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1 Comment for “NY Times Reports Mass Murder By American-Allied Forces In Afghanistan in 2001.”

1. Veteran Advocacy Editor

   July 11, 2009 - 11:50 am

   [QUOTE] Remember the My Lai Massacre in mid-March 1968 and its aftermath in this country during the Viet Nam War?  American support for that war plummeted through the basement after it became public.  Are we there again all these years later?[END QUOTE]

   History has a sense of humor when repeating itself. Nixon inherited the Vietnam War and Mai Lai massacre (among others) from the Johnson administration.

   The Obama administration inherited (no passionately ran a political campaign to do better militarily in Afghanistan than the Bush administration). However, Obama inherited Iraqnam.

   What makes us think that the Obama administration is going to do anything better than the Bush administration that’s like saying the Nixon administration did better than Johnson’s did in Vietnam minus the Fall of Saigon.

   Anyway, for every breaking story there’s another breaking story in response, rebuttal, or in theis case JUST DO NOTHING, because it’s now Obama’s War(s).

   Obama admin: No grounds to probe Afghan war crimes      Obama administration officials said Friday, July 10th they had no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war who human rights groups allege were killed by U.S.-backed forces. The mass deaths were brought up anew  in a report by The New York Times. It quoted government and human rights officials accusing the Bush administration of failing to investigate the executions of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of prisoners.

         U.S. officials said they did not have legal grounds to investigate the deaths because only foreigners were involved and the alleged killings occurred in a foreign country. Say what? WE sure had lots to say about Kosovo, the Serbs, and so on. Why is Wesly Clark all of a sudden so QUIET???

         The Times cited U.S. military and CIA ties to Afghan Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, whom human rights groups accuse of ordering the killings. The newspaper said the Defense Department and FBI never fully investigated the incident. What is the difference between this war criminal and the ones WE dragged before the Hague under Clinton???

         Asked about the report, Marine Corps Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said that since U.S. military forces were not involved in the killings, there is nothing the Defense Department could investigate. Oh, so we let surrogates do the killing and look the other way. Now, don’t tell us that U.S. troops in Vietnam looked the other way as South Vietnam troops did the dirty work for us??? We could have cared less what the South Vietnamese troops were doing. Maybe it was South Vietnamese troops who did Mai Lai, but our troops took the heat???

        "There is no indication that U.S. military forces were there, or involved, or had any knowledge of this," Lapan said. "So there was not a full investigation conducted because there was no evidence that there was anything from a DoD (Department of Defense) perspective to investigate." Ok, then as a Human Rights violation and to save face for the Pentagon and our troops how about the State Department or the United Nations checking this out and dragging so and so general before the Hague on War Crimes. Since we are not involved let the international courts on war crimes handle this???

         A Justice Department official said the FBI had no jurisdiction to investigate. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Separately, Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller declined to comment. Damn right, the FBI doesn’t have foreign jurisdiction over law enforcement per se, that is the CIA’s job.

         A spokesman for former President George W. Bush did not have an immediate comment.

         Reacting to the Times’ report, human rights group Physicians for Human Rights called for the Justice Department to begin a criminal investigation into whether the Bush administration blocked inquiries into the Taliban deaths. Why does the Physicians for Human Rights not contact the American Medical Associaton about putting political pressure and clout behind them. Better yet, why don’t the Physcians for Human Rights take this before the United Nations Committee on Human Rights and other international Human Rights forums.

         "For U.S. government officials to claim that there is no legal basis to investigate this well-documented mass atrocity is absurd," said the groups deputy director, Susannah Sirkin. Not only is it adsurd but it clearly shows a double standard applied to European atrocities like Malinkovich and the Serbs/Croations in Bosnia and people of the Middle East or Southwest Asia.

        The allegations date back to November 2001, when as many as 2,000 Taliban prisoners died in transit after surrendering during one of the regime’s last stands, according to a State Department report from 2002. Wo, stop the presses, if this was a State Department Report then why isn’t Hillary Clinton’s right wing State Department investigating their own report????

        Witnesses have claimed that forces with the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance placed the prisoners in sealed cargo containers over the two-day voyage to Sheberghan Prison, suffocating them and then burying them en masse using bulldozers to move the bodies, according to the State Department report. Some Northern Alliance soldiers have said that some of their troops opened fire on the containers, killing those within.

         Dostum, the Northern Alliance general who is accused of overseeing the atrocities, has previously denied the allegations. A former U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues, Pierre Prosper, told the Times that the Bush administration was reluctant to investigate the deaths, even though Dostum was on the payroll of the CIA and his soldiers worked with U.S. special forces in 2001.

   Dostum was suspended from his military post last year on suspicion of threatening a political rival, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently rehired him, the Times reported.

   By LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes, A ssociated Press Writer Sat Jul 11, 7:48 am ET WASHINGTON -
   

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