Hearts And Minds - Afghanistan (graphic images warning)

Hissyspit

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Tue Sep-08-09 02:12 PM
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Hearts And Minds - Afghanistan (graphic images warning)

Please recognize the practical and symbolic rationale of the length of this post. If is seems as if it takes 8 years to read it, well...

I was motivated to compile this post Sunday night after realizing I had seen no images in the U.S. media of victims of the NATO airstrike fireball that occurred in Afghanistan Sept. 4 (it is true that I may have missed them). I expanded even more on the idea of the post after reading a commment from DKos' bentliberal in a post concerning the hospital raid: "In light of stories like this one, and the recent reports that Afghan civilians were wounded during a bomb attack by the U.S. coalition forces, I think Progressives should take it upon themselves to pay more attention to this war and how it is conducted."

Photographers are documenting the Afghanistan civilian casualties, although, as I've implied, you might have to do some tracking down to find it anywhere but the Internet. Here are photographs mostly from the events that developed over the weekend. Events that prompted me to have arranged a narrative of my own, of sorts.

An Afghan boy, Massom, 14, recovers on a hospital bed, in Kabul, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009. Masoom, who has received minor burns, alleged that he got burnt after The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) helicopters fired flares in Bagram on Sept. 1, 2009. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup

Afghanistan: Civilian Casualties Keep On Rising, Says UN Report

Source: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA); United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Date: 31 Jul 2009

As the conflict intensifies and spreads, it is taking an increasingly heavy toll on civilians," says the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in a mid year report released Friday on the situation of civilians in armed conflict in 2009.

AGEs operations are frequently undertaken regardless of the impact on civilians in terms of deaths and injuries or destruction of civilian infrastructure," says UNAMA Human Rights. "Information suggests that AGEs are basing themselves in civilian areas so as to deliberately blur the distinction between combatants and civilians, and as part of what appears to be an active policy aimed at drawing a military response to areas where there is a high likelihood that civilians will be killed or injured."

As the conflict intensifies, civilians bear the brunt of the fighting. In addition to the sharp increase in civilian deaths, vulnerable groups are also suffering in terms of destruction of vital infrastructure, loss of income and earning opportunities, and deterioration of access to essential services.

The United Nations calls on all parties to the conflict, the government of Afghanistan, and the international community to take action to ensure that obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law are observed and that the impact of the conflict on civilians is minimized."

Security forces secure the site of a suicide bomb attack at the main gate of a NATO military airport in Kabul. Two Afghans were killed in a suicide bombing on Kabul's military airport which also injured four international soldiers, officials and the military said. (AFP/Massoud Hossaini)

US soldier killed by IED in Afghanistan: ISAF

AFP
Mon Sep 7, 4:34 am ET

KABUL (AFP) – Three NATO soldiers were killed in Afghanistan by roadside bombs, the weapon of choice for an invigorated Taliban insurgency, NATO announced, adding Monday that another had died in a firefight.

Rahmatullah, 19, a victim of Friday's NATO air strike, tries to sit up on his bed in a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009. NATO investigators sought to determine Saturday if any of the scores of people killed in a U.S. airstrike on two tanker trucks hijacked by the Taliban were civilians trying to siphon fuel. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

"I will not vote for a budget that ties military spending to the operational funding of our government. This year, the budget includes $130 billion for war funding. The Washington Post reports today another 10,000 troops may be sent to Afghanistan, bringing our total number of troops there to as much as 78,000 by 2010 – a more than 100% increase from today’s troop levels. This budget is a plan that authorizes the expansion of the war. I simply cannot endorse a budget or a plan that sends more of our brave men and women to Afghanistan, a conflict which has the potential to become this generation’s Vietnam."

- Rep. Dennis Kucinich, April 2009

Afghans bury a victim of an airstrike in Kunduz September 4, 2009. NATO aircraft opened fire on hijacked fuel trucks in Afghanistan before dawn on Friday, killing as many as 90 people in an incident that could trigger a backlash against Western troops. REUTERS/Stringer (AFGHANISTAN CONFLICT)

US air power triples deaths of Afghan civilians, says report Sept. 2008

Civilian deaths in Afghanistan from US and Nato air strikes have nearly tripled over the past year, with the onslaught continuing in 2008 and fuelling a public backlash, a leading human rights group says today.

The report by Human Rights Watch says that despite changes in the rules of engagement which had reduced the rate of civilian casualties since a spike in July last year, air strikes killed at least 321 civilians in 2007, compared with at least 116 in 2006.

