The Acts of the Democracies

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2001

Afghanistan (The "War on Terror")

The USA (with help from the UK) bombs Afghanistan "to fight terrorism" after obtaining backing from Europe. The West declares it wishes to depose the government of the Taliban and destroy the Al-Qaida group in a "war for civilisation". No United Nations authority is sought for the military action.

The Western media stir up the situation with calls for collective punishments. Bill O'Reilly proclaims on the USA's Fox News Channel:

"The USA should bomb the Afghan infrastructure to rubble -- the airport, the power plants, their water facilities and the roads. We should not target civilians, but if they don't rise up against this criminal government, they starve, period."

New York Post columnist Steve Dunleavy writes:

"As for cities or countries that host these worms, bomb them into basketball courts."

Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review (USA) writes:

"If we flatten part of Damascus or Tehran or whatever it takes, that is part of the solution."

Although the USA states that civilian casualties will be minimised, Cluster Bombs are dropped. These break up into bomblets which can lie dormant on the ground until touched, often long after the conflict has ended. Human Rights Watch estimate that 5000 (30%) of these bomblets lie in the ground unexploded. They are of similar colour and size as food parcels dropped by USA planes. Daisy Cutter bombs are also used which flatten an area of over 1km radius.

A United Nations official in Afghanistan estimates that live bombs and mines maim, on average 40 to 100 people a week in the country and 50% of these die before they get any medical help.

Injured child.

Injured children.

Logistical and political aid for the attack on Afganistan is obtained from a number of countries (often by bribes or concessions) including:

Turkey (which oppresses political dissidents and its Kurdish minority). The country is offered International Monetary Fund and World Bank loans totalling $1,700 million.
Russia (whose president, Vladimir Putin, was responsible for flattening the Chechen city of Groszny, killing over 20,000 people). Russia receives a promise that the West will soften its attitude over Russia's behaviour towards unstable Muslim countries on its southern flank where there is fighting.
Pakistan (which has a government that gained power in a military coup). The USA Senate Foreign Relations Committee approves a bill enabling Pakistan to receive emergency military assistance. The UK International Development Secretary offers another $15 million in British aid and speaks of cancelling interest payments. The European Union Council of Foreign Ministers agree to boost aid. The European Commission rushes through trade concessions worth about $1,350 million.
Uzbekistan (which has an authoritarian government and over 7000 political prisoners). The authoritarian president, Islam Karimov, is known to be keen to run an oil pipeline through Afghanistan to a port in Pakistan. With a friendly, USA controlled government in Kabul the pipeline could finally become a reality.
Oman (a country ruled absolutely by the king). On the day the USA Defence Secretary arrived for talks, the USA announced the sale of 12 late-model F-16C fighters; plus night-attack navigation and laser-bomb targeting devices; advanced air-to-air missiles; kits to make laser-guided weapons out of bombs; Harpoon anti-ship missiles and radar equipment.
Iran (formerly treated as a pariah state by the USA). On the same day that it was revealed that Iran agreed to help downed pilots, the USA administration asks a federal judge to throw out a $10,000 million lawsuit brought against Iran by Americans taken hostage in 1979.
China (a non-democratic country). United Nations sanctions forbid the sale of military-related equipment to China. These were imposed after the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square when thousands died and many more were imprisoned. The USA considers selling spare parts for Black Hawk helicopter gunships previously sold by the USA.
Malaysia (with a semi-democratic government). The West offers interception and surveillance equipment that enables the state to spy on its own people.

In northern Afganistan, the West helps anti Taliban fighters called the Northern Alliance.

The Northern Alliance had ruled the country between 1990 and 1996. During that time they trafficked in hard drugs, killed more than 25,000 civilians and raped thousands of women and girls, using many as sex slaves. In several incidents they threw acid in women's faces because they were not covered up.

