The Lies of the U.S. Army

Two pregnant Afghan women shot to death and two dead journalists in Iraq. Both cases show how U.S. soldiers covered up civilian deaths.

American soldiers combing through a housing complex at night in search of a Taliban fighter opened fire without warning on a group of armed men. Five people died in the hail of bullets, among them two pregnant women. The soldiers were said to have tried to cover up evidence of the shooting.

Once again, soldiers of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan stand accused of killing innocent civilians. The incident took place on the night of February 12 near the city of Gardez in the southwestern region of the country. The incident has since been acknowledged by NATO.

Up until Easter weekend, military spokespersons had reported the deaths of two insurgents. The three dead women, ISAF officers claimed, were already dead before the raid took place. Afghan investigators and American and British journalists who researched the incident said this scenario was a cover-up, and perhaps even a deliberate lie.

The raid turned into a disaster. Under cover of darkness, American special forces entered the yard of a house in the southeastern province of Paktia. According to the “New York Times,” when two men armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles opened the door, the American soldiers immediately opened fire. There was apparently no warning given before the shooting started. The British newspaper the “Times” reported that the victims had heard noises outside and thought the Taliban might have been lurking around the house.

On Easter Sunday, ISAF accepted responsibility for killing the five civilians: a 43- year old local police chief, his brother, a district attorney and two women, ages 22 and 37. Both women were pregnant and leave behind a total of 15 other children. Among the victims was also an 18 year old girl.

The women who were seated behind the men were apparently shot by mistake. According to an ISAF spokesperson, how the women died can no longer be determined since no autopsies were carried out in consideration of the relatives. It has been established that those killed were neither insurgents, nor Taliban sympathizers.

We now know that the men who died were only trying to protect their families.

An ISAF spokesperson said that the soldiers had been tipped off about the gathering by a credible source claiming that a fleeing insurgent was being given shelter in the house. “We now understand that the men killed were only trying to protect their families,” the spokesperson said. ISAF is coordinating with Afghan forces to prevent such mistakes in the future.

The ISAF team was made up of members of the Special Forces, the army’s elite unit, along with Afghan soldiers. ISAF is investigating the case. It is suspected that the soldiers tried to keep their superiors and the public from learning they had killed the pregnant women.

To that end, the soldiers are said to have dug the bullets out of the corpses and cleansed the wounds with alcohol. In addition, British and American media sources say the soldiers claimed to have found the women’s corpses with their hands tied and assumed they had been murdered by local people.

The “New York Times” reported Mohammed Tahir, the father of the 18-year-old, as saying, “I saw them working on the bodies. I saw a knife in one of the American’s hands.” ISAF denied their soldiers had removed any bullets, saying they found no evidence to support that claim.

ISAF had already reacted to the errors: In March, just a few days after the tragedy in Paktia province, ISAF Commander Stanley McChrystal issued a new directive concerning nighttime raids. He personally took stricter control over the special forces.

In past weeks, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had criticized foreign troops for their crackdown on Afghan civilians. McChrystal had promised months ago that the safety of non-combatants was to receive the highest priority.

Nevertheless, numerous civilians have been killed in air strikes and ground operations — most recently on Easter Sunday. ISAF announced on Tuesday that two women, an elderly man and a child had been killed in an air strike. It was claimed that Taliban fighters had earlier fired on Afghan and ISAF troops from the house and the ISAF troops had called for air support. ISAF denied any knowledge of civilians being present in the house.

Civilian casualties caused by American soldiers have become an increasing concern, and not only for Afghans. The Army is currently taking heavy criticism from commentators in U.S. newspapers and television broadcasts, as well as from bloggers.

WikiLeaks has also been instrumental in other revelations. The organization, which publishes classified government documents on the internet, came out with explosive material in a press conference on Monday. A U.S. attack helicopter filmed an air attack on a group of men on July 12, 2007, in Baghdad. The group was strafed because they were supposedly armed with automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades.

It was later shown that the suspected weapons turned out to be photographic equipment used by a Reuters camera team. The victims weren’t insurgents; two journalists were killed in the attack. The U.S. military kept the video under wraps until now because it presented the helicopter crew in an unfavorable light. Experts have determined the WikiLeaks video is authentic. When Reuters sought an explanation from the military, they were told back in 2007 that the Blackhawk helicopter had been the target of automatic weapons fire and rocket propelled grenade attacks. The video shows that that was also a lie.