3/6/07: On March 4, American occupation forces turned a highway in Afghanistan’s
Nangarhar province into a living hell: a free fire killing zone that took the
lives of at least 16 people, and left dozens of others maimed and wounded.
The following day, NATO bombers destroyed a mud-brick house
that was home to four generations of an Afghani family, killing nine people –
three children, five women, and one 80 year old man.
Civilians who survived the U.S. Marine highway assault
describe a scene of horrific, wanton mayhem. The Washington Post reported that a man whose own home was riddled with
bullets “said he saw a woman working in a nearby field struck by American
gunfire. “There was nobody in the street, nobody on the road to fire on the
Americans. The only fire that came toward us was from these American
vehicles.””
Another man said that “they were firing everywhere, and they
even opened fire on 14 to 15 vehicles passing on the highway. They opened fire
on everybody, the ones inside the vehicles and the ones on foot”. A fifteen
year old youth who had been hit twice with bullets, in his left arm and right
ear, told the New York Times that
“when we parked our vehicle, when they passed us, they opened fire on our
vehicle. It was a convoy of three American Humvees. All three Humvees were
firing around”.
A statement issued by the U.S. military command
acknowledged dropping two 2,000 pound bombs on the house, claiming that they
believed “insurgents were hiding in the home”, and continuing to blame these
alleged phantom insurgents for the nine deaths: “These men knowingly
endangered civilians by retreating into a populated area while conducting
attacks against coalition forces,”, said Lt. Col David Accetta.
In both incidents, the U.S. military immediately went to
work on its cover up. BBC news reported that “the Associated Press news agency
says it will complain to the US
military after journalists said US
soldiers deleted footage of the aftermath of the Nangarhar violence. Freelance
journalists working for the Associated Press said troops erased photos and
video showing a vehicle in which three people were shot dead during Sunday’s
incident”. An AP reporter on the scene spoke to “more than a dozen” witnesses
to the American onslaught, and said he could not find “anyone who said they saw
or heard incoming militant gunfire”. Another reporter said the seized footage
showed “scenes of local people in shock, treating the wounded and pulling
bodies from the debris left by the shooting”.
The US
and its NATO allies are now preparing a major offensive in Afghanistan.
They claim that this is to pre-empt an offensive by their Taliban opponents. Two
things are certain. If they are able to proceed with this offensive, it will
mean a deepening of the horrible violence and suffering being inflicted on the
people of Afghanistan.
And the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan,
far from being the “way the war on terror should be fought”, as claimed by so
many leading Democrats is a brutal, unjust war of conquest and occupation. It
must be opposed, and massive political opposition must be mounted that demands
an immediate end to it, and prevents the Bush Regime from launching further
escalations.