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The Number No One's Counting
The pictures are too gruesome to show. The charred bodies lie under a makeshift shroud. Someone near the camera holds up an identity card - giving one corpse a name, a history, a dignity that's now been stolen.
Nearby, the covered body of a child, no more than five or six. A victim of a battle the child didn't know even existed. In this place, at least four people have been killed. The figure could be higher. The army knows how many men it's lost. Every day it gives new figures for the number of Taliban it claims it's killed. But no-one seems to know how many innocent civilians are being killed in this conflict.
Exclusive pictures obtained by Al Jazeera show the damage the war in South Waziristan has brought to the town of Saroragha, which sits close to the Afghan border. These are the first images images of what's happening inside South Waziristan.
As the camera moves slowly from left to right, villagers are picking through the rubble of their homes, trying to recover anything of value. These are not Taliban fighters but ordinary people caught up in a battle they knew was coming but had no way of escaping. The army has been pounding positions here for months, using fighter planes and helicopter gunships. It insists the targets were Taliban. Homes have been wrecked.
It's hard to find out what's going on in the conflict zone. The army has sealed off the area to the media, but the pictures confirm it has gained ground in the area. Jundola is one of the gateways into the Taliban stronghold. It's clear the area is now under Government control. The fight to gain more ground closer to the centre of Taliban operations is going to be much fiercer and inevitably more bloody.
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15 Comments so far
Show AllOnly American lives are counted, the rest are deemed sub-human "collateral damage" that do not merit attention. Racist Imperialism means never having to say sorry or counting the slaughtered brown-skinned folks from dirt-poor countries. "We don't do body counts" remember?
We are thinking and acting just like the racist British imperialists of a century ago: "We are teaching these savages how to become civlized (that is to think and act like we do) even if we have to kill them to do it. It is for their own good you see. They will thank us for it later" Meanwhile we can build a pipeline and ensure that the bad ol Rushkies and Chinese are cut out of the picutre.
Now,where's my copy of Kipling's "White Man's Burden" ?
True the USA tends to slaughter people of hues darker than pink, but Pastuns are Aryan, Persian, Mongol and Greek so they tend to be fair skinned.
Hitler considered Afghans to be the purist Aryans.
Sorry, I don't follow your point, does that mean the US empire is worse than Hitler?
The British Empire did not view Pashtuns as human beings, since when did the US Empire? I have known and currently know Pashtun folks and their skin tone is a lot darker than Anglos. So I am not sure where you got the idea they are all "fair skinned".
We can split hairs til the cows come home, the point remains poor people from developing countries are not considered human beings and are killed with impunity by the Empire. This has been the case for centuries, be it British, Soviet or American
...or French, or Spanish, or Turkish, or Roman, or Greek, or Persian, or.....
It's been more than 3,000 years of enslavement by man. The problem is not new, and we haven't solved it yet.
No, the U.S. also likes to pretend to count the number of Afghan resistance fighters killed. The U.S. gives us counts, but they're regularly contested by the Taliban; often, anyway.
You don't really believe the "numbers" the US gives do you?
Here, y'all should enjoy reading this (not that it's news to us):
"Pentagon Bans Photos of Afghan War Dead"
In other Afghan war news, the Pentagon has imposed a new policy barring media from photographing US soldiers killed in combat. The rule change was introduced last month after the Associated Press published a photo of a mortally wounded US marine.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/15/headlines
These ongoing wars are insane and evil. The United States has no legal reason to be killing these people. We had a peace march this last weekend in San Francisco---a strong hold, they say, of the peace movement. What a joke. Nearly no one showed up. The reason given for such a poor show up was that Americans are full of hope that Obama will change things.
Obviously, that will not happen. Obama has extended the wars into Pakistan and Congress gave him the funds to do this---but Congress can't find funds for health care for the people of our nation. Something is wrong here.
Obama will not save us. Time---past time---to do something ourselves to get a bit of democracy in our nation. THe corporations that own and controll our elected officials can be defeated and control of the Congress by the people can be gained if we vote out any representative who has sold out to the big bucks.
The people want an end to the wars. The people want no more of our tax funds to be given as bonuses to the banksters who caused our economic collapse. The people want Medicare for all. Rate your Congressional Rep. Did that person vote for the bailout of the banksters? Did that person vote for the surge in Afghanistan? Has that person signed on for HR 676, Medicare for all? If that person has voted all three times AGAINST THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE, don't vote for that person again.
Well, *you* showed up. Thank you.
The rest of us will have to try to do better.
No legal reason. Also no moral, ethical reason. Only insane, psychopathic GREED.
Saw some ex-General of the Pakistan army on PBS last night boasting about what a great job the army does of moving people out of attack areas. I nearly fell off the couch. Even PBS News Hour is a load of rubbish these days. If you survive, there's nothing like coming home to a pile of rubble that used to be your house.
"You don't count the dead when God's on your side." -- R. Zimmerman
"Obama is Only Making It Worse
Farce in Kabul, Tragedy in Pakistan"
by Tariq Ali, Oct 20 2009
http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m59156&hd=&size=1&l=e
Quote: "While the farce plays out in Kabul, in neighbouring Pakistan the situation has become more deadly. The Zardari government (effectively run by the US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson) has ordered the Pakistan Army to wipe out the Taliban in South Waziristan near the Afghan border".
Emphasis: "The Zardari government (effectively run by the US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson) ...".
By her; therefore, by the U.S. and its real ruling elites, i.e., rulers.
Let's not forget.
If they showed the reality of the horror they're creating, how many of even the most brainwashed of these sheeple do you think would go along with the warmongering and massacres that their government is committing in their names, huh? So, of course, they have to lie, duh!
Just today, I saw an old guy at the airport go up to one of 'm GI Joes in full garb, shook his hand and thanked him for "everything he's doing for us and our country." I nearly puked!