Last week, Amnesty International released a detailed report, on the failure of U.S. and other international forces to investigate killings of civilians in Afghanistan.
US forces have comprised the large majority of international forces in Afghanistan, and have been implicated in the large majority of incidents involving civilian casualties. Therefore, this report focuses, in particular, on the performance of the US government in investigating possible war crimes and in prosecuting those suspected of criminal responsibility for such crimes. Its overall finding is that the record is poor.
Left in the Dark: Failures of Accountability for Civilian Casualties Caused by International Military Operations in Afghanistan, Amnesty International
Public editor Margaret Sullivan responds to complaints that the
New York Times did not cover the Amnesty International report.
Many readers have written to me in recent days, protesting that The Times did not cover a new report from Amnesty International about charges of United States torture and another human rights abuses in Afghanistan. That report was covered in other publications, including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The Daily Beast.
Why The Times Didn’t Cover an Amnesty International Report on Torture, New York Times
Foreign editor Joseph Kahn says, that the story has already been covered.
More generally, Mr. Kahn said, “I do feel as though we have a responsibility to cover credible allegations of abuses involving the United States around the world. I do not feel we have an obligation to write about a report on the subject simply because one appears.” He pointed out a few of the many examples of articles The Times has written on this subject.
Much of it appeared to be recycled from United Nations reports and other news coverage, including our own.”
More generally, Mr. Kahn said, “I do feel as though we have a responsibility to cover credible allegations of abuses involving the United States around the world. I do not feel we have an obligation to write about a report on the subject simply because one appears.” He pointed out a few of the many examples of articles The Times has written on this subject.
Why The Times Didn’t Cover an Amnesty International Report on Torture, New York Times
Going picky, the
Times mostly cites stories about torture by Afghan security forces, where the Amnesty International report specifically focuses on a lack of investigation of killings of civilians, and torture, by the United States.
More importantly, one of the ten case studies in the Amnesty International report is about last year's torture and killings at a small U.S. Special Forces combat outpost in Wardak province.
The Times has indeed covered that story, and covered it well.
But the Amnesty International report adds considerable new information to the story.
The following allegations, about the torture and killings in Wardak, are not recycled.
Agha said that he and other prisoners were held separately in dark wooden cells. “On the first night,” he told Amnesty International, “Zikria and the Americans told me they were going to try 14 different types of torture on me. If I survived, they said, they’d let me go.”
The torture he described was horrific:
First they took off my clothes. Then they tied a thin plastic cord around my penis so I couldn’t pee. Then they forced me to lie down face down on the floor. Four people beat me with cables. They tied my legs together and beat the soles of my feet with a wooden stick. They punched me in the face and kicked me. They hit my head on the floor. They tied laces around my neck to strangle me.
During the day they’d leave me in the cell with my arms pulled out to the side, stretched out. During the night, they’d hang me from the ceiling from my hands. I have scars on my hands. My feet would be tied together. They’d barely touch the ground. My eyes were blindfolded. They’d pour cold water over my head. They’d do this from about 9 pm until 10 or 11 pm.
They did this for 4 nights in a row.
They were questioning me all the time. Whenever they tortured me, they had someone with a pen and notebook. They’d ask, “Where are the weapons? Where are you hiding them?” I’d tell them that I worked as a cashier for the Ministry of Culture: “Ask them about me,” I’d say.
They left the string around my penis for 4 days. My abdomen was bulging. I wasn’t able to pee for those 4 days.
And neither is this:
Agha told Amnesty International that he witnessed the death of one of the men he was held with:
One of the prisoners was killed in front of my eyes. His name was Sayed Muhammed. He was beaten to death. Only one guy beat him, an American. It happened in the afternoon during prayer time. I don’t remember what day it was, but it was sometime between the 18th and 45th day of my captivity. I don’t know the name of the American who did it: he was a big guy with a big, bushy red beard, and green eyes. Big strong arms. He wasn’t young—probably middle-aged, about 40.
Agha said that he heard the others get killed; he didn’t see it happen. “They were beaten to death, all of them, with cables and sticks.”
And more importantly still: detailed and substantial allegations of torture, conducted by the U.S., in Afghanistan, have
already been covered, and therefore need not be covered now? What?