|
|
| Also listed in: 1stProtestinTheStreet.Org | Broom Brigade | CivicSatisfaction.org | Denver County | Operation Bird Dog- Colorado |
Categories: Foreign Policy & Security, Media Accountability, All Network Posts: Front Page
A mass grave site in Afghanistan is plundered. The remains of upto 2000 bodies were removed and disposed of into a near by river. What is significant is that this atrocity was the subject of a documentary film, "Caravan of Death" by Irish filmmaker Jamie Doran in 2002.
This report by the Timesonline.com states:
The mass grave at Dasht-e-Leili in northern Afghanistan is thought to contain the remains of between 1,000 and 2,000 Taleban prisoners massacred by fighters loyal to the Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum in November 2001. The killings occurred in the remote Leili desert as General Dostum’s forces fought alongside US special forces....
The problem is that there has been no U.S. corporate media coverage of this attempted coverup of a war crime by Afghan warlord Gen. Dotsum.
Also, there was a U.S. Special Forces unit that was operating in the same area when the massacre of captured Taliban fighters occurred. Questions have arisen as to how much the 5th Special Forces Group was aware of and if that unit had any knowledge and/or control of the war crime.
I found this from Uruknet.info by Ted Rall:
When the containers were unlocked at Sheberghan, the bodies of the dead tumbled out. A 12-man U.S. Fifth Special Forces Group unit, Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 595, guarded the prison's front gates and, according to witnesses, controlled the facility in the hopes of picking key prisoners for interrogation and possible transportation to Guantnamo Bay. (This is how Lindh was singled out.) "Everything was under the control of the American commanders," a Northern Alliance soldier tells Doran in the film. American troops searched the bodies for Al Qaeda identification cards. But, says another driver, "Some of [the prisoners] were alive. They were shot" while "maybe 30 or 40" American soldiers watched.
Members of OPA 595, interviewed for the PBS program "Frontline" on August 2, 2002, confirm their presence at Sheberghan but cagily deny participating in war crimes. "The prisoners were being treated the exact same way as Dostum's forces were," said master sergeant "Paul." "I didn't see any atrocities, but I easily could have. Some prisoners may have died because they were sick or ill, and Dostum's forces just couldn't give them any care because they didn't have it."
So in the U.S. corporate media there has been a near total black out of this war crime.
You can see the entire documentary here.
The Frontline documentary transcript here.
A crime committed. Evidence destroyed. But it will not be forgotten.













Comments are closed for this post.