Facing widespread anti-US protests in Afghanistan and unprecedented pressure from the Karzai government, General Stanley McChrystal issued a carefully-worded but firm call for investigation into an incident in which 8 schoolboys were allegedly taken from their beds by a mysterious NATO unit arriving at their village at 3a.m., handcuffed, and shot.
McChrystal calls for "immediate joint investigation to reach an impartial and accurate determination of the events that occurred."
Congress and the Obama administration, ever so mindful of preventing any measure, such as the release of torture photos, which might "endanger US troops," now by its failure to back a strong investigation is doing exactly that, by allowing Afghan public opinion to run rampant against the US presence.
Jeff Kaye at FDL/The Seminal opines,
The news of a bloody, gangland-style execution of children by U.S. or U.S.-backed special operations unit, in a war led by a Special Operations general, should have members of Congress screaming hell, with hair on fire, to get that general back before a Congressional committee under oath, and find out what the hell is going on, and prosecute those responsible, up to and including those who ordered the mission.
Spence Ackerman notes of McChrystal's call for a joint US-Afghan review that,
Behind that offer of cooperation is a feeling of distrust among McChrystal’s command over getting railroaded by an unpopular government that is trying to demonstrate its populist credentials — particularly after a fraud-marred election returned President Hamid Karzai to power. Yet McChrystal has called the sensibilities of Afghans "strategically decisive" to the war, so there is little option for him besides a joint inquiry.
One of Ackerman's sources is Sayed Khalid, who led a protest in Kabul against the Kunar raid. Ackerman asked him how much of a sense he had of what happened on the ground. Khalid’s reply:
We have got repeated accounts from the local people and representatives confirming that the children were shot dead. I don’t think the Taliban are that much strong in propaganda to make officials and shura members say what the militants want.
Entirely missed by the media is the possible connection between the alleged executions in Ghazi and the deadly suicide blast at CIA headquarters at Forward Operating Base Chapman 3 days later. Although the boy-killings have been remarked upon by some commentators as a possibly over-exuberant, over-reaction to the CIA deaths, that timeline is exactly backwards. The Ghazi incident took place on December 26th. The blast which killed 8 important CIA operatives at Chapman was on December 30th.
With so much in the war depending on the cooperation of Afghan locals with US intelligence in order to distinguish Al Qaeda and hard-core Taliban from local, ideologically uncommitted insurgents, the significance of the CIA blast was perhaps lost by the media. But not by McChrystal.
NATO initially denied the presence of any foreign forces in the region at the time of the killings, but has since acknowledged that "non-military Americans," i.e., mercenaries, were operating in the area.
The theme of the student protests was one of clear promises to drop "pens" and "take guns" against NATO forces if justice was not served.
Reuters,
"The government must prevent such unilateral operations otherwise we will take guns instead of pens and fight against them (foreign forces)," students from the University of Nangahar's education faculty said in a statement.
Marching through the main street of Jalalabad, the students chanted "death to Obama" and "death to foreign forces", witnesses said.
What now for citizens?
The War Enablers, who voted to continue funding these wars on December 16,2009? ("Yea" is a vote for war funding.)
Contact Congress.
Peace of the Action:
We’ve marched, written, called and faxed but the wars continue. It is time for new creative strategies and bolder action. Peace of the Action will bring forward an historic escalation of Peace Activism like we have not seen in the United States in a very long time.
"...you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop." -- Mario Savio 1964
"What then must we do?" - The Year of Living Dangerously