"I want to ask: What does apology mean? We apologize for our mistakes and repeat our mistakes again? What meaning does this have?" --Sayid Mohammed Mal, Vice Chancellor, Gardez University and survivor of Feb. 12 night raid in Paktiya Province, Afghanistan.
The video below shows a survivor of a brutal, botched special forces raid on February 12, 2010, in which U.S. and allied forces killed 5 civilians, including local Afghan officials and pregnant women. If that were the extent of the bad conduct in this incident, it would be devastating enough. Unfortunately, personnel under McChrystal's command compounded the outrage by tampering with evidence at the scene and then attempted a propaganda job and cover-up of the massacre, which has now blown up in their faces.
Initially, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) claimed that "insurgents" "engaged the joint force in a fire fight and were killed." The release states the special forces then made a "gruesome discovery," finding "the bodies of three women who had been tied up, gagged and killed" and that the bodies had been "hidden." They also claim that the "joint force immediately secured the area and requested expert medical support and will conduct a joint forensic investigation."
Almost every piece of this initial description of the chain of events was later proved to be a lie.
Faced with the persistent, professional reporting of The Times' (UK) Jerome Starkey, multiple witness accounts of the incident and the results of an Afghan investigation, McChrystal's personnel finally admitted responsibility in an April 4 press release. ISAF wants to pass off their initial lies about the incident as the unfortunate result of "cultural misunderstandings" and "poor wording." McChrystal has ordered a new investigation, but his personnel's recent behavior shows exactly why they cannot be trusted to investigate themselves.
ISAF's "aw, shucks" explanation ignores the fact that the original release described a non-existent fire fight and claimed that coalition forces discovered the long-dead bodies of the women hidden in a room when they were, in fact, killed during the raid by U.S. and allied forces. By admitting to killing the women, McChrystal's forces have implicitly admitted to conveying multiple flat-out lies to the public. Their inadequate explanation and subsequent deletion of the original offending press releases represent a transparent attempt to extricate themselves from a failing web of propaganda intended to shield the personnel involved from accountability without properly acknowledging their role in deceiving the Afghan and American publics.
This brings us back to Sayid's question above. "What does apology mean? We apologize for our mistakes and repeat our mistakes again?" ISAF apologized to his family, only to turn around on April 19 and do this:
A NATO military convoy in eastern Afghanistan shot to death four unarmed civilians in a vehicle early Monday evening, including a police officer and a 12-year-old student, Afghan officials said Tuesday.
The killings in Khost Province, near the border with Pakistan, led to a dispute almost immediately between local Afghan leaders and NATO officials.
...
NATO described the dead as two insurgents and their "associates."
ISAF's story didn't hold for long, though:
NATO's acknowledgment Wednesday that the unarmed young men shot to death two days earlier in Khost province were not "known insurgents," as previously alleged, has prompted another military apology and fueled anger over civilian casualties.
...NATO officials said that fingerprints of two of the men killed in Khost had shown up in an insurgent biometric database but that they later decided the data might not be relevant.
ISAF/NATO forces shoot up a vehicle full of people after claiming they thought it was a threat to them. They then examine the bodies in the car and find no weapons. Then, they check their fingerprints to find out if they were in the insurgent database. Now, why in the world, after you've discovered the vehicle and the men and children you just shot posed no threat, would you then think about running a biometric test on their bodies to see if they were in a database of "known insurgents?" Are we thinking maybe we can find something to help cover our behinds, perhaps?
Sound familiar? ISAF excuses their killing of a local official and a child with an initial, immediate claim that the victims were insurgents. After a dispute with locals, ISAF has to admit that they weren't, in fact, insurgents. See a pattern? If not, maybe you should take a look at the statements of one Col. Greg Julian regarding an airstrike in Farah last year that killed more than 100 people.
What does it mean for McChrystal's people to apologize for killing innocent people and lying about it, only to have them turn around and keep repeating the same behavior? Why should we be moved or lend credulity to such apologies?
McChrystal has ordered another investigation of the incident in Gardez that killed Sayif's family members, but ISAF's behavior over the past months makes them the least credible investigators possible, especially when ISAF forces have been accused with tampering with the evidence in the first place. Please take a moment to sign Rethink Afghanistan's petition for an independent, U.N.-led investigation.
We deserve the truth, not more spin.
