A 2004 documentary film described the massacre of hundreds of Afghan prisoners. It got some attention at the time, but the story has largely been flushed down the memory hole. At the time some people thought that W implicated himself in the 2003 SOTU address.
All this has been largely overshadowed by the focus on the famous "16 words," that led up to the Scooter Libby trial".....Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa....." It seemed like 43 was just winging it at times during the 2003 SOTU. This was his "top of the world, ma!" moment.
But there was also another little sentence that seemed to come out of nowhere.
To date we have arrested or otherwise dealt with many key commanders of Al Qaida.......All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries....And others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.
The crowd jumps to their feet, Rummy and Powell stand side by side. You can see it about 30 minutes into this video
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
Accusations of a Massacre
Soon afterwards, a European documentary came out describing a massacre of prisoners during that period where large numbers of people were being rounded up.
The evidence of American torture and associated inhumane conduct is especially disturbing. In December of last year, the documentary "Massacre in Afghanistan" was aired on German television, to the consternation of the U.S. State Department. It shows interviews with eyewitnesses to the torture and slaughter of 3,000 Taliban POWs, who surrendered to U.S. and allied Afghan forces. The film demonstrates the complicity of the American army command in the killing of these 3,000 men. Some of the prisoners died from suffocation while being transported in closed containers that lacked any ventilation. An Afghan soldier who traveled with the convoy reported he was ordered by an American commander to fire shots into the containers to provide air, knowing he would hit the men inside. One of the drivers recounted the fate of survivors of the transport - dumped in the desert, shot and left to be eaten by dogs, as 30 to 40 American soldiers looked on. These allegations suggest evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity under the statute of the new International Criminal Court. It is precisely liability for actions such as these that Bush sought to escape when he endeavored to remove the United States' signature on this treaty last year.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/...
Where Are The Bodies?
The Christian Science Monitor picks up the story
Afghan war crimes a low priority
Despite a UN visit last week, a full investigation of the mass grave in Dasht-e Leili has yet to begin.
By Philip Smucker | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
DASHT-E LEILI, AFGHANISTAN – Commander Taher Charkhi, who helped bury scores of bodies here in a mass grave, is clearly pleased when he says that Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners "suffocated in the containers" last November.
The burly commander adds that he is surprised that anyone cares what happened to these fighters, who backed the plotters of the attacks on the World Trade Center. "Thousands should have died, not hundreds," he says, strolling over the wind-swept graves littered with bloody clothes and jawbones.
http://www.csmonitor.com/...
So wrote Jamie Doran, producer of a television documentary titled Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death, in the respected French journal Le Monde diplomatique (September 2002). Thousands more prisoners were still missing, according to Doran. "A few may have escaped ... But according to to a number of eyewitnesses found during a six-month investigation, most lie [buried] in the sand" at Dasht-e Leili, a site only ten minutes' drive from Shebarghan.
http://www.counterpunch.org/...
In the documentary, the witnesses say they believe the bodies at the site found near the village of Shebarghan included the Taliban prisoners who were transported to the site in the truck containers. The filmmakers claim that thousands of Afghans, Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Chechens and Tajiks may now be buried at the mass grave. UN and human rights officials have found the grave but have not estimated the number it contains. Fifteen bodies have been excavated so far.
A Pentagon spokesman last night denied the allegations: "US Central Command looked into it a few months ago, when allegations first surfaced when there were graves discovered in the area of Shebarghan prison. They looked into it and did not substantiate any knowledge, presence or participation of US service members."
http://www.agrnews.org/...
Investigative Reporters Are Beaten
Why haven't we heard more about this? The reporter was nearly beaten to death while researching this case.
The film was researched by award-winning journalist Najibullah Quraishi, who was beaten almost to death when he tried to obtain video evidence of US Special Forces’ complicity in the massacre. Two of the witnesses who testified in the film are now dead.
http://www.informationclearinghouse....
A Reporter Asks Ari Fleischer
And a reporter even asked Ari Fleisher about this at a White House press briefing. He was asking Ari if there was a possible connection between the SOTU remarks and the death of the prisoners, which would have implied that W knew about the incident. Not surprisingly, Ari punts.