An Afghan villager injured lies in hospital after Friday's NATO air strike on a Taliban target in northern Kunduz September 4, 2009. NATO aircraft opened fire on hijacked fuel trucks in Afghanistan before dawn on Friday, killing as many as 90 people in an incident that could trigger a backlash against Western troops. NATO initially said it believed the casualties were all Taliban fighters, but later acknowledged that large numbers of civilians were being treated in hospitals in the area. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani (AFGHANISTAN CONFLICT)

In a flash, Mr. Mohammed said, several American and Afghan soldiers kicked open the door of his home. The Americans, he said, had beards, an almost certain sign that they belonged to a unit of the Special Forces, which permits uniformed soldiers to grow facial hair.

“Who are you?” Mr. Mohammed recalled asking the intruders.

“Shut up,” came the reply from one of the Afghan soldiers. “We are the government.”

Mr. Mohammed said he was taken to a nearby base, interrogated for several hours and let go as sunrise neared.

When he returned home, Mr. Mohammed said, he went next door to his son’s house, only to find that most of his family had been killed: the son, Nurallah, and his pregnant wife and two of his sons, Abdul Basit, age 1, and Mohammed, 2. Only Mr. Mohammed’s 4-year-old grandson, Zarqawi, survived.

“If you spent some time here, you would see that we are not the kind of people who would get involved with the Taliban,” Mr. Mohammed said. “Anyway, what was the fault of the babies?”

In the aftermath of the Azizabad episode, American and other allied commanders tightened the rules for delivering airstrikes. The United Nations survey said it was unclear whether those new rules would have a lasting effect on reducing civilian deaths

Canadian soldiers carry the casket of a comrade killed by a roadside bomb, at Kandahar Air Field September 7, 2009. Maj. Yannick Pepin, 36, and Cpl. Jean Francois Drouin, 31, were both killed when a powerful roadside bomb flipped their armoured vehicle southwest of Kandahar on Sunday. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly (AFGHANISTAN CONFLICT MILITARY POLITICS)

Troops Out of Afghanistan--National Demonstration

Saturday, 24th October, London.
After the Afghan election farce, demonstrate to bring the troops home.

Lance Cpl. Joe Glenton, facing court martial: "The war in Afghanistan is not reducing the terrorist risk. Far from improving Afghan lives it is bringing death and devastation to their country. Britain has no business there. I do not believe that our cause in Afghanistan is just or right."

Family and friends of British soldier Lance Corporal James Fullarton grieve as his coffin passes through the streets of Wootton Bassett in southern England in late August. Britain has suffered a spate of losses since early July, when it launched a joint operation with Afghan troops against Taliban insurgents in Helmand to try to regain control of the province ahead of last month's Afghan elections (AFP/File/Shaun Curry)

Swedish Charity: U.S. Troops Stormed Through Afghan Hospital

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. troops burst into a Swedish charity-run hospital in Afghanistan and tied up patients' relatives and staff, the charity said on Sunday, in what it called a breach of deals between the military and aid groups.

A German KZO drone, or unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicle, takes off from the German base outside Kunduz, Afghanistan, Friday, Sept. 4, 2009. NATO jets blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban outside Kunduz, setting off a huge fireball Friday that killed up to 90 people, Afghan officials said. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

"Afghanistan is one promise we don’t want him to fulfill. And we have to get out there very quickly, and we are building up as a peace movement to take on the issue of Afghanistan to say that this is not a, quote, “good war,” that this has to be a negotiated solution, and that we want to get our troops out of Afghanistan. ... Let’s take the $10 billion that we’re spending on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, use them for domestic purposes, and let’s start reining in the empire."

- Medea Benjamin to Democracy Now! DEC. 2008

Afghan security forces inspect the site of a NATO airstrike which destroyed two fuel tankers in northern Kunduz. The US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan Saturday promised a full investigation into a NATO air strike, but stopped short of admitting any civilians had been killed in the bombing. (AFP)

Afghan Civilian Deaths Rose 40 Percent in 2008

By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: February 17, 2009
The number of civilians killed in Afghanistan leapt by nearly 40 percent last year, according to a survey released Tuesday by the United Nations, the latest measure of how the intensifying violence between the Taliban and American-led forces is ravaging that country.

An Afghan youth, injured during an airstrike carried out by NATO forces, lies in hospital in the northern city of Kunduz. Civilian casualties have helped to erode local support for the international mission in Afghanistan. (AFP/File/Massoud Hossaini)

Poll: More view Afghan war as 'mistake'

By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — American support for the war in Afghanistan has ebbed to a new low, as attacks on U.S. troops and their allies have hit record levels and commanders are pleading for reinforcements, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows.

In the poll taken Saturday and Sunday, 42% of respondents said the United States made "a mistake" in sending military forces to Afghanistan, up from 30% in February. That's the highest mark since the poll first asked the question in November 2001 when the U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban government that sheltered al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks.

