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Innocent lives destroyed in the relentless hunt for bin Laden 07.08.2002 By ROBERT FISK President George W. Bush's "war on terror" reached the desert village of Hajibirgit at midnight on May 22. Haji Birgit Khan, the bearded, 85-year-old Pushtu village leader and head of 12,000 local tribal families, was lying on a patch of grass outside his home. Faqir Mohamed was sleeping among his sheep and goats in a patch of sand to the south when he heard "big planes moving in the sky". Even at night, it is so hot that many villagers spend the hours of darkness outside their homes, although Mohamedin and his family were in their mud-walled house. There were 105 families in Hajibirgit on May 22, and all were woken by the thunder of helicopter engines and the thwack of rotor blades and the screaming voices of the Americans. Haji Birgit Khan was seen running stiffly from his little lawn towards the white-walled village mosque, a rectangular cement building with a single loudspeaker and a few threadbare carpets. Several armed men were seen running after him. Hakim, one of the animal herders, saw the men from the helicopters chase the old man into the mosque and heard a burst of gunfire. "When our people found him, he had been killed with a bullet, in the head," he says, pointing downwards. There is a single bullet hole in the concrete floor of the mosque and a dried bloodstain beside it. "We found bits of his brain on the wall." Across the village, sharp explosions were detonating in the courtyards and doorways of the little homes. "The Americans were throwing stun grenades at us and smoke grenades," Mohamedin recalls. "They were throwing dozens of them at us and they were shouting and screaming all the time. We didn't understand their language, but there were Afghan gunmen with them, too, Afghans with blackened faces. "Several began to tie up our women - our own women - and the Americans were lifting their burqas, their covering, to look at their faces. That's when the little g |
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That's when the little girl was seen running away." Abdul Satar says that the 3-year-old ran shrieking in fear from her home, that she was Zarguna, the daughter of a man called Abdul-Shakour - many Afghans have only one name - and that someone saw her topple into the village's 18m well. During the night, she was to drown there, her back apparently broken by the fall. Other children would find her body in the morning. The Americans paid no attention. From the description of their clothes given by the villagers, they appeared to include Special Forces and also units of Afghan Special Forces, the brutish and ill-disciplined units run from Kabul's former Khad secret police headquarters. There were also 150 soldiers from the United States' 101st Airborne, whose home base is at Fort Campbell, in Kentucky. But Fort Campbell is a long way from Hajibirgit, which is 80km into the desert from the southwestern city of Kandahar. And the Americans were obsessed with one idea: that the village contained leaders from the Taleban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda movement. A former member of a Special Forces unit from one of America's coalition partners supplied his own explanation for the American behaviour when I met him a few days later. "When we go into a village and see a farmer with a beard, we see an Afghan farmer with a beard. When the Americans go into a village and see a farmer with a beard, they see Osama bin Laden." All the women and children were ordered to gather at one end of Hajibirgit. "They were pushing us and shoving us out of our homes," Mohamedin says. "Some of the Afghan gunmen were shouting abuse at us. All the while, they were throwing grenades at our homes." The few villagers who managed to run away collected the stun grenades next day with the help of children. There are dozens of them, small cylindrical green pots with names and codes stamped on the side. One says "7 BANG Delay: 1.5 secs NIC-01/06-07", another "1 BANG, 170 dB Delay: 1.5s". Another cylinder is ma |
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Another cylinder is marked: "DELAY Verzagerung ca. 1,5s." These were the grenades that terrified Zarguna and ultimately caused her death. A regular part of US Special Forces equipment, they are manufactured in Germany by the Hamburg firm of Nico-Pyrotechnik - hence the "NIC" on several of the cylinders. "dB" stands for decibels. The Americans were also firing bullets. Several peppered a wrecked car in which another villager, a taxi driver called Abdullah, had been sleeping. He was badly wounded. So was Haji Birgit Khan's son. A US military spokesman would claim that US soldiers had "come under fire" in the village and had killed one man and wounded two "suspected Taleban or al Qaeda members". The implication - that 85-year-old Haji Birgit Khan was the gunman - is clearly preposterous. The two wounded were presumably Khan's son and Abdullah, the taxi driver. The US claim that they were Taleban or al Qaeda members was a palpable lie - since both of them were subsequently released. "They made us lie down and put cuffs on our wrists, sort of plastic cuffs. The more we pulled on them, the tighter they got and the more they hurt. Then they blindfolded us. Then they started pushing us towards the planes, punching us as we tried to walk," Faqir Mohamed remembers. In all, the Americans herded 55 of the village men, blindfolded and with their hands tied, on to their helicopters. Mohamedin was among them. So was Abdul-Shakour, still unaware that his daughter was dying in the well. The body of 85-year-old Haji Birgit Khan was taken as well. When the helicopters landed at Kandahar Airport - headquarters to the 101st Airborne - the villagers were, by their own accounts, herded together into a container. Their legs were tied and then their handcuffs and a manacle of one leg of each prisoner was attached to stakes driven into the floor of the container. Thick sacks were put over their heads. Abdul Satar was among the first to be taken from this hot little prison. "Two Americans walk |
