Afghan civilians are being killed all the time by Nato; it only gets reported when they kill a lot at once, and even then it doesn’t exactly hit the front pages. In the latest incident 21 people have been wiped out from the air – families fleeing the NATO destruction of their homes
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61L1A920100222
Those who have just heard Murder in Samarkand will be sickened to hear that the United States is yet again being complicit with the Uzbeks in faking evidence of al-Qaeda presence in Uzbekistan to justofy the US/Uzbek alliance:
Al Qaeda aims to infiltrate Central Asia to train militants and turn the ex-Soviet region into a zone of unrest, a U.S. envoy said on Saturday.
…In Uzbekistan, the region’s most populous and ethnically diverse nation, President Islam Karimov told Holbrooke he was eager to work closer with the United States over Afghanistan.
“The leader of our nation … expressed Uzbekistan’s firm determination to further develop U.S.-Uzbek relations in a constructive way in light of efforts to bring lasting peace and stability to Afghanistan,” the official UzA news agency said.
Relations between Uzbekistan, long under fire over human rights violations, and the United States have improved in recent years as Washington has shifted focus more to security issues in its contacts with Tashkent, diplomats say.
Uzbekistan is now part of the new NATO supply route and Western nations rarely criticise its rights record. Last year the European Union angered international human rights groups by lifting sanctions it imposed on Uzbekistan after a violent crackdown by Uzbek troops on protesters in 2005.
The “violent crackdown” was the murder of at least 700 demonstrators in Andijan. There is no evidence of IMU fighters returning to Uzbekistan, but doubtless we will soon see another spate of flase flag “Bombings” like the ones I investigated in detail on the spot as British Ambassador and outline in Murder in Samarkand.
Hat tip to Mary
“The new NATO supply route”, eh ? I’d been wondering what was happening about that – fair amount of mention a year ago, and then very quiet. Is it still by railway from the Baltic ?
In turn Craig I acknowledge the Editors at medialens who put the NYT link up.
I think I misled you by saying that the figure was 21 which is what I heard on the radio this morning. Sorry that it is even worse. Is it possible to alter the number in your heading and in the copy?
‘CShaw’ has followed on medialens with a BBC link confirming that 33 civilians have been killed. It is monstrous whether 1, 21 or 33.
The emphasis in the BBC report is on the embarassment caused to NATO!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8527627.stm
If the threat of terrorism was real many political leaders would be dead. They are very easy to get at. Make people angry, persecute them and watch the anger rise. The level of sophistication in most of these bombings and the material used indicates groups outwith local peasants with a grudge are responsible. Stand out of line in the UK and you will vanish. Brainwashing tricks your mind to ignore reality and believe you have freedom and live in a democracy.
Meanwhile, yesterday Gita Sahgal refered to a UN report http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/human%20rights/09july31-UNAMA-HUMAN-RIGHTS-CIVILIAN-CASUALTIES-Mid-Year-2009-Bulletin.pdf which tries to break down civillian Afghani deaths and states “Both Anti-Government Elements and pro-government forces are
responsible for the increase in civilian casualties. UNAMA Human Right figures indicate that
more civilians are being killed by AGEs than by PGF. In the first six months of 2009, 59% of
civilians were killed by AGEs and 30.5% by PGF. This represents a significant shift from
2007 when PGF were responsible for 41% and AGEs for 46% of civilian deaths.”
Sahgal attributes all AGE actions to the Taliban, but obviously they aren’t the only ones that are resisting Karzai and his warlord pals. Would you have any more information about this? I know it is rather a moot point when so many are being slaughtered, but I am inerested in whether anybody has broken down the AGE figures anymore. And I know the figures are dependent on where PGF’s decide to ‘surge’.
I was offended that the BBC newscaster (I’m watching on cable in Tokyo) described the Afghani dead as “civilians who found themselves on the wrong side of a NATO bombing”
The choice of language seemed to be making light of the situation to me.
I despair, once again I will telephone the White House, although I feel somewhat better by this action, nothing else happens.
Uzbekistan is really useful to America and the UK because they can get whatever inteligance they want from it.
If they want to prove a nation they want to invade has WMD, or a critic is a terrorist all they have to do is speak to Karimov who will round up some farmers, torture them in to giving Europe and America whatever information they need.
So how do you get rid of a uppity Muslim journalist? Have Karimov boil a farmer to death, to make him sign a document to state the Journalist who the farmer had never heard of belonged to a organisation that the farmer never heard of.
and this is how Iraq was invaded.
The “crucial” difference between our “innocent” and deeply regretable, and unintentional, killing of civilians, seems to hinge on the concept of intent, compared to the terrorists, who apparently kill because they enjoy it. They, the terrorists, intend to kill civilians, whilst we do not.
Also states are legitimate, and can therefore use violence to get their way, but terrorists illegitmate outlaws.
Whether any of this, giving states, the right to use violence on a massive scale, with massive civilian casualities to follow, really makes any sense, is, I suppose, another argument entirely.
I loathe the way NATO forces offer apologies afterwards.
And I loathe the way the BBC and others justify the carnage by bandying around meaningless words like insurgent, extremist, militant. All of those terms could apply quite happily to the French Resistance.