In this photo taken Friday, Aug. 14, Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard is tended to by fellow U.S. Marines after being hit by a rocket propelled grenade during a firefight against the Taliban in the village of Dahaneh in the Helmand province of Afghanistan. Bernard was transported by helicopter to Camp Leatherneck where he later died of his wounds.

AP Holds Photo of Afghanistan Marine Casualty For Three Weeks

Sept 4, 2009
By Daryl Lang

The Associated Press waited three weeks before releasing a photograph by Julie Jacobson of a mortally wounded U.S. Marine in Afghanistan. Typically, AP photographs are released the same day they are shot, often within hours. But photos of killed service members are sensitive. The AP acknowledged “long deliberations” within the news agency over the picture. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had urged the AP not to release it.

A single photograph from Jacobson’s series shows Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard, 21, on August 14 after he was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade during a firefight with the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. His suffered severe injuries to his legs and he later died in a field hospital, the AP reported.

Files Prove Pentagon Profiling Reporters For "Positive," "Neutral" Or "Negative" War Coverage

WASHINGTON — Contrary to the insistence of Pentagon officials this week that they are not rating the work of reporters covering U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Stars and Stripes has obtained documents that prove that reporters’ coverage is being graded as “positive,” “neutral” or “negative.”

Moreover, the documents — recent confidential profiles of the work of individual reporters prepared by a Pentagon contractor — indicate that the ratings are intended to help Pentagon image-makers manipulate the types of stories that reporters produce while they are embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The victim of a NATO airstrike on fuel delivery truck hijacked by Taliban insurgents is carried into the main hospital in Kunduz. Afghans on Saturday mourned the dead from the bombing that killed scores of people and renewed an outcry over civilian casualties at the hands of Western troops in an eight-year war. (AFP)

Whatever you believe the necessary course to be/
Depends on who you trust to identify the enemy/
Who beats the drums for war?

- Jackson Browne "The Drums For War"

Local Afghani people prepare to bury their villagers killed in a NATO air strike, in a mass grave near Kunduz, Afghanistan, Friday, Sept.4, 2009. NATO jet blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, setting off a huge fireball Friday that killed up to 90 people, Afghan officials said. (AP Photo)

Gen. McChrystal calls for overhaul of Afghanistan war strategy

By Julian E. Barnes
September 1, 2009

In a brief statement about his internal report, released by the command in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal acknowledged that turning the war around would be difficult.

"We will not win simply by killing insurgents," he wrote. "We will help the Afghan people win by securing them, by protecting them from intimidation, violence and abuse."

The military must "communicate -- through word and deed" that NATO and Afghan forces can protect the people, he said.

U.S. Rear Admiral Gregory J. Smith, NATO's director of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Communication, left, listens to his translator, right, during his visiting with an Afghan man, Wazir Gul, who injured by Friday's NATO airstrike, at a hospital in Kunduz, Kunduz province, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

Hearts And Minds (FILM)

"So we must be ready to fight in Viet-Nam, but the ultimate victory will depend upon the hearts and the minds of the people who actually live out there. By helping to bring them hope and electricity you are also striking a very important blow for the cause of freedom throughout the world."

- Lyndon Johnson, 1965

Victims of NATO air strike lie on beds in a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009. NATO investigators sought to determine Saturday if any of the scores of people killed in a U.S. airstrike on two tanker trucks hijacked by the Taliban were civilians trying to siphon fuel. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Marine commander sees progress in Afghanistan

By Tony Perry
September 1, 2009
Reporting from Camp Pendleton - The general in charge of U.S. Marines in Afghanistan said Monday that progress was being made in wresting a key southern province from Taliban control but cautioned that the process was slow and difficult to measure.

"They don't understand leadership, they don't understand noncommissioned officers," he said. "To use a Marine term, they're a herd. But once trained, they're warriors."

Helland is set to retire Friday after 41 years of military service, beginning as an Army enlisted man with the Special Forces in Vietnam."

Wounded Canadian Sapper Alexandre Beaudin-D'Anjou wipes away a tear as the coffins of two of his comrades are carried past him during a repatriation ceremony at Kandahar Air Field September 7, 2009. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly (AFGHANISTAN CONFLICT POLITICS MILITARY IMAGES OF THE DAY)

"We Had To Destroy Ben Tre In Order To Save It"

"Anyway, at one point the journalists were pressing Major Booris to explain why it had been necessary to wipe out the town. They were definitely pressing the point that perhaps too much force had been applied by the US forces. Major Booris was trying his best to put a good face on the situation. But at one point he got flustered, and blurted out, “We had to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it.” I have to admit that I almost laughed when he said that. It was a really unfortunate comment."