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"Two Americans walked in and tore my clothes off. If the clothes would not tear, they cut them off with scissors. They took me out naked to have my beard shaved and to have my photograph taken. Why did they shave off my beard? I had my beard all my life." Mohamedin was led naked into an interrogation tent, and his blindfold removed. "There was an Afghan translator, a Pushtun man with a Kandahar accent in the room, along with American soldiers, both men and women soldiers. I was standing there naked in front of them with my hands tied. Some of them were standing, some were sitting at desks. "They asked me: 'What do you do?' I told them: 'I am a shepherd - why don't you ask your soldiers what I was doing?' They said: 'Tell us yourself.' Then they asked: 'What kind of weapons have you used?' I told them I hadn't used any weapon. "One of them asked: 'Did you use a weapon during the Russian [occupation] period, the civil war period or the Taleban period?' I told them that for a lot of the time I was a refugee." From the villagers' testimony, it is impossible to identify which American units were engaged in the interrogations. Some US soldiers were wearing berets with yellow or brown badges, others were in civilian clothes but apparently wearing bush hats. The Afghan interpreter was dressed in his traditional salwah khameez. Hakim underwent a slightly longer period of questioning; like Mohamedin, he says he was naked before his interrogators. "They wanted my age and my job. I said I was 60, that I was a farmer. They asked: 'Are there any Arabs or Talebans or Iranians or foreigners in your village?' I said 'No.' They asked: 'How many rooms are there in your house, and do you have a satellite phone?' I told them: 'I don't have a phone. I don't even have electricity'." A few hours later, the villagers were issued with bright-yellow clothes and taken to wire cages laid out over the sand of the airbase where they were given bread, biscuits, rice, beans and bottl |
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bottled water. The younger boys were kept in separate cages from the older men. There was no more questioning, but they were held in the cages for five days. All the while, the Americans were seeking the identity of the 85-year-old man. They did not ask their prisoners - who could have identified him at once - although the US interrogators may not have wished them to know that he was dead. In the end, the Americans gave a photograph of the face of the corpse to the International Red Cross. The organisation was immediately told by Kandahar officials that the elderly man was perhaps the most important tribal leader west of the city. "When we were eventually taken out of the cages, there were five American advisers waiting to talk to us," Mohamedin says. "They used an interpreter and told us they wanted us to accept their apologies for being mistreated. They said they were sorry. What could we say? We were prisoners. One of the advisers said: 'We will help you.' What does that mean?" A fleet of US helicopters flew the 55 men to the Kandahar football stadium - once the scene of Taleban executions - where all were freed, still dressed in prison clothes and each with a plastic ID bracelet round the wrist bearing a number. "Ident-A-Band Bracelet made by Hollister" was written on each one. Only then did the men learn that old Haji Birgit Khan had been killed during the raid a week earlier. And only then did Abdul-Shakour learn that Zarguna was dead. The Pentagon initially said that it found it "difficult to believe" the village women had their hands tied. But given identical descriptions of the treatment of Afghan women after the US bombing of the Uruzgan wedding party, which followed the Hajibirgit raid, it seems that the Americans - or their Afghan allies - did just that. A US military spokesman claimed that American forces had found "items of intelligence value", weapons and a large amount of cash in the village. What the "items" were was never clarified. The guns were almost |
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The guns were almost certainly for personal protection against robbers. A further tragedy confronted the men - thieves had descended on Hajibirgit. A group of men from Helmand province whose leader is Abdul Rahman Khan - once a brutal "mujahid" fighter against the Russians, and now a Karzai government police commander - raided the village once the Americans had taken away most of its men. Ninety-five of the 105 families had fled into the hills, leaving their homes to be pillaged. The disturbing questions that creep into the mind of anyone driving across the desert to Hajibirgit are obvious. Who told the US to raid the village? Who told them the Taleban leadership and the al Qaeda leadership were there? Was it, perhaps, Abdul Rahman Khan, whose men were so quick to pillage the mud-walled homes once the raid was over? Bush's "war on terror" descended on the innocent village of Hajibirgit. Now Hajibirgit is dead. - INDEPENDENT |
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Lets hear a big hand for the Copy and Paste function. :) |
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I am telling you it was a bastard..trying to get all of it here..message keeps getting truncated... |
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yeah, its a big read man... |
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please do read it.. |
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http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm |
