Fw: UPDATE to... The "Anaconda" Embarrassment (TiM Bulletin 2002/3-2,Mar 14, 2002)

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg at tin.it>]

 FROM PHOENIX, ARIZONA

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 Here is an UPDATE to the latest TiM Bulletin:

 HIGHLIGHTS

 Afghanistan

 1a. More "Anaconda" Embarrassments: No Sleeping Bags for Mountain Duty

 Women and Children Killed by U.S. Bombs;

 Ex-spy chief: Al Qaida has U.S. prisoners



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 1a. More "Anaconda" Embarrassments: No Sleeping Bags for Mountain Duty

 More Women and Children Killed by U.S. Bombs; Ex-spy chief: Al Qaeda Has
 U.S. Prisoners

 WASHINGTON, Mar. 13 - The "Anaconda" embarrassments that we described in
 Item 1 of this TiM Bulletin were far from an exception in
 Afghanistan.  Here's, for example, an excerpt from a Mar. 10 Associated
 Press report, quoting comments made by some U.S. troops who had just
 returned from the battle zone:

 BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) -- Exhausted and muddy, hundreds of U.S. soldiers
 returned from an eight-day battle in the mountains Sunday as the military
 said the few remaining enemy forces were hunkering down in caves.  [.]

 The Chinooks flew in low in formation over the valley beside the base. With
 the helicopter blades still turning, visibly relieved soldiers carrying
 huge backpacks and heavy machine guns hopped out and walked slowly toward
 their comrades.
 U.S. troops arriving here said they had not expected to find so many
 Taliban and al-Qaida forces waiting for them when they moved into the
 rugged mountains of Paktia province on March 2.

 The soldiers were unprepared for the subfreezing temperatures at 10,000
 feet -- some said they hadn't even brought sleeping bags. They spoke of
 staying awake at night and sleeping by day when it was warmer.  There were
 cases of hypothermia, they said, and drinking water would freeze
 (emphasis added by TiM).

 Our defense budget has already soared to about $343 billion per year. But
 that was not enough for the "death merchants" Washington stooges, such as
 George Bush and Dick Cheney,

 Wasting no time for a chance to gouge the flag-waving public, the Bush
 administration has already marshaled huge increases in our nation's defense
 spending (an additional $59 billion in fiscal 2003 alone; $675 billion over
 the next 10 years - see the chart in the TiM Bulletin Bush League
 All-Stars (Feb 3, 2002).

 And now, we discover that our fighting men in the Afghanistan mountains
 were not even issued sleeping bags!  That's far worse than the $500 hammers
 that the Pentagon of the 1970s had reportedly purchased.  This is
 incompetence laced with criminal neglect.  How many troops did the Pentagon
 lose or injure because of it?

 It all goes to show us that the price of stupidity is infinite; that no
 amount of additional spending will protect this nation and our troops from
 incompetence of our leaders.  Nor the civilian population of the countries
 that Washington's New World Order juggernauts choose to target.

 As we were writing The "Anaconda" Embarrassment report, the news broke that
 our mighty warriors manage to kill some more innocent Afghan women and
children.

 Here an excerpt from a Mar. 13 Associated Press report:

 Women and children were among 14 people killed in a U.S. airstrike in
 eastern Afghanistan last week, military officials said. A wounded child
 survived and was reported in stable condition at a military hospital.

 U.S. officials believe the 15 people in the vehicle were linked in some way
 to the al-Qaida terror network, Central Command spokesman Lt. Col. Martin
 Compton said Tuesday.

 Their vehicle was attacked by two U.S. fighter jets on the morning of March
 6 in eastern Afghanistan, the command said.
 Officials at both the Pentagon and the Central Command, which is
 responsible for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, said Tuesday they
 still lacked key details about the incident. Officials said they did not
 know how many women and children were among the 14 killed, whether they
 were Afghans or the kind of vehicle attacked.

 The fighters attacked the vehicle after it left what Compton described as
 a compound known to be used by al-Qaida members.  The compound was in
 Paktia province near the border with Pakistan and close to the Afghan
village
 of Shikin, Compton said..

 Asked why the incident was not disclosed earlier, Compton said U.S.
 military officials needed time to piece together what happened before
 making the announcement.

 U.S. officials have said repeatedly during the five-month war that they
 take special precautions to minimize civilian casualties. Pentagon
 officials have said that is important to counter propaganda by al-Qaida
 and their Taliban allies that the U.S. war is targeting innocent Muslims.

 Sure thing. just as NATO "made sure" they did not target "innocent Serbs"
 in 1999, while destroying the country's civilian infrastructure, and
 killing more than 1,000 civilians, 79 of them children - the "collateral
 damage."

 Was the above incident an exception?  Hardly.  We've even killed our own
 allies assuming they were the Taliban or Al Qaeda.  On Feb. 21, for
 example, nearly one month after one such incident, the Secretary of Defense
 was forced to eat crow in public.  Here's an excerpt from a New York
 Times (Feb. 22) report:

 WASHINGTON, Feb. 21  Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that
 16 Afghan fighters killed by American troops north of Kandahar last month
 were not members of the Taliban or Al Qaeda. While he described the deaths
 as "unfortunate," he issued no apology and said there was no reason for
 disciplinary action.

 In describing the results of the official inquiry into the Special Forces
 mission, Mr. Rumsfeld said the United States alone generated the
 intelligence that pointed to two compounds in the Hazar Qadam Valley as
 enemy garrisons.

