Posted on 12/11/2008 5:51:29 PM PST by engrpat
DASHT-E LEILI, Afghanistan — Seven years ago, a convoy of container trucks rumbled across northern Afghanistan loaded with a human cargo of suspected Taliban and al Qaida members who'd surrendered to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord and a key U.S. ally in ousting the Taliban regime.
When the trucks arrived at a prison in the town of Sheberghan, near Dostum's headquarters, they were filled with corpses. Most of the prisoners had suffocated, and others had been killed by bullets that Dostum's militiamen had fired into the metal containers.
Dostum's men hauled the bodies into the nearby desert and buried them in mass graves, according to Afghan human rights officials. By some estimates, 2,000 men were buried there.
Earlier this year, bulldozers and backhoes returned to the scene, reportedly exhumed the bones of many of the dead men and removed evidence of the atrocity to sites unknown. In the area where the mass graves once were, there now are gaping pits in the sands of the Dasht-e-Leili desert.
A U.N.-sponsored team of experts first spotted two large excavations on a visit in June, one of them about 100 feet long and more than 9 feet deep in places. A McClatchy reporter visited the site last month and found three additional smaller pits, which apparently had been dug since June.
Faqir Mohammed Jowzjani, a former Dostum ally and the deputy governor of Jowzjan province, where the graves were located, told McClatchy that it's common knowledge that Dostum sent in the bulldozers.
He speculated that Dostum wanted to destroy the evidence because of local political trouble that could have made him more prone to prosecution for the killings.
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
I am in no way trying to minimize the actions and the killing of 2,000 but I think we must keep in mind the nature of the war we are fighting.
It’s their culture, we can’t judge them. Isnt that what liberals always tell us?
McClatchy needs some diversity training.
Our Soviet allies in WWII did much worse things. Where are their prosecutions?
Die soon, MSM. Please.
War is hell. Better 2,000 AQ fighters than 2,000 innocent civilians.
If it was the Afghan government dealing with it’s own citizens it’s no more a war crime that Waco was...
> War is hell. Better 2,000 AQ fighters than 2,000 innocent civilians.
Better 2,000 dead enemies than 2,000 alive Gitmo internees.
Exactly!
How many Americans would be dead now if those 2000 were still alive and on the loose as the media would like? Good bye and good riddance.
In other words, what they have is holes and pits as evidence of a crime? No bodies? No blood? No clothing? Any type of evidence of a mass burial? Just holes in the ground? I'd need more than that. And what does the "reportedly" mean? Did they actually have bulldozers and backhoes out there, or was it just said they were there? If they were there, why would they leave the so-called pits? If you were covering up a crime, wouldn't you want the scene to look like it did before? If you've got bulldozers and backhoes, there would be no problem to leave no pits.
Good for him. I won’t lose any sleep over it.
Such a terrible waste. Any idea how many pigs that many al-Qaeda could have fed?
Yep.
I love a happy ending...kind of like the joke “What do you have with 2000 lawyers buried up to their necks in sand?”
(...not enough lawyers...)
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