pinkie

http://www.informationclearinghouse....rticle3267.htm

Has anyone seen this?

apeman

not yet but i'll watch it asap

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nanofever

The Bush Adminstration is the fucking Barney Fife of covering things up; they can't seem to do a single cover-up right.


Edit: Currently watching it, the guy from the state department seemed damn worried when he made a statement to the press about this.

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pinkie

Bush is the next Hitler.

hammer4all

Yes, I have. An interview with the filmmaker is here:

http://www.democracynow.org/article....=thread&tid=25

highthief

If that were to be true, it would be a tremendous blow to current and future US missions. But I have not heard much of this, so have idea if it is a credible report or not.

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pinkie

Why don't you watch and judge for yourself.

apeman

fuck ... i'm going to find out more about this film ... if that's true it's some bad bad shit

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Dragonlich

Okay, let's put this in perspective, shall we? Afghani soldiers slaughter their enemies in the thousands. US special forces stand around doing nothing. Terrible, indeed.

However... did Bush order it? Nope. Did Bush know about it before it happened? Nope. Did Bush condone it? Probably not. So, pinkie, how exactly is Bush the next Hitler?

As nasty as this may be, at least *try* and be reasonable, will you? It's not like the US is directly responsible for everything their Afghani allies do. The US does not control them, they're lucky if the warlords cooperate at all. How much cooperation would US special forces get if they keep insulting local warlords by opposing their actions??? My guess is that some warlords would try to kill US troops for doing that.

pinkie

Dragonlich, I take it back. He's the Antichrist.

Did you watch it?

KMA-628

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Arroe

yes, that article is bull shit, they put in the "US military" before "Afghan allies" to try to tie it to the US and Bush. I haven't seen it yet, but if there are US soldiers there, it would probably still be tough to keep this from happening because of numbers.

Dragonlich

I don't want to watch it, I know what dead people look like. I did however watch the videos of Jews being buried in Hitler-era concentration camps. I'd say there's a pretty big difference between that and what happened here, if only in numbers and intention.

I'll say it again: did Bush order it? nope. Did Bush know about it before it happened? Nope. Did Bush condone it? Probably not. So, pinkie, how exactly is Bush the antichrist?

Just a few thoughts:

thousands of Muslim men were killed in Srebrenica during the Balkan wars. Dutch troops failed to stop the Serbs from doing that. Does that make the Dutch prime-minister at the time evil/Hitler/the antichrist?

After the '91 Gulf war, we also had a "highway of death", remember? Poor, innocent, fleeing Iraqi soldiers (carrying the loot they pillaged in Kuwait. After torturing and raping the Kuwaitis, of course.) were attacked on a strip of highway, killing many (but not as many as opponents claimed). Bush sr. was in power at the time. Was he evil/hitler/antichrist for being the commander-in-chief at the time?

Had this happened during the Clinton presidency (the US hadn't invaded yet, I know. Purely hypothetical), or next year, after a Kerry win... would you have considered either of them evil/hitler/antichrist? Or is it only Bush that gets singled out for this?

Lebell

Bush = Hitler is not a good way to make a point on TFP, anymore than Kerry = Pol Pot, Clinton = Satan, etc.

So raise the level of discourse or this thread will be locked.

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SinisterMotives

I'll watch the film tomorrow, but in the meantime I'll just say that it sounds to me as if the worst the U.S. Special Forces did was look the other way while the Afghans administered their own brand of justice.

gondath

You do nothing to distinguish yourself from your enemy by acting in the same way. That seems to be what happened here. If the US forces were complict in any way with what happened, I'd be court marshalling their vendictive asses. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior at all.

Dragonlich

I suspect that the US special forces in this instance were told not to upset the delicate relationship with the warlord. If they looked the other way during this episode, they might actually have been following orders.

But of course, it's all hypothetical. We don't know exactly what happened, nor what the US forces were doing, nor what their orders were. However, it might just be possible that this isn't one of those black-and-white issues where we can place the blame with one group of people (US troops), and then extend that blame to the guy in charge (Bush).

Just remember that Afghanistan is quite different from the Western world. The Taliban were NOT nice people; there are many reports of them abusing and murdering their POWs (and basically anyone else). I can understand revenge in that case (even if I might disagree with it).

Pacifier

I suspect that the US special forces in this instance were told not to upset the delicate relationship with the warlord

Yep. that is also what I think happened and why this was covered. But does it make it any better? No

The USA has choosen assholes as allies once again. The northern alliance is no way better that the taliban. Problem is: the USA should know that
It has always been this way and the USA seems not to learn.

