"Zey tried to escape, so we had to shoot zem. In ze back."

The BBQ Pit
1

Another nice stunt by democracy’s best friends, the heroic Northern Alliance - executing 600 prisoners of war and calling it a “prison riot”. Well, color me sceptical. German television showed guards on the walls of the fort firing into crowds of prisoners in the compound below. Looks more like a “massacre” to me, by the guys whose brutality and bloodshed paved the way for the Taliban in the first place. It also follows shortly after the bloody massacres in Mazar (hundreds of troops that had surrendered were killed) and Kunduz.

Is this is the best way to build a lasting peace in a country with ethnic groups that already hate each others guts? And no, America won’t escape responsibility by allowing surrogates to do the unspeakable (and politically unacceptable) dirty work while providing discreet encouragement and assistance. It will also win precious few friends in Pakistan and other neighboring countries.

May I remind you that international humanitarian law does not discriminate between Afghan and foreign forces? No? Well, may Amnesty International?

Don’t get me wrong, I have no sympathy for the Taliban. I know full well that they committed enough atrocities of their own. This is, however, irrelevant. Massacring prisoners is just plain wrong, and, in the long run, just plain stupid. If the aim is really to build a lasting peace, and “enduring freedom”, this isn’t the way.

2

If you wanna make an omelet, you gotta break a few eggs…

3

When cooking, yes.

When guarding POWs, no.

4

Actually, I was saying that more as a general “I won’t lose any sleep over it” kinda statement, indifference.

No, no one should ever go and indiscriminately shoot a few hundred defenseless people, who have never been proven guilty. But we weren’t there, so we can’t say whether circumstances dictated the response or not.

5

And what evidence do you have the the guards weren’t, in fact, shooting indiscriminately down at a bunch of rioting prisoners?

6

You got a link to the story??

7

I don’t, nor does anyone have anything that says they were.

8

Wait a minute…I see a flame war building here.

I am not trying to pick a fight, I am just saying that we don’t have all the facts, so we (being a bunch of armchair generals on message board) cannot pass judgement.

9

All the reports I have read indicate it was in fact a riot that got very out of hand. Note that Americans were killed and airstrikes were called in so we can safely say America did a great part of the killings. The reporters who were present all agree on that and I have heard NO reports otherwise. Unless you can prove otherwise, the premise is just not true.

The Northern Alliance are indeed quite barbaric but under pressure from Western allies has been very restrained and have refrained from lootings etc which they used to do. Life in Kabul is pretty much back to normal.

10

True. What irks me, however, is Donald Rumsfeld’s encouragement of killing “foreigners”, as if being a non-Afghan Muslim would be enough to brand you as a plane hijacker, suicide bomber or worse. It really smacks of racism.

Rumsfeldt went out and told the press that “my hope is that they will either be killed or taken prisoner” - it doesn’t appear to matter which. The Northern Alliance has said the the prisoners will be “tried” - it doesn’t take a genius to guess that they mean that the prisoners will be shot later, when things have quieted down a little (what are the chances of getting a fair trial in Afghanistan under the best circumstances?)

The guys who were killed may be brutal, dirty, fundamentalist guerillas, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that they’re all terrorists and deserve death, at least not without any evidence. Also, it’s beside the point. The nations of the world didn’t sign the Geneva convention (primarily) out of the kindness of their hearts, but because they realized that fighting a war by unethical means isn’t in anybody’s long term interests.

The recent massacres remind me of the time in 1982 when Sharon (then defence minister) allowed the Phalangists in Lebanon to “mop up foreign terrorists” among Palestinian refugees. The “terrorists” in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila were largely defenceless men, women and children, more than 1,000 of whom were massacred by the Phalangists while the Israelis sealed off escape routes and lit up the sky with flares, allowing the rampage to continue, day and night, for 40 hours. Done by proxy, but that hasn’t prevented it from casting a shadow over the Middle East peace process ever since.

11

Hypothetical question: If you have 600 POW’s, who have sworn to fight to the death they hate americans so, what do you do with them? You can’t let them roam free, you can’t imprison an entire army for life, and you can’t just execute them…What do you do?

I don’t mean that as a loaded question, I am just curious.

12

Why not ?

