FBI Whistleblower's Reports-Place Americans at Scene of Massacre-2000 Stuffed Into Metal Containers

[kpete]

FBI Whistleblower's Reports Place Americans at Scene of Massacre
by Frederick Clarkson

Tue Jul 21, 2009 at 06:53:44 PM PDT

Salon.com has a bombshell story just out ("Did US Forces Watch Afghan Massacre?") that builds on the recent New York Times exposé of how the Bush administration repeatedly thwarted war crimes investigations of the mass grave at Dasht-e-Leili. As many as 2,000 prisoners of war, who had surrendered to American and allied Afghan troops in 2001, were, according to the Times, stuffed into metal containers on flatbed trucks where most died of asphyxiation en route to Sheberghan prison. The bodies were allegedly dumped in a mass grave a few kilometers from the prison, which was discovered by Cambridge, MA Physicians for Human Rights which has been agitating ever since for a thorough investigation.



In April 2002, Physicians for Human Rights forensic experts dug a test trench as part of a preliminary investigation for the UN at the Dasht-e-Leili mass grave site near Sheberghan, Afghanistan, and exposed 15 bodies. (Physicians for Human Rights)

Salon's Mark Benjamin summarizes -- and then reproduces a three-page witness statement, a redacted copy of which is posted by Salon:

Allegations of a massacre near Dasht-e-Leili, Afghanistan, by Taliban forces soon after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan began to surface during U.S. law enforcement interviews with detainees at Guantánamo. Roughly 10 detainees described similar stories of the mass killing in late 2001 by asphyxiation in shipping containers. Some detainees also alleged that U.S. forces stood by but did nothing to stop the massacre, though the number and specificity of those claims remains unclear. The document reprinted below, heavily redacted, records an interview with one detainee who reported seeing a "big, tall, caucasian American." The Criminal Investigative Task Force, or "CITF," named below refers to an investigative task force drawing on such agencies as the FBI, CID and NCIS.

more:
http://www.salon.com/news/primary_sources/2009/07/22/mass_graves/
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/21/756045/-FBI-Whistleblowers-Reports-Place-Americans-at-Scene-of-Massacre

..............


"One big, tall Caucasian American"

A detainee who survived a massacre of Taliban prisoners is among those who claim there were American witnesses


By Mark Benjamin
Pages 1 2 3

Read more: Military, Taliban, Mark Benjamin, Primary sources

July 22, 2009 | Allegations of a massacre near Dasht-e-Leili, Afghanistan, by Taliban forces soon after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan began to surface during U.S. law enforcement interviews with detainees at Guantánamo. Roughly 10 detainees described similar stories of the mass killing in late 2001 by asphyxiation in shipping containers. Some detainees also alleged that U.S. forces stood by but did nothing to stop the massacre, though the number and specificity of those claims remains unclear. The document reprinted below, heavily redacted, records an interview with one detainee who reported seeing a "big, tall, caucasian American." The Criminal Investigative Task Force, or "CITF," named below refers to an investigative task force drawing on such agencies as the FBI, CID and NCIS.



http://www.salon.com/news/primary_sources/2009/07/22/mass_graves/

[laststeamtrain]

1. K & R - n/t.

[pleah]

2. K&R n/t

[annm4peace]

3. this was shown on GRIT TV on Free Speech channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdZlIEVtzN8

[City Lights]

4. K&R. nt

[lostnfound]

5. Excerpts of "The Convoy of Death" were played on DemocracyNow

several years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=4320785

Let's see.. on DemocracyNow in 2003 and 2004.

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/5/20/afghan_massacre_eyewitnesses_testify_that_us
http://www.democracynow.org/2003/5/26/afghan_massacre_the_convoy_of_death

[gimama]

6. just...damn. Bring 'em HOME, dammit.

thanks, again, Kpete & Mark Benjamin. But, DAMN. :-(