Obama Orders Review Of Alleged Afghan Mass Grave
President Obama has ordered his national security team to investigate reports that U.S. allies were responsible for the deaths of as many as 2,000 Taliban prisoners of war during the opening days of the war in Afghanistan.
Obama told CNN in an interview that aired Sunday that he doesn’t know what how the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance behaved in November 2001, but he wants a full accounting before deciding how to move forward.
“I think that, you know, there are responsibilities that all nations have even in war,” Obama said during an interview at the end of a six-day trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana.
“And if it appears that our conduct in some way supported violations of the laws of war, then I think that, you know, we have to know about that.”
The president’s comments seem to reverse officials’ statements from Friday, when they said they had no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war who human rights groups allege were killed by U.S.-backed forces.
Reacting to the interview, Physicians for Human Rights hailed Obama’s decision.
“President Obama is right to say that U.S. and Afghan violations of the laws of war must be investigated,” said Nathaniel Raymond, a Physicians for Human Rights researcher. “If the Obama administration finds that criminal wrongdoing occurred in this case, those responsible — whether American or Afghan officials — must be prosecuted.”
But Obama’s direction — discussed as he toured a former slave castle on Ghana’s coast — does not guarantee action.
“We’ll probably make a decision in terms of how to approach it once we have all the facts gathered up,” Obama said.
The mass deaths were brought up anew Friday in a report by The New York Times. It quoted government and human rights officials accusing the Bush administration of failing to investigate the executions of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of prisoners.
U.S. officials said Friday they did not have legal grounds to investigate the deaths because only foreigners were involved and the alleged killings occurred in a foreign country.
The Times pointed to U.S. military and CIA ties to Afghan Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, accused by human rights groups of ordering the killings. The newspaper said the Defense Department and FBI never fully investigated the incident.
The allegations date back to November 2001, when as many as 2,000 Taliban prisoners died in transit after surrendering during one of the regime’s last stands, according to a State Department report from 2002.
Witnesses have claimed that forces with the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance placed the prisoners in sealed cargo containers over the two-day voyage to Sheberghan Prison, suffocating them and then burying them en masse, using bulldozers to move the bodies, according to the State Department report. Some Northern Alliance soldiers have said that some of their troops opened fire on the containers, killing those within.
Dostum, the Northern Alliance general who is accused of overseeing the atrocities, has previously denied the allegations. He was suspended from his military post last year on suspicion of threatening a political rival, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently rehired him.
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Why is this news at all? We all read about this in the papers and web what happened at the time, and it was clearly the responsibility of Dostum, since he was in charge of that area of Afghanistan as its warlord. There must be some other motivation at work here than exposing the war crime itself.
Anon,
Read this again from the article:
“And if it appears that our conduct in some way supported violations of the laws of war, then I think that, you know, we have to know about that.”
This is all about Obama attacking the military operations of America - look at that statement, does he say “the Northern Alliance’s conduct” ? Hell no, he says “OUR” behavior. This is all about him continuing to blame his own damn country for everything bad in this world.
Remember early in the presidential primaries, Obama came out with a statement that the U.S. was doing nothing in Afghanistan than bombing civilian villages?
This is a man obsessed, absolutely obsessed with neutering the military of America.
You’re right; I should have noticed that.
yeah,neuter the military so he can empower his hand picked fucking brown shirts.
More smoke-screen lies blaming George Bush, and this time in an attempt to blunt criticism of the new Rules of Engagement for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, recently ordered by Dictator-for-Life BammiStalin our dear leader.
2000 taliban sounds good to me
Too bad it wasn’t 20,000 or more.
This Marxist fuck keeps pushing… some people going to start pushing back… I am almost to the breaking point….
I’m already there! This anti-military, radical commie punk would love to arrest, try, convict, and throw an American Army General into prison.
Obscure bullshit.
The attention whore just has to be front page everyday.
If there is nothing to bitch about He has the bootlicking ‘MSM’ come up with something to get Him face time.
Fucking asshole.
look he wants us to think about something so we take our minds of national healthcare, the energy bill etc. I’m not falling for it
Perhaps this is the first step in creating a “crisis” so Obama can pull out of and abandon Afghanistan.
Anyone with a lick of sense knows this asshat doesn’t want to fight any war anywhere.
He wants the money for “other” things.
For instance…
If he hates our military so much why doesn’t he just pull out completely and let the real blood shed begin.
This shit makes me sick, he is looking for any excuse he can to hamstring the US military, he knows they are not 100% loyal to him and him alone and that sticks in his craw. If he can’t have their loyalty he will have their heads.
Billy
obama is a traitor!!!!!
you got that right but paybacks are a mutha…
Poll numbers drop and investigations go up. Create a crisis so it doesn’t go to waste.
How the fuck did the American people elect this seditious puke??????????????????????
massive voter fraud by acorn,dumb ass college kids and conservative no-shows.