If they are all tried, found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment, I’m sure you could organise to build another prison for the 600 men… I mean it’s not as if you were talking about 100’s of 1000’s of POW’s
:wink:

13

Well, 600 maybe. But what about the few thousand other taliban army members?

14

A couple points here:

  1. Afgahnistan, and certainly neither the Taliban nor the Northern Alliance, are not signatories to the Geneva convention. These folks fight dirty and see nothing wrong with it.

  2. Afghan Taliban are, apparently, receiving amnesty and being allowed to switch sides or even opt out of fighting and go home. This may not be traditional in Afghanistan, but will likely contribute to a lasting peace, if lasting peace is, in fact, achieved.

  3. The prisoners in question were non-Afghan Taliban/Al-Qaeda which the Afghanis regard as foreign invaders. The Afghanis don’t care what happens to them, or else would like to kill the “foreign devils” because Afghanis very very clearly do not like outsiders telling them what to do or trying to run their country.

  4. I have not heard any dissenting news reports that indicate this was not a genuine riot using weapons smuggled into the compound.

After considering all of the above – I’m surprised any of these POW’s are still alive. I don’t view it as the Afghanis doing our “dirty work”, I view it as suppressing a riot among POW’s. Is the use of deadly force justified? I don’t know - but if the prisoners have guns and use them they have to expect the guards to fire back. The armed guards are not just for show.

15

Somebody want to tell me how these prisoners were able to smuggle machine guns and rocket launchers under their clothing.

Did a guard miss a training session???

16

I read on cnn.com that – get this – the Northern Alliance never bothered to check the prisoners for weapons. The reporter also said that the guards were incredibly casual about leaving their guns leaning against walls and chairs. Not the smartest way to guard POWs.

That being said, both Red Cross employees and reporters on the scene describe it as a riot. They have also reported that the remaining prisoners have vowed to not be taken alive. Given that all independent reports describe the situation in generally the same terms, I’m comfortable that this is not a “massacre”.

It’s certainly fine to oppose either the war or the conduct of the war, but hatching conspiracies doesn’t help anything.

17

No, but the United States is, and it shouldn’t encourage its allies (mercenaries?) to do so.

Media reports in the west have also tended to assume that any foreigners in Afghanistan must be supporters of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, but this is not necessarily so.

The first wave of foreigners arrived in Afghanistan to join the war against the Soviet Union - which, at the time, met with America’s approval.

After the war, many were unable to return to their home countries, or had married and decided to settle in Afghanistan. Many others, who came later, were supporters of the Taliban, though not necessarily of Bin Laden.

According to one analyst, the vast majority saw themselves as fulfilling a religious obligation to emigrate to the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” which, in their eyes, was the world’s only legitimate Islamic state.

Not that America doesn’t encourage racial hatred in Afghanistan - leaflets have been dropped telling Afghans that all their troubles are the foreigners’ fault. Nobody has conducted any polls about what ordinary Afghans, let alone Pakistanis, think.

Besides, it’s really not relevant to the question at hand, is it? Do you think America should encourage the Northern Alliance to slaughter POWs just because they are foreigners? If you do, do you think the compatriots of the slain Taliban will share your point of view? Why create martyrs when you don’t have to?

I think there is cause for just a little bit of scepticism here, considering what Rumsfeldt said, the track record of General Dostum, the fact that 600 prisoners where reported to have been able to arm themselves with rocket launchers and machine guns by overpowering the guards, and the fact that no international observers where allowed near. “Shot while trying to escape” is the oldest fib in the book.

18

Seems like we have judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one…and I’m not talking about the Northern Alliance.

19

I too, am not going to lose any sleep over this one. That’s 600 less fuckheads loose in this world.

I call it “a pretty good start”.

20

If this is a slaughter of unarmed prisoners, why is it taking two days to kill 600 people? There have been numerous press reports of the prisoners seizing weapons and firing on N. Alliance and coalition troops:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15785-2001Nov26.html

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-Afghanistan-Uprising.html

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/11/27/ret.prisoner.revolt/index.html

Many of the press reports include eyewitness accounts from journalists of the start of the riot.

If the prisoners took up arms after having surrendered, imho, they stop being prisoners and once again become combatants, albeit in a very very bad tactical position.