A US Marine runs to safety moments after an IED blast in Garmsir district of Helmand Province in Afghanistan in July. Britain, France and Germany -- faced with their own jittery public opinion and fears of new chaos in Afghanistan -- unveiled on Sunday their plans to hold the international conference later this year. (AFP/File/Manpreet Romana)

September 11, 2001 - April 9, 2003

From the April 28, 2003 issue:
by William Kristol

"The Taliban regime that provided safe haven and support for al Qaeda has been removed, and up to two million Afghan refugees have gone home.

Some 50 million Muslims, liberated from brutal governments, now have a chance to live decent and normal lives. The war on terror, meanwhile, has gone extraordinarily well."

Staff Sgt. Jonathan Pena, with the 159th Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, mans his weapon during a helicopter flight in Afghanistan Monday, Sept. 7, 2009.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

And the general sat and the lines on the map/
Moved from side to side.

- Pink Floyd, "Us And Them"

A schoolgirl sits on the steps outside her classroom at Syed Pasha school, built by Canadian troops, near Kandahar Air Field September 8, 2009. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly (AFGHANISTAN CONFLICT POLITICS EDUCATION)

Phúc sustained third-degree burns to half her body and was not expected to live after the attack by South Vietnamese aircraft. But thanks to assistance from South Vietnamese photographer Nick Ut and American doctors, and after surviving a 14-month hospital stay and 17 operations, she became an outspoken peace activist.

Afghan top athletes stand in front of a poster during a launching ceremony for International Peace Day at the office of United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in Kabul, Afghanistan on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2009. The Afghan celebrities and UNAMA jointly launched a campaign for the International Peace Day in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

There Is No Reason For Us To Be In Afghanistan - Everyone Knows It & It Spells Defeat

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig. Posted July 21, 2009.

Al-Qaida could not care less what we do in Afghanistan. We can bomb Afghan villages, hunt the Taliban in Helmand province, build a 100,000-strong client Afghan army, stand by passively as Afghan warlords execute hundreds, maybe thousands, of Taliban prisoners, build huge, elaborate military bases and send drones to drop bombs on Pakistan. It will make no difference. The war will not halt the attacks of Islamic radicals. Terrorist and insurgent groups are not conventional forces. They do not play by the rules of warfare our commanders have drilled into them in war colleges and service academies. And these underground groups are protean, changing shape and color as they drift from one failed state to the next, plan a terrorist attack and then fade back into the shadows. We are fighting with the wrong tools. We are fighting the wrong people. We are on the wrong side of history. And we will be defeated in Afghanistan as we will be in Iraq.

The cost of the Afghanistan war is rising. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed or wounded. July has been the deadliest month in the war for NATO combatants, with at least 50 troops, including 26 Americans, killed. Roadside bomb attacks on coalition forces are swelling the number of wounded and killed. In June, the tally of incidents involving roadside bombs, also called improvised explosive devices (IEDs), hit 736, a record for the fourth straight month; the number had risen from 361 in March to 407 in April and to 465 in May. The decision by President Barack Obama to send 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan has increased our presence to 57,000 American troops. The total is expected to rise to at least 68,000 by the end of 2009. It will only mean more death, expanded fighting and greater futility.

An ISAF solder takes position as Afghan police officers carry a man injured in a car bomb explosion outside the entrance to the military airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday,Sept. 8, 2009. A car bomb exploded near the entrance to Kabul's military airport early Tuesday in an apparent attack on an international convoy, killing at least two civilians and wounding six, Afghan officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast. (AP Photo/Pajhwok)]

Chris Hedges Continued

We are losing the war in Afghanistan. When we invaded the country eight years ago the Taliban controlled about 75 percent of Afghanistan. Today its reach has crept back to about half the country... Osama bin Laden has, to the amusement of much of the rest of the world, become the Where's Waldo of the Middle East. Take away the bullets and the bombs and you have a Gilbert and Sullivan farce.

No one seems to be able to articulate why we are in Afghanistan. Is it to hunt down bin Laden and al-Qaida? Is it to consolidate progress? Have we declared war on the Taliban? Are we building democracy? Are we fighting terrorists there so we do not have to fight them here? Are we "liberating" the women of Afghanistan? The absurdity of the questions, used as thought-terminating cliches, exposes the absurdity of the war. The confusion of purpose mirrors the confusion on the ground. We don't know what we are doing.

Nassebullah, recovers in a hospital bed, in Kabul, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009. Nasebullah alleged that he got burnt after The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) helicopters fired flares, when he was fishing on the outskirts of Kabul. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)