Afghanistan: Ten Bloody Years

Afghanistan Poppies – Wiki Image

Felicity Arbuthnot
Dissident Voice

As the clever hopes expire 
Of a low dishonest decade: 
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright 
And darkened lands of the earth,
Out of the mirror they stare, 
Imperialism’s face 
And the international wrong.
— September 1, 1939, W.H. Auden, 1907-1973

What a murderous, infanticidal, appalling, shameful, ignorant – and arguable decade-long war crime. “Operation Enduring Freedom” turned “Operation Enduring Slaughter.”

Announcing the assault on Afghanistan on 7th October 2001, George W. Bush said, citing “Enduring Freedom”, that it defended “… the freedom of people everywhere to live and raise their children free from fear.”

And that: “If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves, (a) lonely path …”

Further: “The oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we’ll also drop food, medicine and supplies, to the starving and suffering men, women and children of Afghanistan.”

“We’re a peaceful nation”, the President assured the world.

In London, “ally”, the then Prime Minister Blair, was reading from the same script: “We are peaceful people. But we know that sometimes to safeguard peace, we have to fight … We only do it if the cause is just. This cause is just.”

In pursuit of justness, between 7th October and 10th December 2001, 12,000 bombs were dropped in 4,710 sorties, on a population of just 28 million people (Globe and Mail, 19th January 2002) with 42% of the population aged 0-14; children being thus raised in unimaginable terror rather then “free from fear.”

With the bombs, aid parcels were indeed dropped. They were the identical colouring to the accompanying cluster bombs, resultantly those who rushed to collect brightly coloured yellow packages in anticipation – so often children – had limbs blown off at best, or life blown away. Excited anticipation turned terminal. The US belatedly issued warnings.

Between October 2001 and early 2002, United States aircraft dropped 1,228 cluster bombs, containing 248,056 bomblets, in 232 strikes on locations throughout the country, according to Cluster Munitions Monitor.

It is unclear whether they have been further used though Coalition forces have confirmed deploying cluster munitions for possible use.

Lest the indiscriminate carnage of the early days be obscured by that of the subsequent years mass graves and ongoing frenetic destruction by “The United States of America, a friend to the Afghan people, and of almost a billion worldwide who practice the Islamic faith”, as also declared by Bush in his 7th October address.

On 11th October, Khorum, a village of mud huts, 29 kilometres west of Jalalabad, was “systematically bombed” by US warplanes. As many as 200 people were killed, with whole families wiped out.

“Survivors accounts were consistent. Just after early morning prayers, two US warplanes circled, then attacked the village.”

On the first run, only a few were injured, but as people came out, they returned twice, killing men, women and children, including refugees from Jalalabad, who had fled to the isolated dwellings feeling they would be safer there. “There was no military or Taliban presence nearby”, wrote Norman Dixon at the time, in his carefully researched article “Bush’s war threatens millions with starvation”.

Donald Rumsfeld’s denials, first as “ridiculous”, then “lies”, then declaring “certain knowledge” of a nearby military installation (statements now so familiar in mass murders across Afghanistan, Iraq and since March, Libya) were soon found to be baseless.

A reporter in the village showed Nightline “extensive footage” of the destruction, confirming: “that the village had been completely obliterated estimating at least 100 people had been killed. Giant craters were where houses once stood. Dead animal carcasses littered the area. Survivors angrily denied that there were military installations or al Qaeda ‘training camps’ anywhere near Khorum.”


Ad

The Dixon article continues:

Having run out of targets within days of the start of the bombing campaign, Washington has authorised pilots to seek ‘emerging targets’, meaning that they can blast just about anything they like.

Four workers employed by a United Nations mine-clearing operation died while they slept, when a US cruise missile demolished their Kabul building in early hours of October 9th.

On October 12th, a 900-kilogram satellite-guided US ‘smart’ bomb, hit houses almost two kilometres from Kabul airport, destroying four houses, killing at least four people.

On October 13th, a bomb landed in a busy market in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing five people.

A refugee (stated) that 160 people were taken to hospital when US bombs hit Khushkam Bhat, near Jalalabad airport, on October 13th. An unknown number may have died. More than 100 houses were‘damaged or flattened’.

On October 16th, at least two US bombs hit Red Cross warehouses near Kabul, wounding an employee, and setting them on fire. Wheat, medicines and supplies were destroyed. The roofs of the buildings were emblazoned with vast Red Cross insignia. The Pentagon confirmed the strike.
A day earlier, a US missile exploded 150 metres from a World Food Program warehouse in Kabul as trucks were being loaded. A worker was injured.

Later on the same day that US warplanes had bombed the Red Cross warehouses, President Bush was visiting the headquarters of the American Red Cross in Washington to promote his appeal for US kids to give a dollar each for the children of Afghanistan. “Winter arrives early in Afghanistan. It’s cold, really cold. The children need warm clothing, they need food, they need medicines. And thanks to the American children, fewer children in Afghanistan will suffer this winter”, Bush told an assembled group of children.

He didn’t mention the bombs.