[News] Executing Handcuffed Afghan Kids?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff03042010.html

March 4, 2010


No Story Here! US Press Sits on Story


Executing Handcuffed Afghan Kids?

By DAVE LINDORFF

When Charlie Company's Lt. William Calley ordered and encouraged his 
men to rape, maim and slaughter over 400 men, women and children in 
My Lai in Vietnam back in 1968, there were at least four Americans 
who tried to stop him or bring him and higher officers to justice. 
One was helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson Jr., who evacuated some of the 
wounded victims, and who set his chopper down between a group of 
Vietnamese and Calley's men, ordering his door gunner to open fire on 
the US soldiers if they shot any more people. One was Ron Ridenhour, 
a soldier who learned of the massacre, and began a private 
investigation, ultimately reporting the crime to the Pentagon and 
Congress. One was Michael Bernhardt, a soldier in Charlie Company who 
witnessed the whole thing, and reported it all to Ridenhour. And one 
was journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the story in the US media.

Today's war in Afghanistan also has its My Lai massacres. It has them 
almost weekly, as US warplanes bomb wedding parties, or homes 
"suspected" of housing terrorists that turn out to house nothing but 
civilians. But these My Lais are all conveniently labeled accidents. 
They get filed away and forgotten as the inevitable "collateral 
damage" of war. There was, however, a massacre recently that was not 
a mistake--a massacre which, while it only involved fewer than a 
dozen people, bears the same stench as My Lai. It was the 
execution-style slaying of eight handcuffed students, aged 11-18, and 
a 12-year-old neighboring shepherd boy who had been visiting the 
others, in Kunar Province, on Dec. 26.

Sadly, no principled soldier with a conscience like pilot Hugh 
Thompson tried to save these children.  No observer had the guts of a 
Michael Brernhardt to report what he had seen. No Ron Ridenhour among 
the other serving US troops in Afghanistan has investigated this 
atrocity or reported it to Congress. And no American reporter has 
investigated this war crime the way Seymour Hersh investigated My Lai.

There is a Seymour Hersh for the Kunar massacre, but he's a Brit. 
While American reporters like the anonymous journalistic drones who 
wrote CNN's December 29 report on the incident 
(<http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/12/29/afghanistan.deaths/index.html>http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/12/29/afghanistan.deaths/index.html), 
took the Pentagon's initial cover story--that the dead were part of a 
secret bomb-squad--at face value, Jerome Starkey, a reporter in 
Afghanistan working for the Times of London and the Scotsman, talked 
to other sources--the dead boys' headmaster, other townspeople, and 
Afghan government officials--and found out the real truth about a 
gruesome war crime--the execution of handcuffed children.  And while 
a few news outlets in the US like the New York Times did mention that 
there were some claims that the dead were children, not bomb-makers, 
none, including CNN, which had bought and run the Pentagon's lies 
unquestioningly, bothered to print the news update when, on Feb. 24, 
the US military admitted that in fact the dead were innocent 
students. Nor has any US corporate news organization mentioned that 
the dead had been handcuffed when they were shot.

Starkey 
<http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/8-weeks-on-Nato-admits.6102256.jp>reported 
the US government's damning admission. Yet still the US media remain 
silent as the grave.

Under the Geneva Conventions, it is a war crime to execute a captive. 
Yet in Kunar on December 26, US-led forces, or perhaps US soldiers or 
contract mercenaries, cold-bloodedly executed eight hand-cuffed 
prisoners.  It is a war crime to kill children under the age of 15, 
yet in this incident a boy of 11 and a boy of 12 were handcuffed as 
captured combatants and executed. Two others of the dead were 12 and 
a third was 15.

I called the Secretary of Defense's office to ask if any 
investigation was underway into this crime or if one was planned, and 
was told I had to send a written request, which I did. To date, I 
have heard nothing.  The Pentagon PR machine pretended to me on the 
phone that they didn't even know what incident I was talking about, 
but without their "help" I have learned that what the US military has 
done--no surprise--is to pass the buck by leaving any investigation 
to the International Security Assistance Force--a fancy name for the 
US-led NATO force fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. It's a clever 
ruse. The ISAF is no more a genuine coalition entity than was  George 
Bush's Iraq War Coalition of the Willing, but this dodge makes 
legislative investigation of the event impossible, since Congress has 
no authority to compel testimony from NATO or the ISAF as it would 
the Pentagon. A source at the Senate Armed Services Committee 
confirms that the ISAF is investigating, and that the committee has 
asked for a "briefing"--that means nothing would be under oath--once 
that investigation is complete, but don't hold your breath or expect 
anything dramatic.

I also contacted the press office of the House Armed Services 
Committee to see if any hearings into this crime have been planned. 
The answer is no, though the press officer asked me to send her 
details of the incident (Not a good sign that House members and staff 
are paying much attention--the killings led to country-wide student 
demonstrations in Afghanistan, to a formal protest by the office of 
President Hamid Karzai, and to an investigation by the Afghan 
government, which concluded that innocent students had been 
handcuffed and executed, and no doubt contributed to a call by the 
Afghan government for prosecution and execution of American soldiers 
who kill Afghan civilians.)

There is still time for people of conscience to stand up in the midst 
of this imperial adventure that may now appropriately be called 
Obama's War in Afghanistan.  Plenty of men and women in uniform in 
Afghanistan know that nine Afghan children were captured and murdered 
at America's hands last December in Kunar. There are also probably 
people who were involved in the planning or carrying out of this 
criminal operation who are sickened by what happened. But these 
people are so far holding their tongues, whether out of fear, or out 
of simply not knowing where to turn (Note: If you have information 
you may contact me). There are also plenty of reporters in 
Afghanistan and in Washington who could be investigating this story. 
They are not. Don't ask me why. Maybe ask their editors.

Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-area journalist. His work can be 
found at 
<http://www.thiscantbehappening.net>www.thiscantbehappening.net. He 
can be reached at <http://www.thiscantbehappening.net>dlindorff at yahoo.com.




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