{news} Fwd: [usgp-nc] GPUS NC Draft Proposal to Commemorate the 6th Year Anniversary of the US Congress Authorized US Invasion, Bombing, and Occupation of Afghanistan

[Charlie Pillsbury]

fyi, c.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: henry duke <henryduke2004 at yahoo.com>
Date: Sep 23, 2007 3:12 PM
Subject: [usgp-nc] GPUS NC Draft Proposal to Commemorate the 6th Year
Anniversary of the US Congress Authorized US Invasion, Bombing, and
Occupation of Afghanistan
To: NC <natlcomvotes at green.gpus.org>

Draft Proposal to Commemorate the 6th Year Anniversary of the US Congress
Authorized US Invasion, Bombing,and Occupation of Afghanistan

[there follows an addenda of a recently documented civilian massacre there
by US precision bombs and air support]

******************************
Whereas the Geneva Conventions on War Article 48 states: "The Parties to the
conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and
combatants."

Whereas the Geneva Conventions on War Article 50 adds: "The presence within
the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition
of civilian does not deprive the population of its civilian character."

Whereas the official CRS Congressional Report released two months ago on
July 16th, 2007 demonstrated that Congressional budget authority for the War
in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2007 went up from FY2006 18.9 billion US
dollars to FY2007 36.9 billion US dollars -- a 95 percent increase while the
Iraq surge, overlapping the same time period went from 101.7 to 135.2
billion dollars, represented a 3 fold less increase of 33 percent;

And, Whereas the United States and NATO aerial bombing in Afghanistan is
clearly violating Articles 48 and 50 of the Geneva Conventions on War and
hence the parties are guilty of war crimes; with civilian casualties
conservatively in the tens to hundreds of thousands and US Military Ally
Deaths in the thousands;

Be it resolved that a consensus of the GPUS National Committee calls upon as
many organs and individuals of our sister and fraternal friends in the
Peace, Justice, Green, and, anti-terrorist movements to organize actions,
teach-ins, and media events on or around October 7th, the 6th year
anniversary of the US Congressional Authorized War against Afghanistan.

And be it further resolved, that a consensus of the GPUS National Committee
endorses the call for:

1) A complete withdrawal of US and NATO armed forces out of Afghanistan,
2) Investigation into war crimes for the planners of the war, and
3) Reparations to be determined by a US and NATO – independent international
body, to be distributed by local states so that Afghanistan can begin to
rebuild and heal from the foreign-imported violence which has driven local
forces away from democracy, human rights, and back towards the US-armed
Taliban.

**********

'Bomber McNeill' reveals the 'Cheapness' of Afghan lives: the massacre in
Haydarabad, Helmand
by Marc W. Herold
Departments of Economics
Whittemore School of Business & Economics
University of New Hampshire
POSTED AUGUST 7, 2007 --
On the evening of June 29, 2007, besieged U.S. and Afghan troops called-in
close air support (CAS). The results were devastating, tantamount to a
massacre.1 Between 50 – 130 innocent Afghan civilians reportedly perished
and countless others were injured in the night-time aerial assault upon the
little village of Haydarabad located next to the Helmand River, about 15
kilometers northeast of the town of Gereshk.
Taliban resistance fighters attacked a joint U.S-Afghan military convoy. Two
U.S. military vehicles were blown up by mines after which resistance
fighters opened up with gunfire and rockets. The U.S. occupation forces then
called in close air support (CAS) which bombed the village of Haydarabad for
at least two full hours (10 – 12 PM, or 17:30 – 19:30 GMT), killing many
people including women, men, children, Taliban fighters, etc. Five to six
houses were completely obliterated. The U.S. corporate mainstream press
refuses to publish photos of U.S. "precision" bombs' civilian victims. The
following photos, however, put a "face" to the collateral damage which gets
glibly excused away by U.S. military spokespersons uttering the usual
platitude of "sincere regrets."



Mohammad Khan, a resident of Haydarabad, lost seven family members. Scores
were injured. The above photos show injured civilians at a hospital in
Lashkar Gah. The photo below, taken by Reuters' photographer, Abdul Qodos,
shows an Afghan girl (injured by U.S. "precision" bombs) in the Bost
hospital in Lashkar Gah.
The increasingly used excuse by the U.S and NATO militaries and their all
too numerous civilian acolytes, is that the Taliban are responsible for
these civilian deaths because they hide in villages. Anyone vaguely familiar
with the techniques of guerrilla warfare knows that resistance fighters
mingle amongst the population. That population needs to be respected and
served, as described in Mao's famous pamphlet Serve the People. The Algerian
national liberation fighters fought the French in urban areas (as depicted
in the movie The Battle of Algiers). And, the Brazilian guerrilla leader,
Carlos Marighela, argued for similar tactics in his famous Mini-manual of
Urban Guerrilla Warfare.2
Can anyone take seriously these claims by the U.S/NATO militaries? What are
we to expect? That the Taliban will congregate out in the open of the
Helmand desert and fire RPGs at Apache attack helicopters or A-10 Warthogs
or Canadian tanks? Rather than fight it out on the ground, U.S./NATO forces
call-in close air support thereby saving their lives at the expense of
putting innocent Afghans in the village at much greater risk. Who is
endangering whom?