 Evidence has been mounting that the two raids, carried out overnight on
 Jan. 23, resulted in deaths and detainment of fighters loyal to the new
 interim Afghan government. Some officials had speculated that the United
 States might have been duped into mounting the attacks by false
 information from rival warlords.

 A number of questions remained unanswered today  officials said Mr.
 Rumsfeld himself asked for clarification on some points from the United
 States Central Command  and certain details contradicted reports from
 villagers in Hazar Qadam, including assertions that 21 people died in
 the raid.

 And then there were strikes against purely civilian targets, such as some
 residential neighborhoods in Kabul that were hit in late October. Here's
 an excerpt from an Oct. 29 Associated Press report:

 Errant Bombs Reportedly Kill Some 13 Afghan Civilians

 KABUL, Afghanistan (AP), Oct. 29 - American airstrikes meant to punish the
 Taliban spilled over Sunday (Oct. 28) into residential neighborhoods of the
 Afghan capital, killing 13 civilians, witnesses said. It was the second
 time in as many days that missiles have accidentally hit homes and killed
 residents.

 Later Sunday, U.S. jets were back over the skies of the beleaguered Afghan
 capital, and strong explosions could be heard in the direction of the main
 road from Kabul to the opposition-controlled Bagram air base (now in
 American hands - TiM Ed.).

 Weeping families buried their dead hours after the morning bombardment,
 apparently aimed at Taliban targets to the north and east of Kabul. "I
 have lost all my family. I am finished," said a sobbing woman in the Qali
 Hotair neighborhood on Kabul's northern edge.

 In Washington, Pentagon spokesmen had no immediate comment on the latest
 strikes and civilian casualties involved. It has stressed repeatedly that
 civilians are never deliberately targeted. [.]

 In Sunday morning's airstrikes, witnesses said 10 people were killed in the
 Qali Hotair area. An Associated Press reporter saw six bodies, four of them
 children. A wailing father hugged the dead body of his son, who looked
 barely 2. Bereaved women slapped themselves with grief.

 Three other people died near an eastern housing complex called Macroyan,
 witnesses said.

 In Kabul's Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital, a semiconscious 13-year-old named
 Jawad did not yet know that all eight other people in his family had
 been killed.

 "He asked me, 'How is my family?'" said a neighbor, Mohammed Razi, ushering
 a journalist out of the boy's hospital room. "I said, 'They are all OK.
 You were walking in your sleep, and you fell down the well by your house,
 and I rescued you.'" [.]

 The strikes that hit Kabul came only 12 hours after stray bombs landed
 Saturday evening behind the rebel military alliance's battle lines north
 of the capital. Areas behind Taliban lines were also reported hit.

 Eight or nine civilians were killed - most of them in alliance-held
 areas, according to witnesses."

 Once again, such "collateral damage" tragedies are reminiscent of the NATO
 bombing of Serbia in 1999.  America's most-decorated living soldier, Col.
 David Hackworth, summed up the basic military doctrine of the cowardly war
 criminals who run the New World Order armies as follows:

 "Bomb the civilians and the civilian structures until that country's
 military can't stand to watch it anymore." (see "Hackworth," Sep. 1999)

 And just think - such crimes against humanity are being perpetrated in our
 name and with our money.  But for the number of victims, what makes such
 state terrorism any better than the Al Qaeda kind?

 Speaking of Al Qaeda and their Afghan hosts, the Taliban, the UPI newswire
 reported that the enemy the Pentagon claimed to have defeated are actually
 holding some U.S. soldiers prisoner.  Here is an excerpt:

 Ex-spy chief: Al Qaida has U.S. prisoners

 By Anwar Iqbal, UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst

 Published 3/13/2002 6:13 PM

 WASHINGTON, March 13 (UPI) -- A former Pakistani spymaster with links to
 the Taliban claims that al Qaida has captured American prisoners in eastern
 Afghanistan, forcing U.S. troops to end the siege of their stronghold and
 withdraw.

 U.S. officials have denied the claim.

 Talking to United Press International from his home in Islamabad, Gen.
 Hamid Gul, the former chief of Pakistan's main spy agency Inter Services
 Intelligence, said the United States sent "some Americans to Shahikot,
 dressed as Afghans."

 Shahikot is the mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan where U.S. forces
 and their Afghan allies taking part in "Operation Anaconda" have been
 bombing and fighting several hundred al Qaida and Taliban fighters holed up
 in a series of cave complexes since March 1.

 According to Gul the Americans sent to infiltrate the mountain strongholds
 could speak the local language of Pashto, and some even had beards. "The
 idea was to slip through the Taliban defenses into the al Qaida hideouts in
 the mountains. But they were detected and captured."

 Gul said this forced the Americans to make a deal with al Qaida and Taliban
 fighters and withdraw their troops.  "The withdrawal of U.S. troops allowed
 most of the Taliban and al Qaida fighters to escape and melt away among the
 Pashtun tribesmen living in the area," said the Pakistani general.

 "I wonder what the Americans were trying to achieve with this
 Hollywood-style operation. Afghanistan is no Hollywood. It is a
 traditional tribal society where even a dog from another tribe is noticed
by
 everyone."

 Gul also claimed that not many Taliban or al Qaida fighters were killed in
 eastern Afghanistan as there was "no face-to-face fighting" and the
 "bombing is not very effective against those hiding in the caves."

 Commenting on the claim of U.S. prisoners, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria
 Clarke said: "We have no servicemen missing."

 "We have no information at all about any American being taken prisoner ...
 it is totally inaccurate," added a U.S. Central Command spokesman,
 Charles Portman.