Tag: Afghanistan

Illustration of the pain pathway in René Descartes’ David Petraeus’ Traite de l’homme (Treatise of Man) 1664 2011. The long fiber running from the foot to the cavity in Petraeus’ head is pulled by the heat and releases a fluid that makes the muscles contract, retracting the foot from the fire and into the salving buccal mucosa.

via Jason Ditz at antiwar.com

Reports that Gen. David Petraeus, the top US Commander in Afghanistan, accused parents in rural Kunar Province of burning their children simply to make the US “look bad” sparked considerable consternation, and what passes these days for an “explanation” from the military.

Petraeus’s insultingly awkward and racist evasion was made “awkwarder” when his spokesman clarified his meaning:

“Petraeus never said that children’s hands and feet were purposely burned by their families in order to create a civilian casualty event,” insisted spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, and here’s where the explanation falls off the rails again.

“Rather, he said that the injuries to the children appeared inconsistent with the types of munitions used and that the burns to their hands and feet may have been the result of discipline sometimes handed out to Afghan children. Regrettably this is customary among some Afghan fathers as a way of dealing with children who misbehave,” Smith continued.

That’s right, the Afghan government wasn’t mad that Petraeus said parents burned their kids to make him look bad, the Afghan government was mad because Petraeus said Afghan parents burn their kids all the time.

Boffo.  Simply boffo.

In March 2002 NATO launched Operation Anaconda in Paktia Province, Afghanistan, and most of the heavy fighting played out in the Zurmat District of that God-forsaken wasteland, where the Haqqani Network and other militias still continue to attack NATO outposts and each other and virtually every other living thing, and NATO adds its fair share to the carnage.

We now understand that the men killed were only trying to protect their families,” Brigadier General Eric Tremblay, spokesman for NATO-led forces, said in the statement. The three women were killed during the shooting, NATO said.

NATO had earlier said its troops had found the women already killed, bound and gagged, but later acknowledged that this was untrue. Troops who visited the scene had made the mistake after seeing the bodies bound in preparation for burial, it said.

There are a lot of orphans in Paktia Province.

Looking through DOD photos of soldiers on guard in Zabul Province, Afghanistan, I kept asking myself…

What are they guarding, in the middle of nowhere?

What are they guarding?

The Wakhan Valley is the Afghanistan of Afghanistan. It’s bleak on a scale where the rest of Afghanistan is lush.

Photo-credit: Bill Weir

But even here, somebody ties a big white bow in this child’s hair every day of the year, although that particular dress is only for special occasions.

Shawn Muhr’s father Dave Muhr and his sister, Erika Muhr-Burris

COON RAPIDS, Iowa – Dave Muhr took over the squat, yellow-brick auto repair shop on the eastern edge of this Carroll County village in 1982.

His youngest son, Shawn, was born two years later. Once the boy could walk, it seemed he’d set out to take over his dad’s business by fixing whatever he could – whether it was broken or not.

Spc. Shawn Muhr was killed by an IED in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, on January 29, 2011. He was married to Winifred Olchawa, and had a stepchild, Diven.

A surprising number of Afghan immigrants whom I encountered in the Central Valley in California (mostly around Stockton and Modesto) were born in Parvan Province, and for a while I had the impression that Parvan must be a very big province indeed, but it isn’t, and almost half the people in Parvan Province depend on money that their relatives who were lucky enough to get a job in the USA send home. Some of those men have been working as agricultural laborers in the almond groves of the Central Valley for 40 years, and sending almost every penny they earned back to their families in Parvan Province, where it’s very, very hard to earn a living.

I recropped and slightly enhanced these three photographs from a Flickr photostream signed “rybolov” (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rybolov/) as he very kindly allows under a creative commons licence, and IMHO they represent life in Afghanistan for most of the people who live there just about as directly as almost any of us are ever likely to see it.

Judging from the archaeological evidence, we can only conclude that Afghanistan was invaded by primitive “beer-tribes” from beyond the sea.

“It was 4 hours in the night when I heard a noise and some five or more bombs exploded. The bombs fell right on our house.”

“I was under the rubble themselves.  People pulled me out.  I was unconscious. They took me to the hospital in Tarin Kowt.  Ten days I stayed there when I went to Kandahar for more specialized care.”

“There they told me that almost all my relatives were killed.”

Jan Mohammed Sultan lost his wife, six of his nine sons, two of his three daughters, a host of grandchildren, nieces and nephews and in-laws as his sister.

“The government says that the dead were Taliban.”

“It is not allowed to show the faces of women. But my sons showed the relatives to government representatives to prove that the Taliban were not. Also, they let the children see.  

“Why you threw bombs on them?” they asked.

All quotes above were translated by Google from http://uruzgan-slachtoffers.bl…