I agree that bin Laden and associates has to be caught (killed). I am not a pacifist. However, killing innocent people is not something a technologically advanced and supposedly moral society has to, or should, do.
Yes, I have a bleeding heart, better than none. And to find out the truth I have to find uncensored news. You can't get that in the "land of the free". US reporters are not allowed in combat zones by this government. Not since reporting from battle zones in Vietnam changed the tide of public opinion have we had freedom of the press in war time.
"Listen to the language of the Pentagon: "We cannot confirm thereport...civilian casualties are inevitable...we don't know if theywere our weapons...it was an accident...incorrect coordinates had beenentered...they are deliberately putting civilians in our bombingtargets...the village was a legitimate military target...it justdidn't happen...we regret any loss of civilian life."
Listening to the repeated excuses given by Bush, Rumsfeld and others,one recalls Colin Powell's reply at the end of the Gulf War, whenquestioned about Iraqi casualties: "That is really not a matter I amterribly interested in." If, indeed, a strict definition of the word"deliberate" does not apply to the bombs dropped on the civilians ofAfghanistan, then we can offer, thinking back toPowell's statement, an alternate characterization: "a recklessdisregard for human life."
The denials of the Pentagon are uttered confidently half a world awayin Washington. But there are on-the-spot press reports from thevillages, from hospitals where the wounded lie and from the Pakistanborder, where refugees have fled the bombs. A professor of economics at the University of NewHampshire, Marc Herold, has done a far more thorough survey of thepress than I have. He lists location, type of weapon used and sourcesof information. He finds the civilian death toll in Afghanistan up toDecember 10 exceeding 3,500 (he has since raised the figure to 4,000),a sad and startling parallel to the number of victims in the twintowers.
[My freedom, as defined by this culture (Pepsi or Coke, Democrat or Republican, etc) is not worth the price being paid by others of my species. Think about]...the hopesand dreams of those who died, especially the children, for whom fortyor fifty years of mornings, love, friendship, sunsets and the sheerexhilaration of being alive were extinguished by monstrous machinessent over their land by men far away.
My intention is not at all to diminish our compassion for the victimsof the terrorism of September 11, but to enlarge that compassion toinclude the victims of all terrorism, in any place, at any time,whether perpetrated by Middle East fanatics or American politicians.
In that spirit, I present the following news items (only a fraction ofthose in my files), hoping that there is the patience to go throughthem, like the patience required to read the portraits of theSeptember 11 dead, like the patience required to read the 58,000 nameson the Vietnam Memorial:
>From a hospital in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, reported in the BostonGlobe by John Donnelly on December 5:
"In one bed lay Noor Mohammad, 10, who was a bundle of bandages. Helost his eyes and hands to the bomb that hit his house after Sundaydinner. Hospital director Guloja Shimwari shook his head at the boy'swounds. 'The United States must be thinking he is Osama,' Shimwarisaid. 'If he is not Osama, then whywould they do this?'"
The report continued:
"The hospital's morgue received 17 bodies last weekend, and officialshere estimate at least 89 civilians were killed in several villages.In the hospital yesterday, a bomb's damage could be chronicled in thelife of one family. A bomb had killed the father, Faisal Karim. In onebed was his wife, Mustafa Jama, who had severe head injuries....Around her, six of her children were in bandages.... One of them,Zahidullah, 8, lay in a coma."
In the New York Times, Barry Bearak, reporting December 15 from thevillage of Madoo, Afghanistan, tells of the destruction of fifteenhouses and their occupants. "'In the night, as we slept, they droppedthe bombs on us,' said Paira Gul, a young man whose eyes were aflamewith bitterness. His sisters and their families had perished, hesaid.... The houses were small, the bombing precise. No structureescaped the thundering havoc. Fifteen houses, 15 ruins.... 'Most ofthe dead are children,' Tor Tul said."
Another Times reporter, C.J. Chivers, writing from the village ofCharykari on December 12, reported "a terrifying and rolling barragethat the villagers believe was the payload of an American B-52.... Thevillagers say 30 people died.... One man, Muhibullah, 40, led the waythrough his yard and showed three unexploded cluster bombs he isafraid to touch. A fourth was not a dud. It landed near his porch. 'Myson was sitting there...the metal went inside him.' The boy, Zumarai,5, is in a hospital in Kunduz, with wounds to leg and abdomen. Hissister, Sharpari, 10, was killed. 'The United States killed mydaughter and injured my son,' Mr. Muhibullah said. 'Six of my cowswere destroyed and all of my wheat and rice was burned. I am veryangry. I miss my daughter.'"
