Newsgroup: it.cultura.religioni
Titolo: Aggiornamenti sull'Afghanistan [in inglese]

Da YellowTimes.ORG, un lungo articolo che espande con molti dettagli la
questione del report del professor Herold sulla cerneficina di civili
compiuta dagli USA in Afghanistan. Comprese le ripetute, madornali bugie
del Pentagono, con date e dettagli.
MOLTO IMPORTANTE: alla fine dell'articolo ci sono dei links ad ulteriori
fonti informative sull'Argentina e sulla Somalia. Quest'ultima in
particolare andrebbe seguita, visto che evidente che si sta preparando
un'aggressione analoga: vedrete che ci sono anche li' delle connections
petrolifere.
"Over 3,767 civilians killed by U.S. in Afghanistan; Pentagon misleads"
http://yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=67
By YellowTimes.ORG
on Wednesday, January 02 @ 09:18:07 EST
By Christopher Reilly
YellowTimes.ORG Journalist
(YellowTimes.ORG) – A new report released by Professor Marc W. Herold of
University of New Hampshire found that the Bush administration has
overseen
the killing of at least 3,767 civilians in Afghanistan between the dates
of
October 7, 2001 and December 6, 2001; an average of 62 civilians killed
per
day. On a population scale this number is equivalent to 38,000 dead U.S.
civilians, or roughly eleven World Trade Center attacks.
The failure of the Pentagon to admit to their actions, along with the
frequent statements by mainstream U.S. news sources that civilian death
reports could not "be independently verified,” inspired Mr. Herold to come
up with an in-depth report on the number of dead civilians in Afghanistan
using references from news reporters who visited the aftermath of U.S.
bombing incidents, eyewitness and survivor accounts, distinguished
non-governmental organizations, and news articles published in mainstream
reputable national newspapers.
Mr. Herold found that the Pentagon frequently shrouded the truth and even
directly lied to the American people.
According to the report, one example of mistruth spewed by the Pentagon
was
on October 31 when US bombers attacked a Red Crescent hospital in
Kandahar.
The Taliban claimed that the Bush administration bombed the hospital
killing 11 people inside. The Pentagon quickly stated that the strike
missed both the hospital and another Red Crescent building nearby. The
Pentagon said that the strike hit “a legitimate target, intentionally
struck.”
But after journalists reached the site, they saw a large crater in the
center of the clinic. A doctor at the hospital reported 15 dead; a number
even higher than the Taliban’s claim. There is no reasonable explanation
for why the Pentagon made this statement unless they were trying to
deceive
the American people and the rest of the world.
Another chilling example of the Pentagon deceiving the public is the
destruction of the village Kama Ado on December 1st at 3 a.m. local time.
YellowTimes.ORG reported this incident shortly after it occurred, but Mr.
Herold’s report gives the specifics.
The reports states: “At 3 a.m., Saturday morning, as part of the intense
bombing campaign of Tora Bora, U.S. B-52 bombers made four passes over
Kama
Ado dropping twenty-five 1,000 pound JDAM MK-83 bombs, each 10 feet long.”
The intended target of Tora Bora was a “ten-hour hike” away from the
village of Kama Ado. Was this an accident?
In this town alone the Bush administration is responsible for killing
about
half of the people living there. Once the smoke cleared villagers only
found about 40 of the 300 residents alive. Other witness reports say 156
of
the 300 residents in Kama Ado were killed by the Pentagon.
One man in Kama Ado only survived because he went outside to urinate when
a
bomb struck his home. His family was not so lucky; 12 of them died inside
the house. Another victim who survived the attack lost 38 of her 40
relatives, the report states.
When British journalist Richard Lloyd Parry visited Kamo Ado after the
U.S.
attack, he stated that the town had “ceased to exist.” Parry reported that
many “of the homes here are just deep conical craters in the earth. The
rest are cracked open, split like crushed cardboard boxes.”
When confronted with the evidence of what happened in Kamo Ado, the
Pentagon spokesman stated the exact words of: “It just didn’t happen.”
The list of atrocities continued to grow longer and longer as the war
raged
on.
Mr. Herold’s report states how on October 11 two jets bombed the village
of
Karam. The Taliban claimed that 200 civilians were killed. When questioned
about the attack, the Pentagon said that it hit a military base and
civilians may have been killed, but the Taliban’s claim of 200 dead was
exaggerated.
The Pentagon refused to name body counts saying that civilian deaths could
not be “independently verified.”
But after reporters visited the carnage, they found that the Pentagon
bombed and killed 100 to 160 civilians. This was confirmed by many news
sources including The Guardian, The Independent, International Herald
Tribune, The Scotsman, The Observer, and the BBC News.
In the village of Ishaq Sulaiman near Herat, 20 civilians were killed when
between 8 and 9 cluster bombs fell on a mosque in the village. This was
reported by Agence France Press, Reuters, and the International Herald
Tribune. But according to the Pentagon, there was no air strike in that
area.
Mr. Herold’s report further states how on October 18, the central market
place in a district of Kandahar was bombed leaving 47 civilians dead.
Three days later on October 21, a cluster bomb destroyed a military
hospital and mosque in Herat killing 100 Afghans.
Two days later, the Pentagon ordered AC-130 gunships to strafe the farming
villages of Bori Choker and Chowkar-Karez. They did not stop shooting
until
93 civilians were dead.
On November 10 the villages of Shah Aqa were bombed. At least 125
civilians
were killed in this incident, but the actual number may be over 300.