Aid agencies (including Oxfam, Action Aid, Christian Aid, and Islamic Relief ) call for a stop to the bombing after warning of a humanitarian catastrophe affecting millions of people, including 100,000 children under 5. This call is ignored.

Dead children being prepared for burial.

Northern Alliance troops pulling out gold teeth.

The reporting of the conflict in the West concentrates on the military hardware. A new crop of words enters the language:

Air Campaign: Dropping bombs on a country with no resistance.
Coalition Forces or Coalition Against Terror: The USA with some help from the UK and the rest of the world keeping quiet.
War On Terror: A war on terrorists as defined by the West. Referring to the contrast between the bombing of Afghanistan and the Middle East "Peace process", a Lebanese doctor states: "you bomb your enemies; we have to compromise with ours".
Surgical Strikes: Bombs that only destroy military targets and avoid civilians - a small percentage of the bombs used.
Collateral Damage: Killing civilians.
Moderate States: Compliant or Pro-West states (eg. Saudi Arabia, Turkey).
Rogue States or States Supporting Terrorism: Non-compliant states (eg Iraq, Syria).
Freedom Fighters: People fighting the West's enemies.
Terrorists: People fighting against the West's interests or the West's allies.

Many Afghan and Arab prisoners are killed by Northern Aliance and USA forces in violation of the Geneva Conventions. In one case 280 bodies are buried in mass graves near the airport in Kandahar. More than 400 prisoners are killed in unexplained circumstances in Qala-i-Janghi fort at Mazar-i-Sharif. Calls by Amnesty International for an inquiry are ignored.

In the Western media, very little information about civilian casualties is given. This appears to be a deliberate policy. Walter Issacson, the chairman of USA satellite and cable news company, CNN, informs his staff:

"It seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties and hardship in Afganistan."

The Arabic satellite television station, Al-Jazeera, is considered by most people in the Middle East as the only source of news that is not government controlled. The USA Secretary of State, Colin Powell, expresses concern about their coverage of the war. When these concerns are ignored, the USA bombs the Kabul offices of the station, effectively denying a view of the conflict not controlled by Western media.

Marc Herold, an economics professor at the University of New Hampshire (USA), in a study published in the UK newspaper, The Guardian on 20 December, reports that between 7 October and 10 December, USA bombing has killed 3767 civilians in Afghanistan. This is a higher number than the victims in the 11 September attack on the USA. These are Afghan civilians who had nothing to do with the USA atrocity and who had no say in the make up or policies of the Afghani government because there had not been any elections for them to participate in. The figures mean that 60 to 65 civilians have been killed for every day of the bombing.

The study's findings are coraborated by aid agencies, the United Nations, eyewitnesses and media reports. It does not include civilians who died later of their injuries, people killed after 10 December, people who died because they were refugees from the bombing, military deaths (estimated to be in excess of 10,000), or prisoners killed in Mazar-i-Sharif, Qala-i-Janghi, Khandahar Airport or elsewhere.

This report (and the casualties) is ignored by most Western media unlike the blanket coverage given to the USA victims. After seven weeks of bombing the USA newspaper, The Los Angeles Times estimates that the death toll was "at least dozens of civilians."

The bombing includes power stations, telephone exchanges, educational establishments, utilities, hospitals, lorries and buses filled with refugees, fuel trucks, convoys of tribal leaders, residential districts in the cities, and dozens of villages. This is a sample of attacks and their civilian casualties.

