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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">I witnessed US war crimes in Afghanistan - for all its victims justice is due</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Moazzam Begg - September 3, 2021</div><div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits"><br></div><div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">
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<div class="gmail-author-bio-content" style="margin-left:40px"><font size="1">Moazzam Begg is a former Guantanamo Bay
detainee, author of Enemy Combatant and outreach director for UK-based
campaigning organisation CAGE. Follow him on twitter: @Moazzam_Begg - CAGE sponsored an extensive trip to the UK in 2012 sponsoring multiple showings of <b><i>Cointelpro 101 </i></b>in events intended to connect US violence globally and internally. - Editor</font><br></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p>In the summer of 2001, I moved with my family to <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/tags/afghanistan" target="_blank">Afghanistan</a>
from the UK to work on a project to build wells in drought-stricken
regions of the country, and to help set up a girls’ school in Kabul.</p>
<p>The Taliban, who were in charge of the country, had <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210824-afghanistan-s-media-enters-the-unknown-under-taliban-rule" target="_blank">banned television</a>,
but a friend of mine heard on the radio that the US had been attacked. I
understood what the Pentagon was, but I had never heard about the Twin
Towers. Initially, I thought the US had been invaded by China, or even
Cuba. But the finger was soon being pointed at <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/tags/osama-bin-laden" target="_blank">Osama bin Laden</a>, who was also in Afghanistan.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was clear to me that the Americans had no idea what they were doing, or what the consequences of their abuses would be</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Before the bombing began, I saw planes dropping leaflets from the
skies, offering bounty money for al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects. It was a
strange spectacle, and although I’d never been there, the <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4388545/user-clip-snowflakes-december-chicago" target="_blank">description</a> given by then-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld - “dropping like snowflakes in December in Chicago” - seemed apt. </p>
<p>At first, US warplanes bombed under cover of darkness, and I could
see Taliban anti-aircraft guns fire ineffectually into the sky. Shortly
afterwards, however, the air raids occurred during the day. I had heard
explosions during my visits to Bosnia in the 1990s, but I had never
heard any explosions like this. I learned later that the US Air Force
used 15,000lb “Daisy Cutter” bombs. </p>
<p>I evacuated to Pakistan and remained there until early 2002, when I was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2012/5/5/guantanamo-remembered-a-personal-perspective" target="_blank">abducted from my home</a>
by CIA and Pakistani intelligence agents at gunpoint in front of my
wife and children. Bad intelligence from the UK, alongside the snowflake
leaflets, had secured my fate.</p>
<h3>Horrific abuses</h3>
<p>I was taken back to US detention facilities in Kandahar and Bagram,
where I remained for almost a year before being sent to Guantanamo.
Several of those held with me were Taliban members, including senior
ones - but they were not the only ones.</p>
<p>I witnessed horrific abuses in Bagram and saw two <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghan-prisoners-were-tortured-to-death-by-american-guards-491534.html" target="_blank">Afghan prisoners beaten to death</a> by US soldiers. One was an innocent taxi driver called Dilawar.</p>
<p>In Bagram, I met Afghans who had even fought against the Taliban, but
had been sold for bounties amid tribal feuds. It was clear to me that
the Americans had no idea what they were doing, or what the consequences
of their abuses would be. </p>
<div>
<p><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/bagram%202020%20afp.jpg" alt="Afghan soldiers escort Taliban prisoners released from Bagram prison in May 2020 (AFP)" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="429" height="286"></p>
Afghan soldiers escort Taliban prisoners released from Bagram prison in May 2020 (AFP)</div>
<p>A young Afghan prisoner told me that his father had been <a href="https://tolonews.com/afghanistan/mass-grave-discovered-northern-parwan" target="_blank">buried alive</a>
by Soviet occupation forces at Bagram. In fact, the Soviets had
originally built the place used by the US military to imprison us. I’ll
never forget when the young Afghan told US interrogators: “The USSR
killed my father right in this place; do you think his son will submit
to the USA?”</p>
<p>US soldiers I spoke to then seemed proud that they’d captured
Afghanistan in so little time. But they hadn’t read the history of this
land. No one likes invaders, but Afghans have a history of defeating
them - especially when they are the world’s most powerful forces. </p>
<p>And torturing people and desecrating their faith - well, that
literally seals the fate of both the resistance and the occupation.</p>
<h3>Unwinnable war</h3>
<p>The years of drawn-out conflict in Afghanistan proved that the US
coalition could not win. The Taliban were in their own homes while the
Americans were faraway, wishing they were home.</p>
<p>Those sent to Guantanamo had to undergo torture and humiliation under the command of <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20160218-french-judge-summons-guantanamo-chief-miller-torture-ghraib-benchellali-sassi" target="_blank">General Geoffrey Miller</a>.
