The mass grave at Dasht-i-Leili in Afghanistan, like Lady Macbeth's "damned spot" -- just won't go away. In fact, it is a spreading stain on the reputation of the United States' commitment to the standards of justice that go back at least to Nuremberg.
The damned spot, the site of a mass grave (since dug up) is getting increased media notice and three major newspapers today called for a thorough federal investigation -- after more than seven years of investigation and advocacy by Physicians for Human Rights. The papers are The New York Times, The Boston Globe and the The San Francisco Chronicle which called the story of the war crimes of Dasht-i-Leili, "Dirty Secrets."
There has been a small blizzard of major news stories since The New York Times published their dramatic months long investigation of a possible cover-up by the Bush administration on the front page on Saturday. As I rounded-up yesterday, the story blizzard has included the Associated Press, the BBC, Agence France Presse, and Democracy Now! Additionally, president Obama told CNN that he has directed his national security team to collect the facts so he can decide how best to proceed.
"There are responsibilities that all nations have, even in war. And if it appears that our conduct in some way supported violations of the laws of war, then I think that we have to know about that."
The Boston Globe declared:
A report in Saturday’s New York Times recounts how Bush administration officials used bureaucratic evasion to keep the FBI, the State Department, and the Defense Department from mounting a serious investigation of the incident. As early as January 2002, Physicians for Human Rights exhumed 15 bodies from a suspected mass grave near the place where the alleged mass murder occurred. After the human rights group won a freedom-of-information suit, in 2006, for documents that could show what US officials knew about the original massacre, there were signs that the mass grave had been tampered with.
It would be understandable if Obama were reluctant to become entangled in the sins and secrets of the Bush administration. But the decision of the CIA-funded warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum to have hundreds of enemy fighters suffocated in container trucks does lasting harm to the Karzai government, which lists him as military chief of staff, and to America’s reputation as a nation that respects the Geneva Conventions and the rule of law.
Obama says his national security team will be gathering facts on Dostum’s war crime and the Bush administration’s cover-up. The next step ought to be the sort of full-bore FBI investigation that some agents of the bureau originally wanted. Earlier refusals to investigate and punish war crimes in Afghanistan opened the way to a warlord-riddled Afghan government that is scorned and mistrusted by much of the population. Those refusals also set America on a path that led to the disasters of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the government-approved torturing of prisoners of war. Truth is the best antidote to the disfiguring disease of secrecy.
The New York Times added:
There can be no justification for the horrors or for the willingness of the United States and Afghanistan to look the other way.
President Obama has told aides to study the matter, and the administration is pressing Mr. Karzai not to return General Dostum to power. Mr. Obama needs to order a full investigation into the massacre. The site must be guarded and witnesses protected.
Some current American officials say there are no grounds for the United States to investigate because only foreigners were involved and the alleged events occurred in another country. But human rights activists say the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions provide ample basis. They say American forces accepted the surrender of prisoners jointly with General Dostum. A NATO base was near the grave site.
There is more at stake than just the history books. Out of desperation or fear, many Afghans have again thrown their lot in with the Taliban. There is no chance of getting them to switch sides if they fear being massacred. If there is any hope of salvaging the war, American forces must persuade all Afghans that they and the Afghan government are truly committed to justice.
Meanwhile, Obama's acknowledgment of the need to collect the facts was also written up today in USA Today and was the subject of a major piece on Radio Free Europe.
And finally, don't miss PHR's hair-raising ten minute video outlining their investigation of the mass grave at Dasht-e-Leili -- and what they think needs to be done about it: