[In the April 2004 assault on Falluja, t]he best estimates are that roughly 900-1000 people were killed directly, blown up, burnt, or shot. Of them, my guess, based on news reports and personal observation, is that 2/3 to were noncombatants.

... The first assault on Fallujah was a military failure. This time, the resistance is stronger, better-armed, and better-organized; to "win," the U.S. military will have to pull out all the stops. Even within horror and terror, there are degrees, and we and the people of Fallujah ain't seen nothin, yet. George W. Bush has just claimed a new mandate the world has been delivered into his hands.

There will be international condemnation, as there was the first time; but our government won't listen to it; aside from the resistance, all the people of Fallujah will be able to depend on to try to mitigate the horror will be us, the antiwar movement. We have a responsibility, that we didn't meet in April and we didn't meet in August when Najaf was similarly attacked; will we meet it this time?

That is taken from an article at Information Clearinghouse. It's author is Rahul Mahajan, Empire Notes blogger. The following is a quote from the New York Times, posted at his blog, concerning this week's assault.

American commanders regarded the reports [of deaths in the April assault] as inflated, but it was impossible to determine independently how many civilians had been killed. The hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties.

"It's a center of propaganda," a senior American officer said Sunday.

So we have destroyed one hospital and have taken over another, in order that the truth about our genocide does not get out. Journalists have already been denied access or simply shot. Falluja resistance has offered them sanction. Perhaps some have been brave enough to accept and made it in under the protection of the resistance. As of Friday at least there was a reporter in Falluja in contact with the BBC, and I suggest strongly that you read this report.

Earlier today I received an elegant message from Rich, and I am going to shamelessy reproduce part of it here.

Bush & Co promised to "crush the insurgency" and of course he wasted no time. You see starving women & children, slaughtered men, and culture destroyed. He sees millions in sales a day for his cronies, a great way to dispose of depleted uranium, and his hand on the planet's oil supply. Imagine; strangling a country for ten years & then moving in for the easy kill, shelling a city of 300,000 for a year.

Indeed, this is not the approach of liberators and heroes, but of conscienceless, soulless, cowardly scum and their jackal troops. And the nauseating stench is on us all. This is what we have become in the eyes of the world, and indeed, in reality.