7 Oct: The air attack on Kabul begins at 20:57 (local time). Assadullah, a 16-year-old ice cream seller from Jalalabad is the first reported civilian victim, losing a leg and two fingers in a Cruise missile strike on an airfield near his home: "There was just a roaring sound, and then I opened my eyes and I was in a hospital, I lost my leg and two fingers. There were other people hurt. People were running all over the place". On the first evening 37 people are killed (20 in Kabul, 9 in Herat, 4 in Kandahar and 4 in Jalalabad). 81 are injured.
8 Oct: 20 people living near the Kabul airport in the Qasabah Khana neighbourhood and near the radio station are killed in bombing.
9 Oct: A Cruise missile destroys the Afghan Technical Center, a building used by the United Nations land mine removing contracting firm, in the Macroyan residential district of eastern Kabul, killing 4 night watchmen.
10 Oct: The Sultanpur Mosque in Jalalabad is hit by a bomb during prayers, killing 17 people. As neighbours rush into the rubble to pull out the injured, a second bomb is dropped killing at least another 120 people.
11 Oct: Two jets bomb the mountain village of Karam comprised of 60 mud houses, during dinner after evening prayer time, killing around 160 people. After reports of heavy civilian casualties from overnight bombing of Darunta near Jalalabad. The Pentagon (USA Defence) buys exclusive rights to all Ikonos satellite pictures from the Space Imaging company to keep them from being seen.
12 Oct: Bombs destroy the power station in Kabul, killing 12.
13 Oct: In the morning, an F-18 drops 2000 lb JDAM bombs upon the poor Qila Meer Abas neighborhood, 2 km south of Kabul airport, killing 4.
18 Oct: Sarai Shamali, the central market place in the Madad district of Kandahar, is bombed, killing 47 people.
19 Oct: Planes circle over Tarin Kot in Uruzgan early in the evening, then return after everyone had gone to bed and bomb a residential area, 3km away from the nearest Taliban base. Mud houses are flattened and families destroyed. The first round of bombs kills 20, and as some of the villagers are pulling their neighbours out of the rubble, more bombs fall, killing 10 more. One of the villagers recalls: "We pulled the 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."
21 Oct: Planes apparently targeting a Taliban military base (long abandoned) release their bombs on the Kabul residential area of Khair Khana, killing 8 members of one family who had just sat down to breakfast. Bombs kill 26 in two residential districts of Kabul.
21 Oct: In the farming village of Thori 6 hours drive from Kandahar, 23 people are killed by bombing.
An F-18 drops a 1000 lb cluster bomb on a 200 bed military hospital and mosque in Herat, missing its intended military target by 500 to 1000 meters. Around 100 people are killed.
22 Oct: The farming village, Chowkar-Karez is strafed by AC-130 gunships killing 93 people. Mehmood, a merchant form Kandahar laments: "I brought my family here for safety, and now there are 19 dead, including my wife, my brother, sister, sister-in-law, nieces, nephews, my uncle. What am I supposed to do now?"
22 Oct: Planes drop BLU-97 cluster bombs (made by Aerojet / Honeywell) on the village of Shakar Qala near Herat, missing the Taliban encampments located 700m away and destroying or badly damaging 20 of the village's 45 houses. 14 people are killed immediately and another dies after picking up the parachute attached to one of the 202 bomblets dispersed by the BLU-97.
22 Oct: Four lorries are bombed on he road between Herat and Kandahar, leaving two groups of bodies (13 and 15).
24 Oct: In a pre dawn bombing raid, 8 or 9 cluster bombs fall on the mosque in the village of Ishaq Sulaiman near Herat, killing 20.
25 Oct: A bomb hits a fully loaded city bus at Kabul Gate, in Kandahar, incinerating 10 to 20 passengers.
27 Oct: Planes drop 35 bombs from F-18's in and around the village of Khan Agaha at the entrance of the Kapisa Valley, 80km northeast of Kabul. 16 people are killed, 10 instantly as they are buried under their house, the rest dying of their injuries in a nearby hospital. The victims include a 5 year old girl.
29 Oct: A bomb flattens a flimsy mud brick house in Kabul blowing apart 7 children as they eat breakfast with their father. The blast shatters a neighbour's house killing another 2 children. The houses are in a residential area called Qalaye Khatir near a hill where the Taliban had placed an anti-aircraft gun.