He used government-approved “enhanced interrogation techniques” to
maximum effect. Miller went on to lead detainee operations in Iraq,
notably in <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/04/04/472964974/it-was-torture-an-abu-ghraib-interrogator-acknowledges-horrible-mistakes" target="_blank">Abu Ghraib</a>, where infamous abuses occurred, and Camp Bucca.</p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/afghanistan-west-taliban-seismic-shift-geopolitics" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/000_9EG38K.jpg?itok=nLqZSr1J" alt="" width="400" height="250"></a></p><p>Afghanistan: A seismic shift in geopolitics</p>
</div>
<p>Miller’s aim to “<a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2004/08/tipt-a25.html" target="_blank">Gitmo-ise</a>”
Iraqi prisons had devastating effects. Al-Qaeda, which moved into Iraq
as a result of the US invasion, formed the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI)
in Camp Bucca, alongside former Baath party members close to Saddam
Hussein. ISI eventually became the Islamic State (IS); an estimated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/-sp-isis-the-inside-story" target="_blank">17 top IS leaders</a> had been held captive in US-run prisons.</p>
<p>Al-Qaeda attacked the US on September 11, 2001, for many reasons. One
view is that it sought to deal such a blow that the US would not
recover. Yet, not only did the US recover, it put everything it had into
trying to destroy al-Qaeda and anyone connected to it - real or
perceived.</p>
<p>That’s where another theory comes in: 9/11 happened so that the US
would be drawn into a war it could not win. In that regard, it seems Bin
Laden got his way.</p>
<p>The Taliban celebrated the departure of US troops as a clear victory,
and they weren’t alone. British military leaders, who had commanded
tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan, were <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/01/taliban-has-prevailed-afghanistan-says-former-army-head-lord/" target="_blank">conceding</a> Taliban victory and describing them as people with a “code of honour” who seek an “inclusive government”.</p>
<h3>Irreversible damage</h3>
<p>As former victims of Guantanamo and torture take leading positions in
the new Afghan government, it’s hard to conclude that the US’s standing
in the world hasn’t been irreversibly damaged. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvGLDUhHOwQ" target="_blank">chaos at Kabul airport</a> will never be forgotten, having already overshadowed scenes of Saigon as the US withdrew from Vietnam. </p>
<p>While haunting images of the “<a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a48031/the-falling-man-tom-junod/" target="_blank">falling man</a>” will forever be linked to the 9/11 attacks, images of three Afghans <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/afghanis-fall-us-military-plane-after-clinging-wing-shocking-video-1619589" target="_blank">falling from US military aircraft</a> at the Kabul airport will be engraved in our collective memory of the US’s end in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>But that’s not all: even as the chaotic evacuation proceeded, more than 160 Afghans and 13 US soldiers were killed in an <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/u-s-troops-killed-in-kabul-airport-attack-identified-1.6157253?cmp=rss" target="_blank">airport attack</a> carried out by IS-Khorasan. At some point, US leaders must come to terms with the fact that <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/27/us-braces-for-more-possible-attacks-after-deadly-kabul-blasts" target="_blank">28 Taliban soldiers died</a> while guarding the US perimeter and the civilians and soldiers within it - and so must the Taliban.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Times describes Bagram as 'the scene of some of the darkest
episodes of the US-led occupation'. But to me, it's the scene of
countless unresolved war crimes, and I'm an eyewitness</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It took two decades, thousands of deaths, trillions of dollars and
the destruction of the US’s reputation to conclude that negotiations
were possible. But there must also be a reckoning.</p>
<p>As Kabul fell to the Taliban, so did Bagram prison. As a former
prisoner of this place, it’s hard to describe the emotions I felt at
hearing this news. The Times <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bagrams-new-taliban-masters-uncover-horrors-of-us-jail-l028tdzxg" target="_blank">describes</a>
Bagram as “the scene of some of the darkest episodes of the US-led
occupation”. But to me, it’s the scene of countless unresolved war
crimes, and I’m an eyewitness. It is regarding those crimes that I gave <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/icc-dead-us-america-declares-war-international-justice" target="_blank">testimony</a> to the International Criminal Court, and for which the US government threatened to prosecute its members.</p>
<p>To mark the 20th anniversary of the war on terror, my organisation, CAGE, is launching the <a href="https://www.20yearsofwar.com/" target="_blank">International Witness Campaign</a>
(IWC) alongside 40 international organisations that bring together
former prisoners, former soldiers, academics and campaigners to discuss,
document and divulge to the public our collective analyses and
experiences of this historic moment.</p>
<p>The US’s literal parting shot to Afghanistan was a<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/29/asia/afghanistan-kabul-evacuation-intl/index.html" target="_blank"> drone strike</a>
in retaliation for the airport attack. It killed 10 members of one
family, including seven children. The IWC will assess the impacts of war
on millions of people. It’s not something I’m looking forward to, but
if our governments fail to learn lessons, the rest of us are left with
the task of reminding them. </p>
<p><i>The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.</i></p>
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