After US Strikes, Afghans Describe “Tractor Trailers Full of Pieces of Human Bodies;” Meanwhile, Obama Readies 21,000 More Troops
An injured Afghan child from the Bala Baluk, district of Afghanistan, is seen on a bed at the hospital in Farah province of Afghanistan Tuesday, May 5, 2009. Abdul Basir Khan, a member of Farah’s provincial council, said villagers brought some 30 bodies, including women and children, to Farah city to show the province’s governor, that they had been killed by coalition airstrikes. (Photo: AP) More . . .
By Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports, May 7, 2009
As President Barack Obama prepares to send some 21,000 more US troops into Afghanistan, anger is rising in the western province of Farah, the scene of a US bombing massacre that may have killed as many as 130 Afghans, including 13 members of one family. At least six houses were bombed and among the dead and wounded are women and children. As of this writing reports indicate some people remain buried in rubble. The US airstrikes happened on Monday and Tuesday. Just hours after Obama met with US-backed president Hamid Karzai Wednesday, hundreds of Afghans—perhaps as many as 2,000— poured into the streets of the provincial capital, chanting “Death to America.” The protesters demanded a US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
In Washington, Karzai said he and the US occupation forces should operate from a “higher platform of morality,” saying, “We must be conducting this war as better human beings,” and recognize that “force won’t buy you obedience.” And yet, his security forces opened fire on the demonstrators, reportedly wounding five people.