 Okinawa-based U.S. Marines joining attacks on Fallujah Akahata on November 9 reported that U.S. Marine Corps units stationed in Okinawa and deployed to Iraq since the end of August are taking part in the genocidal attack against the residents of the city of Fallujah. According to the Hawaiian newspaper Honolulu Advertiser of November 7, about 900 Marines from the 1st Battalion of the U.S. 3rd Marine Regiment, which has been deployed from Hawaii as part of a routine rotation to Okinawa since July, left for Iraq at the end of August as part of the Okinawa-based U.S. Marine Corps 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU). After deployed to central/western Iraq in late October, they were taking part in the operation on Fallujah. In the October 30 suicide-bomb attack, eight Marines of the U.S. 1st battalion were killed in Fallujah, including one who was stationed in Okinawa. The 31st MEU is also equipped with six CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters with approximately 70 personnel. The helicopter is of the same type as the one that crashed in mid-August in Ginowan City in Okinawa. Akahata warned that the crash can be attributed to sloppy repair work to meet the pressing demand to get helicopters sent to Iraq immediately. U.S. forces in Okinawa are threatening the lives of residents in Okinawa with serious accidents, while killing innocent citizens in Iraq, including children and women, by carrying out outrageous their operations, said the paper. By hosting U.S. military bases, Okinawa is directly linked with the unlawful war in Iraq, Akahata stated. (end) |