the Native Americans, alleged witches at Salem or in this case Israel because of what US forces did to angry protesters at Fallujah. If so, it should be written more clearly as what the editorial article actually is stating. SteamWiki (talk) 20:25, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

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