Below is pretty much the entire article from the BBC News website. I just wanted to preserve it here. There’s nothing else I can add that would make the evil of the US attack on Fallujah any clearer.

Hamid Flewa, lawyer and Falluja resident:

We heard a lot overnight [on Wednesday] and the bombing intensified at dawn. [Wednesday's] onslaught affected most districts in the city.

There are bodies strewn in the streets and most families were forced to bury the dead in their gardens. I can see lines of bodies alongside the pavement.

I’m talking to you from the centre of the city. I am with my family. But we have no water or electricity.

We are going through our food supplies very quickly. No more food can reach the city.

Falluja is closed off. There is no escape. We are all surrounded. I hope my appeal will reach our British and American brothers, that this city has not just landed from another planet.

We are human beings. This is an Iraqi city. Why should we have to go through this? I am just lost for words.

Yunis Daoud, Falluja resident:

The situation in Falluja is very bad. It’s been bombed extremely hard, destroying the streets and mosques.

They hit a second hospital [on Tuesday], killing everyone. There are dead bodies in the streets. People have been burying their dead in the gardens of their homes.

Everywhere you go there is great fear. My family left the house before the bombing but my friends and I stayed.

We didn’t think the air strikes would be this strong. We were so scared this morning, we escaped across the Euphrates in small vessels and along country roads that the Americans have not yet discovered.

It was a very dangerous thing to do. We were at risk of getting killed at any moment.

Fadhil Badrani, journalist:

There are more dead bodies on the streets and the stench is getting stronger.

A house some doors from mine was hit during the bombardment last night. A 13-year-old boy was killed.

It is very dangerous to try to leave the city at the moment.

We are completely cut off from the outside world – no electricity, no water.

People are dying from their injuries because there is nowhere to go for treatment.

A clinic that was serving as the last hospital in the city was bombed two nights ago.

Some families have begun burying their dead in gardens and backyards.
(Source: BBC News)

LONDON (AP) – Britain’s most famous scientist, Stephen Hawking, condemned the U.S. led invasion of Iraq as a “war crime” and said Tuesday it was based on lies.

“The war was based on two lies,” said Hawking. “The first was we were in danger of weapons of mass destruction and the second was that Iraq was somehow to blame for Sept. 11.”

“It has been a tragedy for all the families that have lost members. As many as 100,000 people have died, half of them women and children. If that is not a war crime, what is?”

Hawking, the bestselling author of A Brief History Of Time, was joined by other public figures. Similar events were being held in Spain, Italy, Australia, the United States and Iraq.

“Our message to the U.S. is that the war is illegal and unnecessary, and we want our troops to come home,” said Andrew Burgin, a spokesman for demonstration organizer Stop the War Coalition. “We also want to highlight the enormous number of Iraqis killed in this conflict who are so often ignored.”
(Source: CNews)

No doubt hilarious wags will now be composing antiwar rants in poor impersonations of Hawking’s speech synthesizer.

I’ve been a fan of Hawking’s for a long time. I’m not clever enough to understand even a baby version of the maths behind his theories but I can just about follow the pop-science versions that Hawking has provided in classic books like ‘A Brief History of Time.’ I don’t subscribe to the sentimental vision of Hawking: ‘oooh, look at the poor dear, trapped in that wheelchair, isn’t he brave?’ If you know anything about Hawking’s life, you’ll know this is a laughably inaccurate view of how he feels about his disability.

But it does irk me when all Hawking becomes is a crap joke for halfwits everywhere. The barely literate lampooning someone whose mind has soared through the light years between stars and the boiling vacuum between atoms. There’s a hint of Nazi anti-intellectualism in that humour as well. Not to mention that Nazis weren’t too keen on the disabled either. Not big on wheelchair access, Nazis.

I only found out today that Hawking had spoken at this rally, over a week ago. I check the antiwar news everyday but saw no mention till now. I just tried a proper google and all I got were non-UK sites reporting his speech, nothing from the BBC. I suppose that shouldn’t come as a surprise: the last thing Blair wants on the telly is one of the finest minds of this generation calling him a war criminal. What would Blair’s comeback be? He couldn’t exactly call Hawking a moron, could he?

Hawking is an inspiration. Not because he’s “brave” in the face of his disability or any such patronising shite. He’s an inspiration because he’s a world-famous intellectual who is speaking out against the war crime that the UK and US are committing in Iraq. Like Noam Chomsky, this will inevitably make Hawking villified by the crypto-fascist American Christian fundamentalists. They will heap insults and calumnies on his head as they do anyone who dares to stand up to the New American Empire. As always, their method will be argumentum ad hominem rather than addressing the facts in the Iraqi slaughter. So, Hawking is taking a personal risk in speaking out. He’s making powerful enemies.

Think of all the famous people there are in British society. The classroom-quoted comedians, the bad lad footballers, people who command public attention. Think of all the “rebel” musicians, proudly displaying their drug-snorting, groupie-shagging antics in the tabloids. Oooh! So dangerous! Taking drugs your grandparents took – oooh, how big and clever! But what have any of these designer-label subversives said about the war?

