Pentagon will not examine Taliban deaths from 2001

[bobdina]

Pentagon: No grounds to examine 2001 deaths

By Lara Jakes - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Jul 11, 2009 10:27:18 EDT

WASHINGTON — Obama administration officials said Friday 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.

The mass deaths were brought up anew Friday in a report by The New York Times on its Web site. 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 cited U.S. military and CIA ties to Afghan Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, whom human rights groups accuse of ordering the killings. The newspaper said the Defense Department and FBI never fully investigated the incident.

Asked about the report, Marine Corps Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said that since U.S. military forces were not involved in the killings, there is nothing the Defense Department could investigate.

“There is no indication that U.S. military forces were there, or involved, or had any knowledge of this,” Lapan said. “So there was not a full investigation conducted because there was no evidence that there was anything from a DoD perspective to investigate.”

A Justice Department official said the FBI had no jurisdiction to investigate. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Separately, Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller declined to comment.

A spokesman for former President George W. Bush did not have an immediate comment Friday night.

Reacting to The Times’ report, human rights group Physicians for Human Rights called for the Justice Department to begin a criminal investigation into whether the Bush administration blocked inquiries into the Taliban deaths.

“For U.S. government officials to claim that there is no legal basis to investigate this well-documented mass atrocity is absurd,” said the group’s deputy director, Susannah Sirkin.

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.

A former U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues, Pierre Prosper, told The Times that the Bush administration was reluctant to investigate the deaths, even though Dostum was on the payroll of the CIA and his soldiers worked with U.S. special forces in 2001.

Dostum was suspended from his military post last year on suspicion of threatening a political rival, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently rehired him, The Times reported.

[Reactor-Axe-Man]

Results of a secret Pentagon internal investigation:

Investigator 1: Hey, you know those dead Taliban from 2001?

Investigator 2: Yes, what about them?

Investigator 1: I've been doing some checking around. You know, reviewing files, interviewing witnesses, examining evidence. That kind of thing.

Investigator 2: What are your conclusions?

Investigator 1: They're still dead.

Investigator 2: Case closed! I'm buyin'!

[EXCONservative]

I always have to laugh when I here people say that America doesn't commit war crimes.
I laugh because it shows how ignorant people can be.
Every country in every war has soldiers who commit war crimes and this is why some say war is so evil. I say it's evil as well. I have personally witnessed crimes on both sides.
This is why war must always be avoided and never glamorized. It brings out evil in even the best people.
we all have a breaking point...just some of us don't know it yet.
I've always said that we are all capable of murder. We are all capable of taking the life of another human being and some of us are willing to do it without putting much thought into it.
There is a reason they say "war is hell". You either know why or you've never been in combat.

I saw many of those prisoners come into bagram and I had to beat a few who didn't obey our strict orders. Many sat half naked on concrete all night long freezing from the cold winter air. They got frostbite and shit themselves because we would not let them move until they were processed which could take as little as 2 hours or up to 12? They would sit and suffer.
It was just the begining of more to come. Were they innocent? Some were...others not.
I knew that I did not want to be in their place. Many disappeared never to be seen again.
Was it a shock? Not really.
but when hear Americans say we don't commit war crimes...I just have to laugh.

[bobdina]

Quote " I had to beat a few who didn't obey our strict orders" Bullshit you did not have to beat them and if you say you were just following orders again that's bullshit as you have no moral obligation to follow unlawful orders. You have just lost all your credibility about being so high and mighty . There now that being said because I know lot's of guys would say that around here, and since I never get involved in that stuff on the front page and I wanted to be first in saying something nice to have you joining the discussions.

[bobdina]

Oh and also I don't recall anyone on here saying Americans don't commit war crimes. Anyone with half a brain would know no matter how good the background checks are, if you get 100 people together I guarantee at least one is a scum bag in hiding just waiting to abuse their power. I have seen it more times then I want. I have also see barefoot and cold men and women on a cold concrete floor for more then 24 hours and I'm sure some of them were probably innocent but that's the world we live in . much better to be cold and locked up then with a bullet in the back of the head , which would happen a hell of a lot more if we weren't involved in it.