The Real Story Of The Afghan Slaughter

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 probing delegation includes lawmakers Hamidzai Lali, Abdul Rahim Ayubi, Shakiba Hashimi, Syed Mohammad Akhund and Bismillah Afghanmal, all representing Kandahar province at the Wolesi Jirga and Abdul Latif Padram, a lawmaker from northern Badakhshan province, Mirbat Mangal, Khost province, Muhammad Sarwar Usmani, Farah 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."

Lali asked the Afghan government, the United Nations and the international community to ensure the perpetrators were punished in Afghanistan.

He expressed his anger that the US soldier, the prime suspect in the shooting, had been flown out of Afghanistan to Kuwait."

Military sticks to it's usual "lone gunman" bullshit

"The official line for the atrocity carried out in Kandahar has now been clearly established: a US soldier went off base alone in the night and proceeded to kill 16 civilians in a nearby village before setting fire to the bodies. Condemned as “intentional murderers” by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the US government has announced the obligatory “rapid and thorough” investigation. Tensions were already inflamed over the burning of the Quran by American soldiers, and following on from the revelation of “kill teams” collecting body parts as “trophies” and the leaked footage of troops urinating on dead Afghans, there is much concern that the latest atrocity will escalate tensions and stretch even thinner an already fragile relationship between the occupying US Army and the local population.

The latest line from the US government on the killings has been to discuss at length the mental state of the gunman. Initially, he was described as being possibly “deranged” at the time of the shootings; then, it was stated that he had suffered a “mental breakdown”, yet another soldier from Fort Lewis-McChord (described by the military newspaper Stars and Stripes as “the most troubled base in the military”) to have buckled under the strain of warfare and gone on a killing spree (a considerably more common trait for US soldiers than their NATO allies).

It’s certainly plausible: on his fourth tour and allegedly undergoing marital problems, it doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to accept that this extreme outburst of violence may have been the result of insurmountable psychological pressures. Additional reports have since emerged pointing to a “traumatic brain injury”, although since this alleged injury he has had at least two health checks, including a mental health screening as part of his sniper training back in 2008, so the role this may have played in the killings is unclear.

So far, nothing seems out of the ordinary with this narrative – until you include the eyewitnesses."