Fuck all.

And yet, Stephen Hawking has. He didn’t have to: he could easily stay out of politics and keep his opinions to himself. But he’s added his voice to the millions around the world that now regard Bush and Blair as war criminals. He’s realised that silence equals complicity in this war crime.

I wish more people thought like Stephen.

Take a look at the picture above. That’s one of the Iraqi “insurgents” that are being massacred in the massive US assault on Fallujah that started today. This young boy’s father was killed in a US bombing attack. He survived. For now.

The above picture is the truth behind all the US propaganda. They portray Fallujah as being a nest of vipers, as being only inhabited by hardened fighters. It’s not, there are still many tens of thousands of ordinary people living there:

For people in the city, life has become even more extreme.

Food is in short supply and the shops are all closed in anticipation of the looming attack.

Electricity is cut off because of damage to the main power station from the bombardment. The water supply has been cut off too. The roads are now heavily cratered.

People, particularly children and women, tend to stay at home, fearing being mistaken for a military target.

Doctors say medical supplies at the main hospital, which has been in American hands since Sunday, are low.
(Source: BBC News)

But surely this attack must be okay? It was sanctioned by the Iraqi PM, after all?

William Polk, who served President John Kennedy in the state department, wrote recently: “Most Iraqis regard the government as an American puppet. The idea that America can fashion a local militia to accomplish what its powerful army cannot do is not policy but fantasy.”
(Source: The Independent)

According to the article that quote was taken from, by the US government’s own standards, the attack on Fallujah makes the USA into a terrorist state. For once, I agree totally with the US goverment.

Here’s another picture created by the brave “liberators” of Iraq:

Those are the mass graves of people slaughtered by the US bombardment. You won’t have seen those pictures on TV because we killed those people. Our military, the US and UK jointly. We only see mass graves on TV if they’ve been created by Saddam Hussein or another official enemy. These Fallujah dead are irrelevant to the Iraq invaders.

Fallujah was a city of 500,000 people. The continuous attack by the US military has killed many of those civilians. How many? We’ll never know because the American government doesn’t care about civilian casualties.

This city has been be-sieged and strangled by the US. They’re murdering it. And every British citizen who doesn’t protest at Blair’s complicity in this war crime is taking part in that murder.

If you don’t do something about Fallujah, you’re just as guilty as the Germans who turned a blind eye when their Jewish neighbours were herded onto trains.

What are you going to do?

Pte. Paul Lowe, murdered by Bush and Blair

Relatives of the three Black Watch soldiers killed in Iraq have lashed out at the government’s decision to send them into a more dangerous zone.

The younger brother of Private Paul Lowe, 19, a Black Watch soldier himself who only recently returned from Basra, said his “brother, comrade and friend” had died in a war over “oil and money” and demanded his regiment return home.

Private Scott McArdle’s uncle condemned Tony Blair and George Bush for sending the troops into a “death trap”.
(Source: The Guardian)

I saw Craig Lowe speaking about his brother’s death on TV. He was fighting back tears, outraged that he’d never see his brother again. And for what? This is a pretty exact quote:

We think Bush is an an arsehole for starting a war over nothing, trying to get money and oil. That’s what Paul thought.
I think they should just get the boys out of there now. If not we’re going to lose a lot more than this.
(Source: The Mirror)

If you look at any of the comments on news articles or have a stronger stomach and can face Neocon websites, you’ll find them full of blustering blowhards. Everywhere you’ll see people, mostly men, calling anyone who’s demanding the withdrawal of Western troops from Iraq ‘disloyal’ and accusing them of not supporting the troops. Whether these right-wing nutters are British or American, the tenor is the same: forward into Fallujah! Anyone against war is a terrorist sympathiser! Antiwar protesters are cowards!

These people are entirely correct: I am a coward.

I avoid fistfights, I try to avoid disagreements with my friends and neighbours. I believe the most desirable way to sort out a difference is by talking, not brawling. Yes, if someone threatened me or my family, broke into my house, I would defend myself and, if necessary, kill them. I’m not a pacifist: I’d take someone else’s life if they threatened mine.

But I would never ask someone else to die for me.

Look at all the armchair generals laying out their strategy for the slaughter of Fallujah. They’re typing away from the comfort of their homes, while the US and UK troops are actually out there, getting killed every single day. And killing more Iraqi civilians. I want the bloodbath to stop. Yes, I don’t want any more Iraqi lives to be lost but I also don’t want one more US or UK soldier to be killed either.

That’s how I support the British troops in Iraq: I want them to live. I want them to come home to their families, alive and in one piece. Anyone who claims to support them by insisting they stay in the bloody deathtrap of Iraq has a unique definition of “support.” How can you support someone by sending them to their death? “You’ve got my support, mate, now get out there and die for Bush! We’re proud of you!”