31 Oct: In a pre dawn raid, an F-18 drops a 2000 lb JDAM bomb on a Red Crescent clinic in Kandahar, killing 15 to 25.
10 Nov: The villages of Shah Aqa and its neighbours in the Khakrez district, 70km northwest of Kandahar are bombed, resulting in over 300 civilian deaths.
11 Nov: Planes bomb a bus carrying refugees on the north road out of Kabul, killing 35.
17 Nov: Bomb strikes in Khanabad near Kunduz, kills over 100 people. The town of Charikar, 60 kms north of Kabul, is attacked with bombs and missiles, killing two entire families, one of 16 members and the other of 14, living in the same house.
18 Nov: Carpet bombing by B-52's of a village near Khanabad, province of Kunduz, kills at least 150 civilians.
18 Nov: Planes bomb the mountain village of Gluco (located on the Khyber Pass and far away from any military facility) killing 7 villagers. A reporter for the UK newspaper, The Telegraph, reports: "Their wooden homes looked like piles of charred match sticks. Injured mules lay braying in the road along the mountain pass that stank of sulphur and dead animals..."
24 Nov: Bombs fall in a mountainous border area, 300km southwest of Peshawar, killing 13 in an attack aimed at a long abandoned Taliban training camp.
25 Nov: The small market town of Nahrin in Baghlan province is bombed. Bibi, one of the survivors, recalls: "The bombs started falling from the sky. 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."
26 Nov: Following days of heavy bombing of Shamshad village in Nangarhar province, 3 children are blown up (and at least 7 wounded) by a cluster bomb while they are collecting firewood and scrap.
27 Nov: Bombers hit a hamlet of five houses between the airport at Kandahar and the city, killing Mohammed Khan's entire family of 5 as well as 10 other people.
29 Nov: A 15 lorry fuel convoy north of Kandahar is bombed leaving charred remains of the drivers and dozens of passengers on their way to Chaman.
30 Nov: Planes bomb two trucks on the highway from Herat, killing at least 4.
1 Dec: During the intense bombing of Tora Bora, B-52 bombers make four passes over Kama Ado (a village that is ten hours walk from Tora Bora), dropping 25 1000 lb. JDAM MK-83 bombs, each 3m long. Khalil Rahman survives because he had gone outside to urinate when a bomb struck his home, killing his 12 relatives. Sprina, a 50 year old widow, wounded in the attack, loses 38 of her 40 relatives. Only 40 of the 250 residents of the village survive the attack. Journalists who visit Kama Ado later in the same day report huge bomb craters, debris of houses spread over two hillsides with children's shoes, dead cows and sheep, and the tail fin of a bomb.
The nearby village of Khan-e-Mairjuddin, is bombed with a death toll of over 100. A third village, Zaner Khel, reports being hit with nearly 100 civilian casualties after planes bomb the nearby house of a minor Taliban official.
1 Dec: An attack on four trucks and five buses on the highway to Spin Boldak kills 30.
2 Dec: Three refugee vehicles in front of the Maji Hotel in Arghisan are hit by missiles killing dozens. A jeep carrying civilians is hit near Spin Boldak killing 15.
3 Dec: Rukia, a 39 year old, refugee in a hospital in Quetta (Pakistan), describes how she lost her family of 5 children when a bomb was dropped on her neighbourhood in Kandahar. She had to leave Kandahar before she could bury her children, as she had a stomach wound and a shattered left arm. She was nearly hit by another bomb as a relative was driving her to a hospital in Quetta. "They're bombing anything that moves. It's not true that they bomb civilians by accident. They're targeting the innocent people instead of Osama bin Laden."
4 Dec: An ambulance in Kandahar is hit by a bomb killing 4.

The hijackers in the atrocity in the USA had been from countries like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt; countries which are considered allies to the USA (the "moderate states"). The Taliban government had been funded by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. When the USA wants to extend its "war on terrorism", countries such as Iraq, Sudan and Yemen are mentioned. These are "rogue states", countries with governments that are not under the control of the USA.

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