The Alamo is being remade. But this time the besieged city has a different name. It is the city of Fallujah with a population of 300,000, surrounded for the past three weeks by US forces which have thrown all their might against the residents of the city.
This is not a Hollywood remake of a movie. There are no props or studio lights. There is no John Wayne playing the role of Col. Davie Crockett. There is no Jim Bowie here, nor a Col. William Travis commanding the garrison on an outpost in San Antonio. There is no make-up or boom mikes. The blood we see flow in the streets is real. And there are no retakes or editing, except perhaps for the fare shown to American viewers.
And just as Gen. Antonio L?pez de Santa Anna’s forces vastly outnumbered those defending the Alamo on that fateful day in 1836, so are we subject to the unfolding of a similar tragedy this past month. Only this time the casualties have included the innocent, the women and the children.
The assault on Fallujah has been brewing for more than a year. Fallujah was initially attacked last year by the 82nd Airborne Division, followed by the Third Armored Cavalry, and then replaced by a brigade of the Army’s Third Infantry Division. Last month, the Marines took over in an all-out bid to quash the resistance.
Using the pretext of getting to those responsible for the killing of four hired “contractors”, US forces have pounded the city mercilessly from the air and from the ground. But the residents of Fallujah have dug in.
With casualties rising daily against such odds, the Iraqis have given birth to resistance in other regions. “Cry for Fallujah” has sprung in their hearts. In the south, in the center and in the north, Iraqis have taken to the streets denouncing US occupation of their land.
Apart from airstrikes from Apache helicopters and 500-pound bombs dropped indiscriminately on the town, US forces have employed sharpshooters to kill anything that moved. From rooftops, in fields and around alleyways, the sharpshooters have been on the offensive. And when the innocents were gunned down, the Pentagon was quick to admit that these casualties were “by-products of war.”
And in an ironic twist to freedom of speech, the US secretary of state recently admonished the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya networks for their coverage of the carnage in Fallujah, and pleaded with the Qatari leadership to be more forceful with the network in providing a less “biased” fare. Just what is biased about the truth, the dead civilians at the hands of US forces, escapes me for now.
Mr. Bush may envision himself as today’s Generalissimo Santa Anna. But does he know those defending their city have drawn their line in the sand and are prepared to die with their boots on?
