Falluja
Maybe you’ll hear about me
When you watch the evening news
So I write this letter for you, my friends
The truth then you may choose
I had a good time at Oxford
And the world I did roam
When my studies were finished
Then I went back home
All I wanted were good things
Land and liberty
And all the sorts of things we learned
At the university
I’m not a fan of dictatorships
I’d rather say live and let live
But for those who would threaten my family
There’s nothing I won’t give
I will fight for my country
I’ll defend this land
I’ll stare at the whites of your soldiers’ eyes
With this Kalashnikov in my hand
With this Kalashnikov in my hand
When you break down the doors of my neighbors
When you say that might makes right
When you say you’re looking for terrorists
In their bedroom late at night
When you torture my brother at gunpoint
On his head a canvass sack
All I can say to you, soldier Is you’d best watch your back
Chorus
When you come with your tanks on our city streets
And you say these streets are yours
When you say you’ll rebuild us with bombers
And oil tankers on our shores
When you have gunned down my child in Fallujah
You needn’t wonder why
I look at you through the blades of your ‘copter and say
It’s a good day to die
Chorus
“Falluja” first appeared on the 2005 CD, For the Moment. It later also appeared on the 2007 live CD, The Commons, and the 2009 retrospective CD, Waiting for the Fall.
Those who defend their countries, states, cities, regions or homes from invasions and attacks by invading armies are usually held up as heroic figures, historically. For many people in Iraq and around the world, the resistance of Iraqi fighters in Falluja to the onslaught from the US Army is held up as one such example of heroism. As with other battles, such as the Battle of Hue, in Vietnam, or the battle of the Warsaw Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland, the US effort to pacify the resistance in Falluja resulted in the almost-total destruction of the city. Which is a sign of how fierce the resistance to this mechanized military Goliath was. Of course, George Bush called them terrorists. What else to call them?