>From the Washington Post, October 24, from Peshawar, Pakistan, byPamela Constable: "Sardar, a taxi driver and father of 12, said hisfamily had spent night after night listening to the bombing in theircommunity south of Kabul. One night during the first week, he said, abomb aimed at a nearby radio station struck a house, killing all fivemembers of the family living there. 'There was no sign of a homeleft,' he said. 'We just collected the pieces of bodies and buriedthem.'"
Reporter Catherine Philp of the Times of London, reporting October 25from Quetta, Pakistan: "It was not long after 7 pm on Sunday when thebombs began to fall over the outskirts of Torai village.... Rushingoutside, Mauroof saw amassive fireball. Morning brought an end to the bombing and...aneighbor arrived to tell him that some 20 villagers had been killed inthe blasts, among them ten of his relatives. 'I saw the body of one ofmy brothers-in-law being pulled from the debris,' Mauroof said. 'Thelower part of his body had been blown away. Some of the other bodieswere unrecognizable. There were heads missing and arms blown off....'The roll call of the dead read like an invitation list to a familywedding: his mother-in-law, two sisters-in-law, three brothers-in-law,and four of his sister's five young children, two girls and two boys,all under the age of eight."
Human Rights Watch report, October 26: "Twenty-five-year-oldSamiullah...rushed home to rescue his family.... he found the bodiesof his twenty-year-old wife and three of his children: Mohibullah,aged six; Harifullah, aged three; and Bibi Aysha, aged one.... Alsokilled were his two brothers, Nasiullah, aged eight, and Ghaziullah,aged six, as well as two of his sisters, aged fourteen and eleven."
>From Reuters, October 28, Sayed Salahuddin reporting from Kabul: "AU.S. bomb flattened a flimsy mud-brick home in Kabul Sunday, blowingapart seven children as they ate breakfast with their father.... Sobsracked the body of a middle-aged man as he cradled the head of hisbaby, its dust-covered body dressed only in a blue diaper, lyingbeside the bodies of three other children, their colorful clotheslayered with debris from their shattered homes."
Washington Post Foreign Service, November 2, from Quetta, Pakistan, byRajiv Chandrasekaran: "The thunder of the first explosions joltedNasir Ahmed awake.... he grabbed his 14-year-old niece and scurriedinto a communal courtyard. From there, he said, they watched ascivilians who survived the bombing run, including his niece and awoman holding her 5-year-old son, were gunned down by a slow-moving,propeller-driven aircraft circling overheard. When the gunshipdeparted an hour later, at least 25 people in the village--allcivilians--were dead, according to accounts of the incident providedtoday by Ahmed, two other witnesses, and several relatives of peoplein the village.
"The Pentagon confirmed that the village was hit...but officials saidthey believe the aircraft struck a legitimate military target....Asked about civilian casualties, the official said, 'We don't know.We're not on the ground.'
"Shaida, 14.... 'Americans are not good.... They killed my mother.They killed my father. I don't understand why.'"
A Newsday report on November 24 from Kabul, by James Rupert: "In thesprawling, mud-brick slum of Qala-ye-Khatir, most men were kneeling inthe mosques at morning prayer on November 6 when a quarter-ton ofsteel and high explosives hurtled from the sky into the home of GulAhmed, a carpet weaver. The American bomb detonated, killing Ahmed,his five daughters, one of his wives, and a son. Next door, itdemolished the home of Sahib Dad and killed two of his children....
"Ross Chamberlain, the coordinator for U.N. mine-clearing operationsin much of Afghanistan.... 'There's really no such thing as aprecision bombing.... We are finding more cases of errant targetingthan accurate targeting, more misses than hits.'"
The New York Times, November 22, from Ghaleh Shafer, Afghanistan:"10-year-old Mohebolah Seraj went out to collect wood for his family,and thought he had happened upon a food packet. He picked it up andlost three fingers in an explosion. Doctors say he will probably losehis whole hand.... his mother, Sardar Seraj...said that she cried andtold the doctors not to cut off her son's whole hand...