Eight days later the Pentagon’s tactic of carpet-bombing with B-52’s
killed
at least 150 civilians in one incident.
The total amount of civilians killed from the first day of bombing up
until
December 6 came to at least 3,767 deaths.
This number is increasing steadily, especially due to the thousands of
unexploded cluster bomblets littered all over Afghanistan. As
YellowTimes.ORG warned in the early days of the conflict, each cluster
bomblet has very destructive capabilities, operating as an effective
landmine.
This danger was seen on November 25, when a farmer was killed after
accidentally stepping on one of the unexploded CBU-87 bomblets. Two days
later, a 12 year-old boy also encountered an unexploded bomblet. He was
one
of the lucky ones; only his arm was blown to pieces.
Despite pleas from the international community to halt the use of cluster
bombs, by November 20 the Bush administration oversaw the deployment of
about 600 CBU-87 cluster bombs on Afghanistan. After calculating in the
dud
rate of the bomb, Herold’s report states that about 14,500 unexploded
bomblets are waiting in Afghanistan for unsuspecting victims across the
countryside and villages.
Why the American people and the Western world have not castigated the Bush
administration for killing thousands of Afghan civilians lies in the fear
and self-censorship committed by U.S. media agencies.
As the British newspaper The Guardian pointed out, "It's nightmarish to
see
that the U.S is slowly desensitizing the public to the level of
destruction
taking place in Afghanistan. They have progressed from medium-sized
missiles to Tomahawk and cruise missiles, to bunker-busting 2,000 lb
bombs,
then to [B-52] carpet-bombing using cluster bombs, and now the devastating
daisy cutter bombs that annihilate everything in a 600-meter radius."
When Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based media agency, began showing footage of the
Pentagon’s bombs killing innocent civilians, a guided bomb destroyed the
Kabul office of the news agency; a sign that the Bush administration does
not necessarily believe in freedom of speech outside the U.S. borders.
Witness reports in Afghanistan speak for themselves:
"The bombs started falling from the sky," one witness stated. "My husband
ran outside to find our son and then he screamed. I ran to the door. He
and
my son were lying dead. The rest of us left when the fighting had stopped.
We just wanted to get away from the bombs and the killing."
Another Afghan civilian believed that the United States must have been
intentionally targeting innocent people due to the amount of destruction
witnessed. "They're bombing anything that moves,” she said. “It's not true
that they bomb civilians by accident. They're targeting the innocent
people
instead of Osama bin Laden."
Another villager explained how in one attack the survivors pulled a “baby
out, the others were buried in the rubble. Children were decapitated.
There
were bodies with no legs. We could do nothing. We just fled.”
The only explanation that the Bush administration has uttered regarding
casualties is that the Taliban has set up bases and bunkers in urban areas
to prevent foreign nations from striking them. Mr. Herold states in the
report that this is a falsity.
The report explains how many of the Taliban’s military garrisons and
facilities are old buildings built by the Soviet-backed government in the
previous war. They were built in urban areas for protection against the
rural mujahedin. All future governments and rulers of Afghanistan used
these same installations. This explains why many Taliban emplacements are
located near civilian areas.
But when looking at the magnitude of bombs dropped on Afghanistan, even
these claims by the Bush administration and Pentagon are hard to believe.
It is unfortunate that the American people continue to give support to the
Bush administration despite them killing nearly 4,000 innocent civilians,
using strong-arm tactics to stifle opposition voices seen in the
destruction of the Al Jazeera media office, using irresponsible weapons
that have left thousands of landmines around civilian areas, and lying and
misleading the American people.
In the words of Mr. Herold, “It is simply unacceptable for civilians to be
slaughtered as a side-effect of an intentional strike against a specified
target. There is no difference between the attacks upon the World Trade
Center whose primary goal was the destruction of a symbol, and the U.S-U.K
revenge coalition bombing of military targets located in populated urban
areas. Both are criminal. Slaughter is slaughter. Killing civilians even
if
unintentional is criminal.”
U.S. and IMF played role in fall of Argentina's economy, using system of
"rewards" for obedience and "punishments" for disobedience.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/25/international/americas/25ARGE.html?ex=1010
287834&ei=1&en=90e2d43c34115c2f
Enron was involved in an energy project in India, perhaps not
coincidentally the world's largest democracy. Nonviolent opposition was
crushed in the interest of profits, with the help of U.S., and now India
faces negative consequences due to schemes of oil and war...
http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/ASA200311997
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/123001a.html
Like Afghanistan, OIL is a "factor" in U.S. military interest in Somalia.
Four U.S. oil industries had "agreements BEFORE its civil war began, and
these will "reap rewards if "peace" is restored, of course via a
dictatorship to give oil and war industries free reign to profits.
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/01/03/24891.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59310-2002Jan3.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,320798-412,00.shtmlhttp://www.netnom
ad.com/fineman.html
Russia positions itself, and training young people, to be a dominant force
among oil giants.
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAZR83FYVC.html
Russia's Capitalistic Oil Industry Pitted Against OPEC
By Mara D. Bellaby Associated Press Writer
Published: Jan 1, 2002
-- 
Inviato il gio 10 gen 2002 10:01:59 CET da 
adsl-171-111.36-151.net24.it
[151.36.111.171]
http://www.neuromante.net/

petrolifere.
Grazie di questo interessantissimo documento. Non so se conosci
http://www.antiwar.com/
 un sito che viene aggiornato ogni giorno con
decine di nuove notizie, link e saggi. Molto utile per capire i nostri
tempi...
Miguel Martinez
http://www.kelebekler.com/