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 27, 2003
Q Ari, there's a new documentary film by an Irish journalist, Jamie Duran. He alleges --
MR. FLEISCHER: I haven't seen it.
Q Well, let me tell you about it then. He alleges U.S. military involvement in a massacre of 3,000 Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan. He says that the 3,000 prisoners were forced into sealed containers and loaded onto trucks for transport to Shebarghan Prison. When the prisoners began shouting for air, U.S. ally Afghan soldiers fired directly into the truck, killing many of them. Then witnesses in the film say that the trucks arrived and soldiers opened the containers, most of the people inside were dead. U.S. Special Forces redirected the --
MR. FLEISCHER: And your question is?
Q Well, you said you hadn't seen it, so I'm giving you some background. So just one more thing. U.S. Special Forces redirected the containers carrying the dead into the desert and stood by as --
MR. FLEISCHER: I think I understand your movie review.
Q And there's a mass grave of 3,000 Taliban prisoners. Question: Does the President know about this massacre? Is he ordering an investigation?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, one, I would not use a movie as a basis to make assumptions about what is right and what is wrong. And if you have questions about a factual matter in Afghanistan dealing with the military, I think that's a question you should address to the Pentagon. I'm not aware of any such thing.
Q Is the President aware of it?
MR. FLEISCHER: I don't know if he's aware of this movie or not; I would doubt it.
http://www.unbossed.com/...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
You can watch Ari dodge this question on this video at 32:20. Watch how tense and how much quieter he becomes. The volume of his voices drop by about 1/2.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
Who Were These Prisoners?
And who were these prisoners? At the time, foreigners were being rounded up by the thousands. We now know that many of them were picked up more or less at random in exchange for bounties.
Maybe they included Taliban
The prisoners buried here were first captured some 200 miles east at Kunduz, a pocket of Taliban and Al Qaeda resistance. Some of those who surrendered were taken to Qala Jangi prison in Mazar-e Sharif, where a later uprising, put down by Dostum with the help of US bombers, resulted in the death of one CIA agent and the capture American Taliban John Walker Lindh. Other prisoners captured at Kunduz were dispatched to a prison in Shibergan, about four hours west by car, and it was POWs from this group who landed in the grave at Dasht-e Leili.
Many of the prisoners buried at Dasht-e-Leili had already been interrogated by the same US Special Forces who handled Lindh, say Afghan officials.
http://www.csmonitor.com/...
Or maybe they were bystanders caught by the mass roundup of that period.
Bounties ranged from $3,000 to $25,000, the detainees testified during military tribunals, according to transcripts the U.S. government gave The Associated Press to comply with a Freedom of Information lawsuit...leaflets and loudspeaker announcements promised "the big prize" to those who turned in al-Qaida fighters.
Said one leaflet: "You can receive millions of dollars. ... This is enough to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life — pay for livestock and doctors and school books and housing for all your people."
Helicopters broadcast similar announcements over the Afghan mountains, enticing people to "Hand over the Arabs and feed your families for a lifetime," said Najeeb al-Nauimi, a former Qatar justice minister and leader of a group of Arab lawyers representing nearly 100 detainees.
http://www.commondreams.org/...
The bounty system attracted some pretty scruffy freelancers. In the wild west atmosphere, it's easy to imagine that the treament of prisoners could get tragically out of control.
An American bounty hunter who illegally detained and tortured Afghan prisoners was yesterday jailed for 10 years in Kabul. "We should have let the Taliban kill them all," yelled Jonathan 'Jack' Idema, a former member of the US special forces, as he was taken off to serve his sentence in the Kabul jail where he had been held since his arrest on July 5.
Idema claimed that he had locked up and interrogated Afghans with the agreement of the US military. The US defence department denied any connection with Idema who was engaged in a freelance operation to find Osama bin Laden and claim the $25m bounty.
Two fellow Americans were also found guilty of illegally detaining prisoners and violently interrogating them.
A three-judge panel decided that Idema, from North Carolina, his colleague, Brent Bennett, and a freelance New York cameraman, Ed Caraballo, were all guilty of illegally taking prisoners and interrogating them by beating and pouring scalding water over them. Caraballo received an eight-year sentence.
http://www.buzzle.com/...
All of which raises the question - who were the people who supposedly died in those shipping containers?