If they looked the other way during this episode, they might actually have been following orders

"i was just follwing orders" is a really bad excuse. Every time a US soldier say that I want to punch him (saw a interview with some soldiers fom Abu Graib a few days ago, same excuse)

I did however watch the videos of Jews being buried in Hitler-era concentration camps

and do you know how german soldiers excused the atrocities they commited?
yep, they were just following orders...

thousands of Muslim men were killed in Srebrenica during the Balkan wars. Dutch troops failed to stop the Serbs from doing that

But AFAIK they tried to stop it or at least they reported what happened. And the the Serbs were our enemy not our allies like the NA was/is.

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— Albert Einstein

apeman

i think the worst that happened is probably US forces not actively stopping the execution of Taliban prisoners

that's bad enough isn't it?

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whocarz

Terrible? Indeed. But I think you are over estimating our esteemed special forces boys. Maybe they didn't like it, who's to say, but it wouldn't be a good idea to try and stop it. They were in an obeservational role, and they're special forces, so there were probably only a few there, so they'd be heavily outnumbered and outgunned by the NA troops. The SP might be elite, but you can bet your ass if they seriously tried to stop it, they'd be in that mass grave along with the Taliban prisoners.

I wont lose any sleep over this. The world is filled with horrible people that do horrible things, just because the media sugar coats everything they feed us doesn't make it so. It's vigilante justice, carried out to the extreme, but in that part of the world, it's the way things are.

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Dragonlich

Pacifier, it's so easy to blame these guys. Of course they should have stopped the Afghan troops from doing this. But how exactly?

Of course the northern alliance is just as bad as the taliban (as if!), but who elso would you pick as an ally?

Of course following orders is no excuse, but how do you stop it if you're all alone? For German soldiers, not following orders was reason enough to be executed. For these special forces, it would have been enough to get murdered, and/or to upset the delicate alliance the US has there.

The world isn't black and white, just lots of shades of grey. In theory, we shouldn't cooperate with people that do bad things. In reality, we often have no choice. More often than not, *both* sides in a conflict are "evil". To stop such a conflict, one side has to win, and this had better be the lesser of the two evils. (As is the case in Afghanistan.)

Pacifier

I'm not blaming them. I blaming their officers (or who ever did that) for not reportig this. For trying to hide this because those warcriminals were our beloved allies

Noone, how does it help the people down there if we replace one evil leader with another one?

But those problems keep coming back, we supported Saddam because we thought Iran was more evil. and now we have to bomb saddam, we supported numerous "evil" people (in some cases we even trained them), we should start thinking of a different strategy.

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"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein

onetime2

I have not watched the movie and don't plan to. But, for those decrying the SF people. Do you have any idea how many Afghani troops there are in relation to Americans?

There are any number of necessary details being blatantly ignored by many in this thread.

Beyond the half assed linkage all the way up the chain of command to Bush, how about answers to these questions:

What should the Special Forces members do at the point that was happening?

Did they have any command ability over the Afghani troops?

If not, should they have gone so far as to draw weapons on them?

How badly were they outnumbered?

Would their deaths in addition to the Taliban prisoners have made the situation better?

What was the response to the Afghani leaders afterwards? Were procedures, policies, command structures changed? Was political pressure put on the Afghans to change these practices?

Who was in charge on the Afghan side?

What is the relationship between him and the other warlords in the area?

What was the relationship between the captured Taliban and the Afghan troops who did the killing? Was there a long history of similar acts between them?

Etc, etc, etc.

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pinkie

Right here is where I stopped reading...

KMA-628

You can tell a lot about the slant of a website by looking at the links.

This site lost me with two:

1) A link to Al Jazeera (twice, including live TV feed)
2) Mother Jones

the list goes on if you just browse down the left side of the homepage.

...tried to watch the video but it wouldn't work for me and I wasn't able to download any plug-ins to get the video to run.

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tecoyah

War IS Death....What were we expecting that this situation is a suprize. This was not perpetrated by U.S troops, and they most likely had little or no control over the situation. People die during a war, and sometimes in a blatantly brutal and disgusting manner, this is reality.
If you don't like the way war is waged....good, it is ugly. If you think everyone follows the same rules, you might try to rethink the logic there. We, the United States, have rules of engagement we follow, as do all other fighters, and they differ dramatically. But we have no control over how others conduct warfare, and cannot be expected to.