"The hospital where her son is being cared for is a grim place,lacking power and basic sanitation. In one room lay Muhammad Ayoub, a20-year-old who was in the house when the cluster bomb initiallylanded. He lost a leg and his eyesight, and his face was severelydisfigured. He moaned in agony.... Hospital officials said that a16-year-old had been decapitated."
A New York Times report on December 3 from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, byTim Weiner: "The commanders, who are pro-American...say that fournearby villages were struck this weekend, leaving 80 or more peopledead and others wounded.... The villages are near Tora Bora, themountain camp where Mr. bin Laden is presumed to be hiding. A Pentagonspokesman said Saturday that the bombing of civilians near Tora Bora'never happened.'
"Eight men guarding the building [a district office building]...werekilled, [mujahedeen commander] Hajji Zaman said. He gave the names ofthe dead as Zia ul-Hassan, 16; Wilayat Khan, 17; Abdul Wadi, 20; Jany,22; Abdul Wahid, 30; Hajji Wazir, 35; Hajji Nasser, also 35; and AwliaGul, 37.... Ali Shah, 26, of Landa Khel, said, 'There is no one inthis village who is part of Al Qaeda.'
"Witnesses said that at least 50 and as many as 200 villagers had beenkilled.
"'We are poor people,' [Muhammad] Tahir said. 'Our trees are our onlyshelter from the cold and wind. The trees have been bombed. Ourwaterfall, our only source of water--they bombed it. Where is thehumanity?'"
The Independent, December 4: "The village where nothing happened....The cemetery on the hill contains 40 freshly dug graves, unmarked andidentical. And the village of Kama Ado has ceased to exist.... And allthis is very strange because, on Saturday morning--when American B-52sunloaded dozens of bombs that killed 115 men, women andchildren--nothing happened.... We know this because the U.S.Department of Defence told us so.... 'It just didn't happen.'"
The New York Times, December 12, David Rohde, writing from Ghazni,Afghanistan: "Each ward of the Ghazni Hospital features a newcalamity. In the first, two 14-year-old boys had lost parts of theirhands when they picked up land mines. 'I was playing with a toy and itexploded' said one of them, Muhammad Allah.... a woman named Rose layon a bed in the corner of the room, grunting with each breath. Herwaiflike children slept nearby, whimpering periodically. Early onSunday morning, shrapnel from an American bomb tore through thewoman's abdomen, broke her 4-year-old son's leg and ripped into her6-year-old daughter's head, doctors here said. A second 6-year-oldgirl in the room was paralyzed from the waist down. X-rays showed howa tiny shard of metal had neatly severed her spinal cord."
Reported in the Chicago Tribune, December 28, by Paul Salopek, fromMadoo, Afghanistan: "'American soldiers came after the bombing andasked if any Al Qaeda had lived here,' said villager Paira Gul. 'Isthat an Al Qaeda?' Gul asked, pointing to a child's severed foot hehad excavated minutes earlier from a smashed house. 'Tell me' he said,his voice choking with fury, 'is that what an Al Qaeda looks like?'"
Reuters, December 31, from Qalaye Niazi, Afghanistan: "Janat Gul said24 members of his family were killed in the pre-dawn U.S. bombing raidon Qalaye Niazi, and described himself as the sole survivor.... In theU.S. Major Pete Mitchell--a spokesman for U.S. Central Command--said:'We are aware of the incident and we are currently investigating.'"
Yes, these reports appeared, but scattered through the months ofbombing and on the inside pages, or buried in larger stories andaccompanied by solemn government denials. With no access toalternative information, it is not surprising that a majority ofAmericans have approved of what they have been led to think is a "waron terrorism."
Recall that Americans at first supported the war in Vietnam. But oncethe statistics of the dead became visible human beings--once they sawnot only the body bags of young GIs piling up by the tens of thousandsbut also the images of the napalmed children, the burning huts, themassacred families at My Lai--shock and indignation fueled a nationalmovement to end the war.
I do believe that if people could see the consequences of the bombingcampaign as vividly as we were all confronted with the horrifyingphotos in the wake of September 11, if they saw on television nightafter night the blinded and maimed children, the weeping parents ofAfghanistan, they might ask: Is this the way to combat terrorism?"-Howard Zinn in "The Nation"
If this is what America stands for, don't call me one.
