flawless execution

going all the way

From Dahr Jamail's Daily Dispatches, this link to a Scottish newspaper's story of an innocent Fallujah family decimated by the assault there. You won't read much about these kinds of civilian horrors in the US press, though. What you can read are the exultant statements of Marine Major General Richard Natonski, from ABC News' website. "Maybe we learned from April," Natonski said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We learned we can't do it piecemeal. When we go in, we go all the way through. We had the green light this time and we went all the way." And, says ABC,

"On Sunday, Marines were expected to reopen the bridge where two American contractors killed by militants were strung up in March, sparking the earlier siege of Fallujah by U.S forces. 'This is a big event for us,' said Maj. Todd Des Grosseilliers, 41, from Auburn, Maine. 'It's symbolic because the insurgents closed the bridge and we are going to reopen it.'"

So, a year after the images of Saddam's statues being pulled down by "ordinarily Iraqis" were proven to have been staged, there's going to be another "symbolic event." Expect lots of press coverage for it, but none for the funeral of Artica Salim, who was seven months pregnant when she died.