*end rant*

Now...if this is true, I am very disturbed by the actions, and would wish they did not occur.

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KMA-628

I couldn't see the video and I refuse to dust off IE so that I can see it.

Can someone give me a "blow-by-blow", preferably without a slant?

What exactly is this video trying to portray?

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kutulu

Fuck both of them. If Bush would have had an invading force as large as the one he sent to Iraq we wouldn't have needed the NA. Replacing one evil regime with another is not the right course of action.

I can think of one group of people we helped out in Afganistan. The leader odered a bunch of guys to use airplanes as bombs. Nice job Regan.

gondath

The soldiers have already proved their willingness to die for the cause of the United States. Now why aren't they also willing to die for what's right? Stopping the massacre of a large number of men is wrong. They should have been honor bound to do everything possible to stop what was going on. Self preservation should have not even made the list.

kutulu

It would be pointless for a small group in an enclosed area to start a fight with a group that has overwhelming power.

What we should have done is left the area ASAP and come back with a force large enough to put them in their place also. Shit like that should be tolerated from nobody.

ubertuber

Pinkie, this is not funny.

As far as the idea that our troops were just following orders, I suspect those would qualify as illegal orders, which they would have an obligation NOT to follow... Hopefully we'll find out more about this aspect.

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hammer4all

For those who are having problems viewing it, you first need a Real Player codec installed. I recommend Real Alternative. Also, a non-embedded video link to the same documentary can be found here.

IIRC, the special operations people did have some amount of command authority and therefore could have stopped it.

Even if this massacre cannot be pinned on the Bush administration, they are at least complicit along with most of the U.S. corporate media in its cover up.

Seaver

Or you could see it that by allowing this to happen they ensure an alliance that saves hundreds to thousands of American lives by preventing what happened to Russia when they went in with no allies native to the region.

Or the fact that there was probably 6-18 men, up against hundreds of Northern Alliance who already were only semi-trusting of the Americans.

Placing the blame on these soldiers is unfair and petty, there is always larger things in play. Soldiers place their buddies lives above theirs, by holding the alliance they ensure less American lives are lost.

gondath

The only thing evil needs to thrive is for good men to do nothing. Does that sound familiar?

Seaver

True, but sometimes to defeat the devil you have to date his sister.

cosmoknight

In those tribal areas of the mountains the Warlords are the only law. Our soldiers may have nominal control over military ops but for tribal decisions on law its up to the Warlords. Neither Taliban nor tribal chiefs ever signed or cared about the Geneva Convention it was probably all about payback. This has been going on for years in that part of the world and even in civilized countries in Europe during wars there. Having US soldiers there to witness this doesn't change much. Some of you have grandiose thoughts that they should intervene to help stop the killing but self-preservation rules the battlefield. Common sense would tell you they couldn't stop the killings and would have ended up in a shallow trench themselves. They may follow the SF when attacking the Taliban because we have good tactics but the SF can't dictate a culture change. Reality it’s sad but part of war. Many are trying to make this into some hit piece again against Bush and the US military all the while turning a blind eye towards Rwanda or the Sudan were those numbers are in the hundreds of thousands. There are no courts there, no lawyers, no video tapes of past atrocities against them. Unfortunately this is how they seek justice in that part of the world. Many don't like to compare cultures as its all relative I think you find thats its not by this example. Right now the most important agenda for Afganistan is to eliminate the Taliban. After that is accomplished disarming and bringing stabilty to these isolated areas can be accomplished for the new government.

onetime2

Yeah cause you need to see that people were killed to know that it happened? Please.

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Dragonlich

Actually, invading Afghanistan with a large force has been tried for centuries, and it has consistently failed. The last example of this was the Soviet Union...

Besides, replacing one evil, extremely anti-US regime with one that is less evil (they are), and less anti-US, is a good thing. It may not be the best solution ever, but it sure as hell beats doing nothing.

onetime2

Hey tecoyah, we agree on this.

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Rdr4evr

Bush knows a lot more than some people think. Some Bushie groupies will refuse to believe in anything negative about him or how he conducts wars. I dont know what it will take for Bush supporters to realize this man is not right in the head.

As for the comment about Bush being the next Hitler. I agree 100%. He may have not murdered as much people as Hitler, but he is just as evil and power hungry.

US is NEVER at fault for anything, right? They follow all rules to perfection. The US has fought every war "honorably" for the "freedom" of the American citizens. You know, the freedom that Iraq was a threat too.