The WikiLeaks Dynamic Moves To Afghanistan

Image by DVIDSHUB via Flickr

Social media continues to out the carnage and brutality of war, forcing us all to answer hard questions of morality and efficacy. First it was a devastating helicopter attack in Iraq, which killed two Reuters employees and wounded children. And now it is a special forces attack in Afghanistan which wiped out a family, including three women (two of whom were pregnant).

There is no video of the Afghanistan attack (yet). But HuffPo’s Dan Froomkin, who has been all over these two stories, is drawing attention to a video in which the Afghani scholar whose family was killed details what happened and calls on President Obama to reconsider his Afghanistan policy. Here’s Froomkin:

American soldiers initially tried to cover up the killings, going so far as actually digging their bullets out of the bodies of the three women they had shot — two of whom were seven-months pregnant.

NATO headquarters, led by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then joined the cover-up and repeatedly tried to discredit Jerome Starkey, the intrepid British reporter who didn’t believe the military press releases and went to investigate what happened on his own.

Now, in a video shot for Brave New Films, Sayid Mohammad Mal, the assistant dean of the local university, has a message for President Obama.

“They say they have come to protect us, they have come for peace and providing security,” Mohammad says. (See the video, below.) “But on the contrary, they are killing us and we are awaiting our deaths….

“I tell Mr. Obama that you fight for security on this planet, but your people came and mass-murdered government people in blood in Khataba, Gardez District.

“You be the judge yourself, Mr. Obama, the president of the United States, whether you sent them to bring peace or mass-murder government people? Including women, men, government employees and even pregnant women.? I let Mr. Obama judge this.”…

[snip]…Obama has remained silent on the matter. He’s also not commented on the recent rash of civilian shootings, including four civilians in a passenger bus on April 10, and four more in a car earlier this week. USA Today reported just last week that deaths of Afghan civilians by NATO troops have more than doubled this year.

The video is powerful and revealing, as eyewitness testimony often is. It is also profoundly tragic, and has become the emotional core of of a movement to rethink Afghanistan.

Videos like this and the WikiLeaks Iraq video help us understand what is really happening on the ground in war zones, and the impact war is having on civilian lives. You can only imagine how Americans would feel if their families were dying in this way.