The most notable 'development' in this terrible event is the absence of ANY mention of conflicting news reports from the Afghan Parliamentary investigation and President Karzai in the mainstream US media that indicate up to 20 US Troops were involved in the cold-blooded murder. This is one of the biggest Red Flags to me of a concerted cover-up and extremely tight Military-coordinated 'message management' imposed on the US media -- no doubt rationalized where necessary to 'protect' the reputation of the Pentagon & overseas forces, to help defend the war's 'mission' from unecessary & damaging criticism by the US public, and to minimize blowback PR fallout that might harm Obama's re-election chances.
But there are some foreign news services such as in Germany, India and Russia Today as well as Press TV, for instance, that are reporting on the controversial alternative narrative -- as well as a few other alternative internet-based blogs and channels. Though details are still very limited. I guess that goes to show how regulated news reportage is in Afghanistan.
I find it very bizarre that some reports claim 3 seperate villages were attacked instead of 2.
This story is faintly reminescent of the conflicting narratives and official lies over the supposed Bin Laden murder-hit mission.
I can only surmise that if this was a planned massacre, it was as reprisal for a recent bombing and perhaps to provoke and escalate armed resistance, to get Afghans who are currently fence-sitters to become radicalized and active so the US/NATO troops have more productive targets to wage their so-called counter-terrorist war against.
And, probably, because the Pentagon felt they had such tight control of information 'message' they could pawn-off the attack on a lone-shooter who 'snapped' under battlefield stress.
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http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/0 ... ort-99591/US cover up of the Afghan massacre unravels as probe finds two groups of US Soldiers carried out executions of 16 civilians, allegedly with full air support.
The US corporate media continues to insist that only one soldier carried out the brutal Afghan massacre which left 16 civilians, mostly woman and children, dead in their homes.
In Afghanistan another version of the story is developing that the corporate media fails to even acknowledge as Afghanistan President Karzai accuses the US government of covering up the truth about the executions.
President Karzai, Afghanistan Parliament members, investigators and local witnesses have a compiled a mountain of corroborating evidence that points to a clear cover up of the massacre by the US government.
Top officials in Afghanistan say the assassinations were premeditated executions carried out by death squads, who were flown in by helicopter and given air support during the mass murder and the death squads conducted the civilian slaughter in retaliation for attacks on US troops.
The killings have been found to have been conducted nearly simultaneously at two separate locations which cast major doubts the US narrative that a single gunman carried out the atrocities.
Further adding to the credibility of the Afghan narrative is these killings were conducted in less than a one hour time period during which time two Afghan woman were raped before they were murdered execution style.
While the people of Afghanistan have welcomed the US military in their country since 2001 they are demanding the US government end the cover up immediately and bring the perpetrators to justice.
They have gone on to warn that if that doesn’t happen, they will declare the United States military an occupying force like they did during the Russia invasion and that didn’t turn out to well for the Russians.
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On March 11, a group of US soldiers went from house to house in three villages in Kandahar’s Panjwaii district and killed at least 16 people, mostly women and children.
As the Morning Star in the UK reports on President Karzai blasting the US over what is a clear cover up of the massacre.
Karzai backs claim of US massacre cover-up
Afghan President Hamid Karzai today backed claims that more than one person had conducted the massacre of 16 civilians which US forces have blamed on a single soldier.
At a meeting with relatives of the nine children, four men and three women who were slain Mr Karzai said villagers’ accounts of the atrocity were “widely different from the scenario depicted by US military officials.
The president pointed to a villager at the meeting and said: “In his family people were killed in four rooms and then they were brought together in one room and set on fire. That one man cannot do.”
He also blasted the US for refusing to share information from its investigation into the outrage, which was conducted in two separate villages.
A government delegation sent to Kandahar to investigate had “not received the expected co-operation of the United States,” he said, adding that he would raise the issue with the occupying army “very loudly.”
Back at the presidential palace in Kabul Mr Karzai said the ever-escalating civilian death toll by Nato occupiers was intolerable and repeated calls made a day earlier for total withdrawal from rural areas.
“This has been going on for too long,” he said. “You have heard me before. It is the end of the rope here. This form of activity, this behaviour cannot be tolerated. It is past, past, past the time.”
[...]
Source: Morning Star
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In typical fashion the US media has entered into damage control mode.
The New York Times went on to report that Karzai has lashed out at the US government for failing to cooperate with the panel he assigned to investigate the incident.
The article conveniently leaves out any mention of Karzai’s accusation of a cover up or any mention that the executions were carried out by squads of US soldiers .
Instead, in typical doublespeak fashion used by the media to lie about something, the article uses a passive voice to described the incident “a shooting rampage attributed to an American soldier.”
Perhaps even more disgusting is the article links the phrase “a delegation he had sent to investigate the killings” to an article about militants attacking a memorial service for the victims.”
While the US media will not report on the atrocities and the war crimes being committed by the United States overseas we can still access reports from the overseas media as long as the internet remains uncensored.
Keeping information like this from the American public is really what the push for cybersecurity and online copyright censorship bills is all about.
The probe the New York Times fails to link to has found that 2 separate squads of up to 20 US soldiers conducted the door to door massacres in two different locations within about a one hour time frame.
Here is a report from Pajhwhok Afghan News
Up to 20 US troops executed Panjwai massacre: probe
KANDAHAR CITY (PAN): A parliamentary probe team on Thursday said up to 20 American troops were involved in Sunday’s killing of 16 civilians in southern Kandahar province.
[...]
The team spent two days in the province, interviewing the bereaved families, tribal elders, survivors and collecting evidences at the site in Panjwai district.
Hamizai Lali told Pajhwok Afghan News their investigation showed there were 15 to 20 American soldiers, who executed the brutal killings.
“We closely examined the site of the incident, talked to the families who lost their beloved ones, the injured people and tribal elders,” he said.
He added the attack lasted one hour involving two groups of American soldiers in the middle of the night on Sunday.
“The villages are one and a half kilometre from the American military base. We are convinced that one soldier cannot kill so many people in two villages within one hour at the same time, and the 16 civilians, most of them children and women, have been killed by the two groups.”
[...]
He said the people they met had warned if the responsible troops were not punished, they would launch a movement against Afghans who had agreed to foreign troops’ presence in Afghanistan under the first Bonn conference in 2001.
The lawmaker said the Wolesi Jirga would not sit silent until the killers were prosecuted in Afghanistan. “If the international community does not play its role in punishing the perpetrators, the Wolesi Jirga would declare foreign troops as occupying forces, like the Russians,” Lali warned.
[...]
Source: Pajhwhok Afghan News
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Press TV reports on the Afghan investigation finding two woman had been raped prior to being executed.
US forces raped two women in Kandahar carnage: Probe mission
The Afghan parliamentary mission investigating the recent massacre of 16 civilians by US forces in Afghanistan says two women were raped during the deadly incident, Press TV reports.
Two members of the fact-finding mission, Hamidzi Lali and Shakila Hashemi, told the general meeting of Afghanistan’s parliament on Saturday that the American troopers raped two Afghan women before starting the massacre.
They said between 15 to 20 US soldiers were involved in the carnage.
This is while Washington claims that the 38-year-old Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, who has just arrived in the US, was the only American military personnel responsible for the massacre.
Earlier on Friday, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai criticized the United States for not cooperating with the Afghan fact-finding team and said the killing of civilians by foreign forces in Afghanistan “has been going on for too long.”
On March 11, a group of US soldiers went from house to house in three villages in Kandahar’s Panjwaii district and gunned down Afghan civilians inside their homes, killing at least 16 people — mostly women and children — and injuring several others.
Source: Press TV