Initial on-the-ground reports underestimated the carnage. A resident and
farmer, Nur Ali, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that over 30 villagers
including women and children were killed while trying to flee the village
after the first strike, adding, "more high-flying planes came and they
started bombing those escaping the village, bombing houses." Another man
from the area, Feda Mohammad, told AFP more than 100 civilians were killed
and wounded: "Six house have been bombed, three of them have been reduced to
rubble. People are still busy bringing out the dead from under the rubble,
there are funerals at various places." "Our initial investigations show that
30 civilians, including women, children and men, have been killed," said Dur
Alisha, the mayor of Girishk district in the southern province of Helmand.
"I cannot say anything about Taliban casualties. The number of civilians
killed is 30, plus or minus one," the mayor told AFP by telephone.
A day later, the civilian death toll caused by the intense CAS bombing was
officially put at 45-65, or 50-80 dead villagers. On July 1st, Griff Witte
(known for his independent reporting) cited in The Washington Post different
local reports:
"More than 100 people have been killed. But they weren't Taliban. The
Taliban were far away from there," said Wali Khan, a member of parliament
who represents the area. "The people are already unhappy with the
government. But these kinds of killings of civilians will cause people to
revolt against the government." Another parliament member from Helmand,
Mahmood Anwar, said that the death toll was close to 100 and that the dead
included women and children. "Very few Taliban were killed," he said.3
The independent Pajhwok Afghan News (06/30/07) put the civilian death toll
at 130, citing residents and local officials.4
The Canadian journalist Graeme Smith wrote,
Villagers say they heard the fighting and fled toward a makeshift camp in a
barren area. They had hoped to get away from the trees and vineyards where
Taliban might hide, they said, because they didn't want to get caught in the
crossfire. "This is what usually happens during the fighting: The people run
to the desert," said Khudai Dad, 50, a wealthy landowner from Hyderabad
(sic). Two tractors were pulling carts loaded with families trying to escape
when they were hit with bombs, villagers said. Some accounts said a sedan
was also caught in the blasts. "I saw many women and children with their
heads, legs, arms, separated from their bodies," Mr. Dad said. "I saw
tractors burned, and women and children were burned in their seats ... some
of them, we couldn't tell if they were men or women."5
Accounts by two members of parliament from Helmand painted a grisly picture,
putting the civilian toll at 100 or more. "People tried to escape from the
area with their cars, trucks and tractors, and the coalition airplanes
bombed them because they thought they were the enemy fleeing," said Hajji
Zahir, a tribal elder. "They told me that they had buried 170 bodies so
far." Hajji Assadullah, another elder, told of 35 villagers, fleeing in a
tractor-trailer, who were hit by an air strike. "There were only two
survivors, an old man and his son, and the son was seriously injured, and I
saw them with my own eyes," he said. Dr. Ainaytullah Ghafari, head of
Gereshk Hospital, said he treated three children from one family. "They had
lost seven relatives," Ghafari said. "The bombs hit houses and people ran in
order to survive. Most of the victims were women and children. About 60 to
65 civilians have been killed in Kakaran village."
Haji Dur Alishah, mayor of the Gereshk district, said to the Deutsche Press
Agentur (DPA) that "local villagers were so angry that they did not let our
investigating team really find out the number of civilian casualties." The
U.S. propaganda office initially said that more than two dozen Taliban were
killed in two separate engagements in the area Friday, hoping the whole
story would go away. NATO announced the dead civilians amounted to a dozen
at most.
The Associated Press (as expected) came to the rescue of the U.S. military
on July 1st, proclaiming that "62 Taliban, 45 civilians" were killed. Is the
U.S. military more credible than locals, the AFP, Reuters, Pajhwok News, and
the DPA?
On the night of June 20th, a similar U.S/NATO bombing attack which killed
25-36 civilians was carried out upon the village of De Adam Khan, some 14
kms north of Lashkar Gah.6
Three days later, the puppet mayor of Kabul, Hamid Karzai, had whined to the
world press about civilians killed by "careless" U.S./NATO actions as in De
Adam Khan,

"Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such."
Less than a week later in Haydarabad, U.S./NATO actions proved him wrong
(and underlined Karzai's complete irrelevance): possibly 100 civilians were
killed in the aerial assault of Haydarabad, Helmand Province. Afghan lives
were once again revealed as being expendable and cheap, a fact I have
documented elsewhere.7 No amount of "sincere regrets" can change that
reality. The American general commanding NATO in Afghanistan, Dan McNeill,
is increasingly being dubbed "Bomber McNeill."
But as Simon Jenkins (02/07/2007) famously wrote, "a relative killed or a
village destroyed only fertilizes the desire for revenge. 'One dead Pashtun
recruits 10 Taliban,' is not an idle threat."8 "All the people in this area
will start jihad against the foreign troops," said Haji Nazar Mohammed, 50,
a small-time farmer in Haydarabad who claimed to have lost dozens of
relatives. By declaring jihad, or holy war, against the foreign soldiers,
the villagers would commit themselves to helping the Taliban.9
-- 30 --
Footnotes
1. I have borrowed the term "Bomber McNeill" which refers to the American
General Dan McNeill, current leader of NATO occupation forces in
Afghanistan, from The Economist (see here). The designation alludes to the
(in)famous British commander of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command during
World War II, Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris (1892-1984).
2. See the website devoted to Carlos Marighela who "died for Brazil," here.
3. Griff Witte and Javed Hamdard, "Civilians Die in U.S.-NATO Air Assault in
Afghanistan," Washington Post Foreign Service (July 1, 2007): A16.
4. In "More Than 130 Afghan Civilians Dead in Coalition Airstrike," Pajhwok
Afghan News (June 30, 2007).
5. Graeme Smith, "How Taliban Exploit Civilian Casualties," The Globe & Mail
(July 2, 2007).
6. Details on incidents in which Afghan civilians have died at the hands of
U.S./NATO actions may be found at my Afghan Victim Memorial Project.
7. In my "The Value of a Dead Afghan. Revealed and Relative," Cursor.org
(July 21, 2002).
8. Simon Jenkins, "'This Aerial Onslaught is War at Its Most Stupid'," The
Guardian (February 7, 2007).
9. Graeme Smith, op. cit.




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