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There is a story that before the German pilots bombed Guernica in April of 1937 they got together with their Spanish hosts from Franco’s army for one last toast. The pilots were not that proficient in Spanish, but they joined with their Spanish comrades in a rousing "Viva la Muerte!" – Long Live Death!. Thus began the practice of Total Warfare and the military strategy of killing civilians.
There is not much left of the city of Fallujah. It is a city of death, a case study in Total Warfare as practiced by the US military. The US media – controlled by Rupert Murdoch, Disney and General Electric – dutifully reports that the city has been "liberated", the "terrorists" have been eliminated, the town is once again peaceful. But every few days they also have report that more Marines have been killed, as the "insurgency" flares up, despite the fact that Fallujah is cordened off from the outside world. The fact is, nearly all of the US journalists reporting on the War in Iraq stay safely in the US-controlled "Green Zone" in Baghdad, and don’t have a clue about what is happening the country.
On rare occasions a courageous reporter does slip into Fallujah, and we are provided a glimpse of what is really going on. One brave reporter is Reiner Luyken, who filed an excellent report for Die Zeit recently. For Lyken, Fallujah represents the essence of the Iraq War, just as Guernica did for Spain 3/4 of a century ago:
Falludscha ist mehr als der Name einer Stadt. Falludscha ist der Inbegriff eines Krieges, wie Guernica, wie Stalingrad, wie Grosnyj. Fährt man von Osten auf der Fernstraße von Bagdad nach Amman in die Stadt, kommt man zuerst durch ein Gewerbegebiet kleiner Handwerker. Die meisten Werkstätten sind entweder ausgebombt oder geschlossen – die Schreinereien, die Schlossereien, die Autoreparatur mit dem selbst gemalten Mercedesstern. In einem sich anschließenden Villenviertel ragen aus vormals stolzen Anwesen halb zerschossene Fassaden auf, die dahinter liegenden Zimmer gibt es nicht mehr. Links eine Moschee, vom Minarett steht bloß noch ein Stummel, von der Kuppel ist nur ein zerschossenes Betonrund übrig geblieben.
David Enders, an American reporter who just returned from Fallujah, asked some Iraqi soldiers about the city:
"Falluja — death," says one of them, drawing a finger across his throat, a motion that I would like to go one day in Iraq without seeing someone make.
Fallujah – a word Americans don’t think about much, but it is a word on the lips of Islamic nationalists everywhere. A word that in their minds epitomizes what George W. Bush once called a "modern crusade".
There is a another story about how a German officer in German-occupied Paris approached Pablo Picasso in his studio. When the officer saw a sketch of the Guernica painting he asked Picasso "Did you do this?" Picasso promptly replied, "No, you did."