Follow Derrick Crowe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/derrickcrowe
Robert Greenwald: Our Afghan Victims Have Faces
I spoke with a man who lost a cousin and a future daughter-in-law during that awful special forces night raid. Hearing the story from a person who was there really drives home the necessity of ending this brutal, costly war.
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They said the motorbike accelerated before detonating. Hmmm sounds like the van incident???
Now, however, the Pentagon wants $33 billion more for Afghanistan war. No word yet how it will be paid for.
I am waiting for Republicans' principled stand ...
It is going to be a long wait.
McChrystal is Cheneys right hand man all the way and all that that implies -there could be nothing good to come from appointing him head of the Afghan mission- just more confirmation of America's thuggish need to dominate at whatever cost
American, sorry for this whole mess.
"George W. Bush 'knew Guantánamo prisoners were innocent"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7092435.ece
Unfortunatly there are innocent people killed in war. That is a consequense of war, and we cant deny that.
I dont think this article is about the ACCIDENTAL killing of innocent people. I dont think the Iraqi man is complaining about ACCIDENTAL killings. He, and many other Afgans are complaining about the lying and the implication that the people the kill...if men are terrorists, and if women are victims of honour killings.
I think that is a valid point. A killing can only be ruled accidental if the person who did it admits it, and tells the truth about what happened. He welcomes an investigation, and co operates with the authorities. It becomes a crime when the person who did it lies, defames witnesses, hides or destroys evidence, or slanders the victims, as we have seen NATO do so many times, and more than likely they have done it many times we will never know.
It isnt the anger of the Afgans that people are killed, it is the slander of the victims that anger them, as this man has expressed.
Well put and you are fanned.
Since Obama came to power I've been shocked at the number of former anti war comrades who now sound like Republicans: how do we know these Afghans are not lying? Where's the evidence? Anything to attack our president and so forth.
American troops seem to be utterly out of their depth in Afghanistan. They are often scared, who would not be? However covering up and lying is slandering the dead and abusing the grieving families.
Republican nor Democrat seems to give a damn about the mental health of our young troops after digging bullets out of slaughtered mothers.
Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have the highest rate of suicide of any wars.
So yes it's utterly despicable to ignore the civilian dead by our hands but what does it say about our society that we do not care about the health of its own troops? They all come back and when they see their teenage siblings or their own family: I can only guess at the nightmares that must afflict them.
Clearly from the level of Post Traumatic Stress and suicide: Obama like GWB has exacted a high price for a mythical Pyrrhic Victory.
As to what we have had done in our name in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan I am deeply ashamed. To an Afghan parent or child there is no difference between Obama or GWB: their innocent dead are still dead. Saying sorry is not good enough. Leaving is.
We have done wrong. A great wrong. No amount of nattering about "freedom" will breathe life back into the dead.
The US military and the backing government--both Bushco and ObamaCo--are completely corrupt. Worst of all is that every American has a legal and moral obligation to do everything in our power to stop what is being done in our names in Afghanistan--and yet we've done so little, and I include myself.
What can we do?
but you are clueless. Take a moment and talk to a soldier who was.Listen, ask questions and then write. As a citizen and a voter for Obama you should understand what it is like for the troops YOU PUT THERE! A soldier would be more than happy to talk about the nightmare their country sent them to. Then they can ask you "why ".
feels like to hit a homer who has never played or seen a baseball game.
When civilians and Taliban are all dressed the same and the Taliban shoot from occupied homes and streets shit happens.Its sad,but the Taliban are allowed to do it because people like you never display outrage over their hiding among civilians.Here is a news story from tdy. I didn't see your outrage post on it?? Why??:
A roadside bomb exploded first, then a minute later, a motorbike laden with explosives was detonated. The blasts killed two civilians and injured one policeman and one civilian, the Interior Ministry said. About two hours later, a third blast struck in the north of the city, injuring another Afghan policeman.
Petraeus, Bush, Cheney et al
All purveyors of senseless atrocities.
Stop the U.S. military "foreign policy" in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the globe.
Bring All troops home and place them in a strictly defensive position along the Mexican border.
Downsize the U.S. military to the degree that a draft will be required for future endeavors
End the miltary as a "for pay" destination for our young people.
That is why the standard of just war was established. So that the inevitable war crimes are not committed on whim but because of a just cause for the war in the first place.
This isn't a just war but a preemptive war. Preemptive wars are a war crime against the people of the world.
A rose by any other name still spells dead people.