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 are 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.

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

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.”

Karzai Lashes Out at NATO Over Deaths

[…]

The phone call between the two leaders seemed to go well, administration officials said. But hours later, after meeting with the families of the 16 Afghans killed this week in a shooting rampage attributed to an American soldier, Mr. Karzai lashed out again at the United States, saying he was at “the end of the rope” over the deaths of Afghan civilians at the hands of NATO forces. He reiterated his call to confine coalition forces to major bases and to speed up the handoff to Afghan troops. He also accused American officials of not cooperating with a delegation he had sent to investigate the killings in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province, in southern Afghanistan.

[…]

The Afghan leader’s comments were expected to intensify the sense of crisis that has begun to permeate the relationship between the United States and Afghanistan in recent weeks. The two allies appear to be increasingly at odds over basic elements of the strategy to fight the Taliban, and widespread Afghan resentment at the presence of foreign troops appears to be intensifying amid a series of American missteps — from Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters to soldiers burning Korans.

[…]

Source: New York Times

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

RT adds more:

Kandahar slaughter preplanned, executed by squad – Afghan top brass

The Afghan Army Chief of Staff says the slaughter of 16 civilians, including nine children, in Kandahar province was a premeditated assassination carried out by a number of servicemen …

Lt. General Sher Mohammad Karimi’s harsh condemnation of the March 11 mass murder flies in the face the version of events posited by the NATO-led security mission.

The Top command of the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) insists that the butchery was carried out by just one man – Staff Sgt. Robert Bales – who went on a killing spree for unknown reasons.

Lt. Gen. Karimi met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and relatives of the victims on Friday in Kabul.

Saying he had personally visited the villages where the slaughter took place, the General stressed he had repeatedly demanded to meet with the suspect Robert Bales but was turned down cold.

President Karzai has also announced that the conclusions of numerous commissions investigating the crime scenes show the murders was carried out by multiple assailants.

He further stressed the American investigation team refused to sufficiently co-operate with the Afghan side.

The Afghan parliamentary investigation team has reported that anywhere from 15 to 20 US troops could have taken part in the massacre.

The relatives of the victims told President Karzai that the counterinsurgency operation had received air support. They also claim the killers were brought in by military helicopters.

International affairs commentator Rick Rozoff told RT if one takes the methodical nature of the killings into account, “one person could hardly have perpetrated this crime.”

He said there is undoubtedly a clear distinction between so-called collateral damaged and targeted killings:

“This is a very deliberate action, and for the US to try to portray it as anything else is disingenuous,” Rozoff said.

“This killing on Sunday [March 11] is particularly egregious, particularly atrocious because it is a cold-blooded, calculated effort – evoking images of massacres like My Lai in Vietnam [in 1968],” Rick Rozoff concluded.

[…]

Source: RT

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

Stephen Lendemen writes more about this cover up and the long list of US war crimes:

Scoundrel Media Afghan Massacre Cover-Up

by Stephen Lendman

In all US war theaters, troops commit unspeakable atrocities. Trained to dehumanize enemies, their mission involves killing, destruction, and much more.

Local treasures are looted. Women are raped. Civilians are treated like combatants. Children are indiscriminately harmed like adults. Prisoners are tortured. Mutilations are common. Crimes of war and against humanity are institutionalized. It’s all in a day’s work like taking out the garbage.

Viciousness defines US wars. No crime’s too great to commit. Human lives are valueless. Only winning matters, then on to the next war. Lies, deception, unspeakable brutality, and cover-up define them.

Scoundrel media are directly complicit, including claiming one soldier murdered 16 Afgans on March 11. Credible evidence suggests up to 20 involved. Claiming a lone gunman defiles the atrocity’s affect on living family members, friends, and other Afghans victimized by numerous similar incidents. More below.

