Justice for Fallujah Project – Page 2

My unit returned from Iraq (A Marine remembers, Part 1)

Posted on May 17, 2012May 29, 2012 by kathiemm

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: In recognition and appreciation of his anti-war efforts, Engaging Peace offers the first installment of Ross Caputi’s story]

Iraq soldier — Image in public domain. From Wikimedia Commons.

My unit returned from Iraq to Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, in January of 2005. When we arrived on base we were met by crowds of cheering friends and family members.

In the weeks and months that followed, newspapers published articles praising us. Authors interviewed us and wrote books about what we had done in Fallujah. A filmmaker began making a documentary about us. People thanked us for our service, parties and parades were thrown in our honor, and everyone was calling us heroes.

We were met with a wave of praise and veneration, and we rode that wave as if it would never break, celebrating and drinking recklessly.

But eventually that wave did break, and it faded away like all waves do. Yet after our moment of fame had come and gone, we continued celebrating and our drinking only intensified.

The end of that winter and the year that followed are a period of my life that I will never forget. On the surface everyone in my unit was triumphant, proud, and confident.

Perhaps I was the only one, or perhaps there were others, who felt confused and depressed behind that happy facade. I was taking trips with some of the guys from my unit into the ghetto to buy drugs. Maybe they were feeling like I was, indifferent toward life and death; or maybe they felt invincible after having survived Fallujah.

I got the impression that what was driving them was quite different from what was driving me. There was a feeling in my gut that, at that time, was incomprehensible and inexplicable.

Ross Caputi, former Marine, founder of the Justice for Fallujah Project, and former president of the Boston University Anti-War Coalition

Militarization and the future of life (Earth Day, Part 2)

Posted on April 26, 2012April 25, 2012 by patdaniel

As we discussed in our Earth Day post, the environment is both a casualty and cause of war. It’s time for the peace and environmental movements to join hands in solidarity. A number of organizations are working at the intersection of these important efforts.

Environment and security:

United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)
Global Green

Promoting environmental conservation as a means to peace:

Education for peace and environment:

Legal aspects of war and the environment:

Environmental Law Institute

Environmental and human health effects of war:

Anti-war activists can profit by understanding the causes and consequences of war from the perspective of ecological systems. Similarly, the sustainability movement will be well-served by acknowledging the profound effect that militarization has on the future of all life on earth.

Pat Daniel, Ph.D., Managing Editor of Engaging Peace

What our country did to Fallujah

Posted on November 7, 2011November 6, 2011 by kathiemm

By guest author Ross Caputi, co-founder of the Justice for Fallujah Project, president of the Boston University Anti-War Coalition, and an Iraq war veteran

On November 7th it will have been seven years since the U.S. began its 2nd siege on the Iraqi city of Fallujah. Since that fateful date the people of Fallujah have been expelled, killed, imprisoned, oppressed, humiliated, and poisoned.

The siege itself lasted several weeks, claiming the lives of thousands of innocent civilians. In the years that followed, the rates of multiple types of cancers, birth defects, and infant mortality skyrocketed in Fallujah.

A recent study found enriched uranium in hair, soil, and water samples from Fallujah. The study concludes that uranium is the most likely cause of the health crisis in Fallujah. And the most likely explanation for why the uranium is enriched is that it came from a new generation of weapons that the U.S. combat-tested for the first time in Fallujah. Known as anti-personnel thermobaric weapons, they are suspected of using uranium in their warheads.

What our country did to Fallujah is truly appalling, and we at the Justice for Fallujah Project are doing what we can to make sure that Fallujah is not forgotten. This year Remember Fallujah Week will run from November 13th to the 19th, and we will be having events to raise awareness about what happened to Fallujah in Washington DC, Providence, Rhode Island, Boston, New York, and London to raise awareness about what Fallujah has endured.

Please join us in our fight for justice. www.thefallujahproject.org

The second siege of Fallujah, 2004 (Stories of engagement)

Posted on September 30, 2010January 29, 2011 by kathiemm

[Editor’s notes: This post is the first in an intermittent series of “stories of engagement,” case examples from the lives of those who are engaging peace. Readers may want to consider how these examples illustrate the forms of moral engagement that we are discussing. In addition, readers are encouraged to submit stories from their own or others’ personal experiences.]

[Today we welcome guest contributor, Ross Caputi, president of the Boston University Anti-War Coalition and an Iraq war veteran.]

During my deployment to Iraq I was in the 2nd siege of Fallujah in 2004, the assault that destroyed much of the city, killed over 1,000 civilians, and forced over 200,000 civilians to flee their homes.

Two months ago I read Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009 (Busby, Hamdan, & Ariabi 2010), which documents the extreme rates of birth defects, infant mortality, and cancer in Fallujah, and points to the depleted uranium weapons that we used in the 2004 sieges as the cause.

After reading about this health crisis that I played a role in creating, I immediately felt obligated to take action. Along with another Iraq veteran and a group of concerned citizens, I helped organized the Justice for Fallujah Project to raise public awareness about this health crisis, and to take actions to end the ongoing occupation of Iraq (which we feel is the best way to help the people of Fallujah).

We are planning a week of events in November to commemorate the 6th year anniversary of the 2nd siege of Fallujah. This will all be part of the first annual Remember Fallujah Week, which will take place in several U.S. cities and will be supported by several other antiwar organizations.

Independent journalist Dahr Jamail put it best when he wrote, “The second assault on Fallujah was a monument to brutality and atrocity made in the United States of America. Like the Spanish city of Guernica during the 1930s, and Grozny in the 1990s, Fallujah is our monument of excess and overkill.”

To join us, contact info@thefallujahproject.org.

Ross Caputi, President of the Boston University Anti-War Coalition