America, Home of the Brave?

[E'jaazi]

Look at what America has done now! How they deceive their own people by not reporting this!




“Democratic” America failed to win Afghans’ hearts and minds
3/6/2007 6:30:00 AM GMT







(AFP Photo) A wounded Afghan lies in a hospital bed in Jalalabad



By: Emile Tayyip

It has been a disastrous two days for Afghans.

Nine Afghan civilians died Monday in an airstrikes launched by the occupation forces in Kapisa province, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, which has been some way from the centre of the insurgency and has been relatively free from attacks. The attack that included air and artillery fire and hit civilian houses during what media reports said was an exchange of fire with suspected Taliban rebels, came a day after a "complex" ambush involving a car bomb attack and shooting by American forces killed another 16 Afghan civilians and wounded 25 others.

Among those killed in Monday’s attack were five women and two children.

The explanation presented to the media regarding Monday attack seemed quite similar to that said by the U.S. a day earlier; a NATO military base in the province came under attack "and they responded with artillery and an airstrike, killing nine Afghan civilians," deputy governor Sayed Daud Hashimi has been quoted by AFP as saying.

Ironically enough Monday attack came a day after the U.S.-backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai had condemned the barbaric attack on civilians by American forces in a separate incident in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, where U.S. Marine Special Forces opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians on a busy highway in eastern Afghanistan, leaving a trail of terror and blood along at least a six-mile stretch of road in Nangarhar province, a route often filled not only with cars and trucks but also Afghans on foot and bicycles.

Gulam Nabi told reporters how his parents, his sister, his nephew and four of his siblings' children were killed in the brutal attack on their house yesterday.
Those who were wounded in Sunday attack, more than a half dozen Afghans recuperating from bullet wounds, told The Associated Press that the U.S. forces fired indiscriminately at civilians.

"They were firing everywhere, and they even opened fire on 14 to 15 vehicles passing on the highway," said Tur Gul, 38, who was standing on the roadside by a gas station and was shot twice in his right hand. "They opened fire on everybody, the ones inside the vehicles and the ones on foot."

The attacks on Afghan civilians for two consecutive days sparked angry demonstrations in the region - just 50km west of the Pakistan border, Noor Agha Zawok, the spokesperson for the governor of Nangarhar province reported.

Hundreds of Afghans have reportedly took to the streets, blocking the road and throwing stones at police, and shouting "Death to America! Death to Karzai".

The puppet Afghan government, led by President Hamid Karzai is increasingly unpopular and ineffectual.

And the increasing attacks targeting civilians in the region should be viewed as the most visible sign of the deteriorating position of the U.S.-backed puppet regime in Afghanistan, specially that the majority of those who escaped the attack on Sunday, confirmed that the U.S. forces had fired at pedestrians from a close range, which means that they were aware of the fact that they’re harming civilians.

Mohammad Ishaq (15), among some of the victims who were evacuated form Sunday’s U.S.-led attack scene was quoted as saying that "when we parked our vehicle, when they passed us, they opened fire on our vehicle."

"It was a convoy of three American Humvees. All three Humvees were firing around."

Ahmed Najib, another victim, said that:

"One American was in the first vehicle, shouting to stop on the side of the road, and we stopped. The first vehicle did not fire on us, but the second opened fire on our car," Najib said, adding that his 2–year–old brother was grazed by a bullet on his cheek. "I saw them turning and firing in this direction, then turning and firing in that direction. I even saw a farmer shot by the Americans."

And this explains why American troops were keen to delete photos taken by Rahmat Gul, a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press news agency, who said he took photos of a four–wheel drive vehicle with four bodies that had been shot to death inside. They also seized a video taken by a freelancer working for AP Television News.

Gul said that the U.S. forces took his camera and deleted the photos, before he was later permitted by another soldier to take photos. But the first U.S. militaryman came back to stop the photographer again from taking photos.

A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemeri Bashary, said: "The ‘coalition’ says they have proof that gunmen opened fire. But I think more of the gunfire was from the [U.S.] side."

For how long will the U.S. forces continue practicing terror in the country they came to liberate and supposedly root out terrorism from?


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