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nice read...it just goes to show that our operations there are greatly mis-informed. Fucking capitolism; if we werent' so bent on saving a few bucks, and cutting back so much in the last years our military's intelligence would be twice as powerfull and HOPEFULLY crimes like this would've been prevented. I also dont' agree to much with america's tradition of not worryign about things until AFTER it happens. |
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It wasn't really a lack of military intelligence that lead to 9/11 but US foreign policy. The term 'blowback' though harsh, is pretty accurate. If you fuck with so many people you're gonna get burned. Its just tragic that innocent civilians get caught up in the actions of the ruling class. |
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Its exactly what the CIA and George Bush's administration want you to believe. One has to wonder if the 3500 on Sept 11 were "sacrifriced" as collateral damage just so the budgets for the miltary and the intelligence could be regulated and brought back to the levels of the Cold War. After all its well documented that they had about a million warnings from all over the world prior to 9-11. |
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Cheers Jonsey for the link |
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that pretty much sums everything up,you just wish they were more people[journalists] out there saying whats happening,exposing these travisties. |
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Hmm, interesting idea. Of course (as Meho has said previously) expansion is the the logic of cpaitalism and the sure fire way to expand is through a war. Its a tragic paradox. |
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Excellent quote here from Jonesy's link When they put bombs in cars and kill people, they're uncivilized killers. When we put bombs on missiles and kill people, we're upholding civilized values. When they kill, they're terrorists. When we kill, we're striking against terror." |
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Recent 'success-tally' of U.S.bombs: "over 200 civilians are killed to get 1,5 Taliban leaders" |
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god i hope bush gets exposed |
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I don't. Bush in the nude? Yuk! |
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my post was not in regards to 9-11. I've been so overexposed to it, that i don't care anymore. I'm talking about the situation that flea posted. If we had better intel, then we wouldn't be raiding helpless afgan villages. here's the excerpt i'm refering to: "Who told the US to raid the village? Who told them the Taleban leadership and the al Qaeda leadership were there?" |
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Its no different from Salem Witch Trials over there right now. Afghans are guilty of far worse atrocities than Taliban ever committed are actually working for the US right now "helping" CIA to catch the terrorists and eliminating most of their age old feudal enemies and ransacking and looting them in the process. None of this has anything to do with anything that happened 911 or otherwise. |
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*Turns a blind eye* |
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then why did you bring up 9-11 in the first place? |
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You were echoing the moaning CIA has about lack of intelligence due to cutbacks and funds etc |
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The Americans are in Afghanistan using 911 as an excuse arent they even though the plans for Afghan invasion were finalised by July of that year and it all has to do with certain pipelines and an oil company kicked out by the Taliban You might be interested to know that the current Afghan president was an employee of a certain US oil company that was asked to leave the country by Taliban. Amaaazing concidences arent they |
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Way to turn a blind eye with a camcorder stuck to the other :o |
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ah....ok, i see what you're saying. I wasn't refering to that, but the situation that you posted. the CURRENT bitching of the cia's underfunding isn't what lead me to say what i said. They've been underfunded way before this "war on terror" ever started, and i feel they are using that as the scapegoate to the 9-11 tragidy; which is where i think you had what i was saying misconstrued. |
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yes, yes. i'm quite caught up on the consirisies of 9-11. i don't know why eveyone thinks that we're ALL brainwashed by our govt. There are a countless number of us who not only know better, but are strongly opposed to what's going on. |
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Clinton started the cutbacks and the Bush family are CIA as you probably know so it became the top priority once Bush was elected. Bush being a Texan with a huge interest in the oil industry just rounds up this whole situation nicely and tightly. |
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I for one know that you arent as I have lived in America and have the American people to be some of the most aware and inquistive. The amount of media blackout and propoganda onslaught is usually propotional to the number of people that it will frustrate into investigating and seeking alternate views. I should know as I spent half my life in one of the most politically repressed countries with freedom of press being a total myth |
