Pentagon Blows up Thousands of Homes in Afghanistan
Repeating the horrors of the Vietnam War
By Brian Becker
November 19, 2010 "ANSWER" -- Borrowing
a page from its infamous “pacification” effort in South Vietnam, where
peasant villages were napalmed and burned to the ground to “save them
from the communists,” the Obama-ordered surge in Afghanistan has been
secretly blowing up thousands of homes and leveling portions of the
Afghan countryside.
As tens of thousands of U.S. troops have surged
into southern Afghanistan, villagers have fled. Then the Petraeus-led
occupation forces have determined which homes will be destroyed.
“In Arghandab District, for instance, every one of
the 40 homes in the village of Khosrow was flattened by a salvo of 25
missiles, according to the district governor, Shah Muhammed Ahmadi, who
estimated that 120 to 130 houses had been demolished in his district,”
reported the New York Times, Nov. 16, 2010.
The Pentagon asserts that they must destroy the
homes because some of them may have explosive devices inside.
The Pentagon’s murderous rampage and terror
campaign 40 years ago against South Vietnamese villages, in areas that
were considered sympathetic to the resistance forces, used much of the
same kind of explanation. In fact, the New York Times in a throw back to
Vietnam quotes the Arghandab District Governor, who is working with the
occupation forces: “We had to destroy them to make them safe.”
That this tactic is part of a high-tech terror
campaign against Afghan villages and the people who inhabit them is
evident even by the descriptions and accounts of western media outlets
that are supporting the war.
Again, from the New York Times, Nov. 16, 2010, which describes
weapons as tools:
“American troops are using an impressive array of
tools not only to demolish homes, but also to eliminate tree lines where
insurgents could hide, blow up outbuildings, flatten agricultural
walls, and carve new “military roads,” because existing ones are so
heavily mined, according to journalists embedded in the area recently.
“One of the most fearsome tools is the Miclic, the
M58 Mine-Clearing Line Charge, a chain of explosives tied to a rocket,
which upon impact destroys everything in a swath 30 feet wide and 325
feet long. The Himars missile system, a pod of 13-foot rockets carrying
200-pound warheads, has also been used frequently for demolition work.
“Often, new military roads go right through farms
and compounds, cutting a route that will keep soldiers safe from
roadside bombs. In Zhare District alone, the 101st Airborne’s Second
Brigade has lost 30 soldiers since last June, mostly to such bombs.”
Activists at the organization Afghanistan Rights
Monitor described the destroyed homes. “These are all mud houses, quite
humble houses.”
When Gen. David Petraeus describes his
counter-insurgency strategy, he always puts in a few diplomatic words
about the need of surging troops to win the “hearts and minds” of the
people in Afghanistan’s poverty stricken villages. That is purely for
public consumption—a message echoed endlessly by the complicit
corporate-owned media and the politicians of both parties that serves as
a mask for the Pentagon’s campaign of systematic terror employed to
subdue an occupied people.
On Dec. 16, 2010, anti-war veterans and people of
conscience will stand up in a dramatic action in opposition to the
terror campaign waged from the White House and Pentagon. Join us in
Washington, D.C. on Dec. 16 and be part of history.
http://www.answercoalition.org
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26869.htm
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest: <mailto:[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post: <mailto:[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
