Friday, May 14, 2004

Change in tactics or something fishy?

Amy Goodman has an interview with an American independent journalist who was reporting from Fallujah, captured, and released 24 hours later.

AMY GOODMAN: What was the reaction of the people of Fallujah to you? You're an American, too.

DAVID MARTINEZ: Well, we were there doing humanitarian work. So, people can distinguish between a soldier, and a contractor, and a doctor, and people doing humanitarian work. I mean, Iraqis aren't barbarians. I think uh, I mean that's what eventually saved us when we were captured, and people knew what we were there for. And we had contact with the mosque, and so like everything else, you have a local contact – of course they were paranoid, that we might be spies, or we might be military, but since we were obviously there doing humanitarian work, we moved wounded people out of Fallujah that had to, the really serious cases had to be taken to hospitals in Baghdad, and so on. So, I think they understood what we were there for.

AMY GOODMAN: What about contractors, since contractors were killed in Fallujah?

DAVID MARTINEZ: Up until this man, Berg, he's the first person, if I'm not mistaken, he is the first person that was taken captive that was not an active military soldier that's been killed. So I mean, this is a real change in tactics. Once, when we were caught, once they found out that we were telling the truth and we were there doing humanitarian work and medical work, we were released. It was more like being arrested and checked out.

AMY GOODMAN: What about your capture? Who was it that captured you? Where were you captured?

DAVID MARTINEZ: We were trying to leave Fallujah after a second run to Fallujah delivering medical supplies. The route that we took, the Mujahadin I should say are organized somewhat non-centrally. One group will control one area of the town, another group will control another area of the town. The way we had to go, this group of Mujahadin did not know us. So, they just wondered, who are these foreigners traveling in this car, and just put us in a house, took our gear, promised us we would not be hurt, which we weren't, and said we just have to check out your story. They were all Fallujians, I should say. I didn't meet any foreign fighters.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean these foreign fighters?

DAVID MARTINEZ: Well, the ones that Rumsfeld keeps talking about, that there's all these people from Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Pakistan, al-Qaida, that are all defending Fallujah. Because of course we know that ordinary people can't defend against the United States military, when that's what they were doing. It was a community organized defense of the town. And every single person, they talked to us a lot, every single person had some story about losing friends, losing loved ones, in-laws to the American bombing, and how it was driving them crazy, and how much they hated the situation – they hated Saddam, they hated Bush -- and how strongly they were going to fight until the last American left Fallujah.

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