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heh, to make things even tighter the bush's and bin ladens have direct finicial ties in houston, tx. If i remember correctly, the binladens' STILL own property, and companies down there. i will say this against the american populus; in a recent national poll done by the NY times, bush has a 94% aproval rating. What the hell is that?!!!! |
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Rule by fear, you can have a lot of power over people if you scare the hell out of them. That's why I have a lot of respect for the Americans who can see past the propaganda. |
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Even 6 percent disapproval accounts for roughly 10 million disscenting people but still a heck of a lot of people who aint buying whats been sold to them |
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I personally wouldnt want to be living in the US right now and be at the total mercy of the non stop terror campaign of its media. Encouraging people to buy biohazard suits en masse how fucked up is that? Isnt that every dystopian sci fi come alive? |
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And having to live in fear of phantom terrorists on each and every major holiday and occasion Christmas, Thanks giving, New Year, 4th July etc That is just plain cruel and creates unnecessary misery for the populus |
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Where'd you hear that? I'm not sure the biohazard suit market has moved much from the radical survivalist niche that it's been in for the last 40 years. |
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It was just a figure of speech..the repeated stories of of the frightened families acquiring gas masks and biohazard suits post the Anthrax incident are tenemont to that..increasing the paranoia to fever pitch with repeated exposure.. I know it effectively brainwashed people here with several incidents down here in piddly little New Zealand where post offices were evacuated and Biohazard suited EMS officers sent in after some schmuck thought that they suspected an envelope of containing something that could be a powder.. |
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You failed to mention the Cheap Horror Movie market. . . |
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this country has gone so far away from the original ideals that it proposed during its creation its bushs fault...goddamn republicans i still love america though its not like there were civilian casualties in WWII,right?.......right? |
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america isnt evil,its the government...please dont say americans are invading,because 75% of this nation knows better....im tired of getting banged on because i dont have a say in what our nation does. |
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I guess I am supposed to hate my own government and the country I live in because some people were supposedly treated unfairly. Fuck that. I'm behind the U.S. 100%. |
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Americans are invading. Sorry that is the way it is termed. When we speak of chinese policies we don't mean the chinese people. That is the way it is. You live in a democricy right? You will and should be judged by your government. Don't like it? Change it. You do have a say GIR. Vote thoughtfully, share knowledge and write letters. Even e-mail. Definately hit your media as it is nothing but a government propaganda megaphone. It doesn't reflect the "75%" of "knows better" americans that you claim there are. Nanotech wrote" "i don't know why eveyone thinks that we're ALL brainwashed by our govt" Crazy approval ratings? Insane police state laws (patriots act)? Big Media? Unpunished corporate scandals? Government and media demonizing decent? |
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The USA is ostensibly still a democracy, if you live here and don't like the policies of government, you can do 3 things: 1. Get out (I've done this) 2. Vote out the bastards (I've done this) 3. Deal with it If you're under voting age you can still make yourself heard with letters to goverment, media, etc. |
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Steve you don't have to "hate" them or your country. Just place blame correctly on those acountable when they work counter to what your country was built on or... when they flat out break laws. Don't have blind patriotism and just agree with it because it's american. Decent is democrecies greatest asset. |
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Yeah well, I prefer blind patriotism and loyalty to this country over criticising it every chance I get. If that pisses some people off, good. I'm the same way with my family. If someone in my family has a problem with someone else, I never side with the other person, regardless of the situation. I'm the same way with my country. I don't care if we're the most evil group of people ever to exist, I live here and i'm going to back it up. |
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Hmm, but how much of a democracy is it? 2 party system where both parties are practically the same, with a third party that is usually ignored and recieves a media blackout thanks to some 'donations'. The whole idea of democracy is that the people can have the power to change, and anyone can run for presidency. Is that the case? Sorry if im wrong at any point here. |
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i hate to break it to you, but "collateral damage", no matter how horrible, is not terrorism |
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"I prefer blind patriotism and loyalty" "I don't care if we're the most evil group of people ever to exist, I live here and i'm going to back it up" Wow... Well at least you're honest. It's more serious than I thought... |
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