The British troops in Iraq are not their fighting to protect Britain, they’re not destroying WMDs aimed at us as Blair claimed, they’re not even there to protect democracy. As Paul Lowe understood, they’re fighting Bush’s war for oil. And it’s obvious that the other families of Black Watch soldiers understand this too:

Nan Boyd, mother

I have spoken with my son a short time ago and they are very close friends of his. He is absolutely gutted tonight. If MPs had sons out there fighting they would soon bring them home. They just don’t care any more. God Bless every one of the lads out there and may God bring the rest of them home safe.
(Source: The Independent)

So, the next time you’re talking to some right-wing moron and they start the bullshit about “I support our troops” ask them this: if they support “our lads” so much, what are they doing over here?

If they believe in Bush’s War so much, why don’t they swap places with an American or British soldier, so that solider can go home? Why aren’t they out there fighting instead of just flapping their mouths? Tell them to go and enlist or shut the fuck up.

Or do they prefer, like Bush and Blair, to let other people’s children fight and die for their political beliefs?

Tonight has been full of booms and whistles, electric flashes and echoing, stuttering reports. A typical Bonfire Night. As I was driving to Long Eaton earlier on, the road was lit up in saturated bursts, rockets exploding over Acorn Way.

I was warm in my car, a hot meal in my fat belly, feeling safe and snug.

Now, at just coming up to 12.30am, most of the fireworks have died off. They’re over for another year.

But in Fallujah, their fireworks are just about to intensify. The US military has been pounding this civilian city for months, trying to kill any resistance to the US occupation and their puppet government. Of course, the US government claims that any bombing has been targeted at known “insurgent” hideouts. Anyone who doesn’t agree with the US occupation of Iraq is an insurgent. Which means that most Iraqis are insurgents and therefore, in a twisted way, the US military is targeting insurgents when it kills unarmed civilians cowering in their wrecked, cracked city.

Now, the US “liberators” are gathering their huge array of bombs and missiles in a new offensive against Fallujah.

It’s no coincidence that this offensive is taking place now. The election is over, if the attack goes badly (which in US terms only means excessive US casualties) you can’t take your vote back, can you? Bush waited rather than have shots of bodybags on the eve of an election. Some would call that politically shrewd, I’d just call it evil.

Here’s what life’s like in Fallujah:

When I hear bombs falling around my neighbourhood, I keep thinking – any moment now, I could be killed.
It is worst during the night, when the bombardment is most intense.
If a big bomb lands somewhere nearby, you often hear crying and wailing afterwards.
It is a very strange feeling because in between the screaming, there is the sound of more missiles flying.
That is when I think – I could be next.
Another sound you hear during the bombing is that of prayers. People pray loudly because they are so scared.
Sometimes, you hear people say quite unusual things – they improvise, making up their own prayers.
(Source: BBC News)

Do you remember how the Iraq invasion was sold to the world? Apart from the hunt for non-existent WMDs (now conveniently sidelined by Bush and Blair), it was sold as a liberation. The Iraqi people would pour onto the streets, welcoming the gum-chewing GIs. Happy Iraqi kids, smiling and giggling at their brave Western friends!

Use your eyes. Read the reports. Is that how it is?

All this talk of gangs of insurgents – if the Iraqi resistance truly was a handful of extremists, surely the best-equipped, best-trained military in the world could have beaten them by now? What you actually have in Iraq is an invading, occupying army being fought tooth and nail by the ordinary population.

Every time one of the invaders’ bombs kills an Iraqi, it simultaneously creates an enemy, an Iraqi who will remember the dead and hate the invader forever. And fight them at great personal risk. Can you imagine how terrifying it must be to fight the US military, with their Black Hawks and missiles and laser-guided bombs? And you’ve got perhaps some stolen mortars or an old Soviet bazooka? How desperate and angry must you be to take on the US forces?

There have been at least 100,000 Iraqis murdered by the invading Western forces. How many “insurgents” does that create?

Let’s turn this round…

Imagine if the Soviets had invaded the USA, as a pre-emptive attack. Imagine they’d laid siege to Oklahoma City (roughly the same population as Fallujah pre-siege). Imagine that they’d cut off all the roads in and out, stopping food shipments, everything. And then proceeded to shell it every single day, indiscriminately. Now, would the average American be happy with that? Say someone watched their family get blown to bits by a Soviet rocket attack, would they think, ‘Well, this occupying army is obviously just, I shall go and surrender to their authority.’ Or would she/he grab whatever weapon was available and try to kill as many Commies as they could? Of course, the Soviets would label anyone resisting them “counter-revolutionaries” which is nearly as handy a tag as “insurgent.”

During the fireworks tonight, I was trying to imagine what it must be like to be living in Fallujah now, to hear the continuous sound of the world’s mightiest military bombing your hometown to the ground. I imagined every bang to be a mortar landing nearby, every whoosh to be the trail of a guided missile. And the only choice you have is to leave your home, possibly ending up in a US torture camp, or stay in it and die.

And while you’re hiding in the dark, wondering whether you’re going to die before the food runs out, you can hear the sound of different fireworks in the sky.