During America’s Iraq invasion and occupation, reports suggested soldiers got amphetamines and pornographic materials to incite ravaging women. More than US troops were involved. According to Ernesto Cienfuegos, La Voz de Aztlan editor-in-chief:

The American people and the rest of the world are generally not aware that the U.S. government has hired literally thousands of (mercenaries), many with notorious war crime records.

A significant number of these are rapists, sodomites and murderers from South African and Serbia. These vile individuals work for (the so called) Security Service under contract to the Pentagon. Most….are cronies of both Bush and Cheney and are owned by nefarious (individuals with) ties to the Burbank, California pornography industry.

Among the Afrikaner war criminals hired by the Pentagon are Frans Strydom and Deon Gouws, both with despicable atrocity records against South Africa Blacks that sought independence. There are an estimated 1,500 South Africans employed by ―Security Service (personnel) in Iraq, according to the South African foreign ministry.

Many used their atrocities backgrounds during Apartheid to bolster their credentials to the Pentagon. Many other hired mercenaries are Serbians, known rapists of Muslim-Croatian women….The Military Police, including Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, said cells where sexual torture took place were dominated by these mercenaries in collusion with the CIA and Military Intelligence.

Film crews run mostly by mercenaries actually instigated rapes and sodomy of the POWs inside the Abu Ghraib prison. The mercenaries had the full cooperation of the CIA and Military Intelligence and perverted elements inside Pentagon and the U.S. government. In addition, these mercenaries trolled the Iraqi countryside for Iraqi women they could abduct, rape and film.

Afghanistan reflects similar abuses. Cover-up prevents information coming out and prosecutions. Rarely are US forces held accountable. Commanders routinely get off scot-free, including ones ordering troops to kill all Iraqi and Afghan men on sight, combatants and civilians.

According to US Major General James Mattis, “It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be up-front with you. I like brawling.” Murdered civilians are repulsively called “collateral damage.” Mattis isn’t alone. Commanders and enlisted troops are involved.

Afghan combatant bodies are burned in violation of international law and US military code. Culpable troops aren’t punished. Civilians are killed for sport. At times, their fingers and other body parts are kept as trophies. Photos are taken as souveniers. Similar abuses are common in all US wars. Lies and cover-up suppress them.

“Kill teams” are deployed. Indiscriminate murder, sadism, and other atrocities are committed, most often with impunity. It’s done for sport and lust. Celebratory high-fives follow.

Rarely ever are soldiers like Jeremy Morlock punished. Others guilty like him get off scot-free, especially commanders. His 5th Stryker Brigade committed countless murders and atrocities. Cover-up involved staging incidents to look like defensive actions against attacks. Pentagon apologies ring hollow. Soldiers are trained to kill reflexively.

America’s Tortured Past

US history reflects atrocities. Native Americans were slaughtered, starved, neglected, exposed to deadly pathogens, and virtually exterminated.

In the antebellum South, slaves were tortured by whipping, painful restraints, prolonged isolation in sealed sheds with choking tobacco smoke, and other punishments. Theodore Roosevelt defended water torture (today’s waterboarding) called the “water cure” to extract confessions from Filipinos because “nobody was seriously damaged.”

In 1995, Bill Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 39 (PDD-39). It authorized extraordinary rendition for interrogations and torture.

In his book, War Without Mercy John Dower documented Pacific War atrocities by both sides. American forces “mutilat(ed) Japanese war dead for souvenirs, attack(ed) and (sank) hospital ships, sho(t) sailers who had abandoned ship and pilots who had bailed out, kill(ed) wounded soldiers on the battlefield, and tortur(ed) and execut(ed) prisoners.”

Atrocities included torturing and buying combatants alive. In the Korean War, mass indiscriminate killings of civilians were commonplace. Entire towns and villages were incinerated and their populations exterminated, including women and children.

Combatants and civilians were buried alive, burned, drowned, shot, stabbed, or beaten to death. Women had their breasts, legs, and arms cut off. Others were beheaded. Thousands of civilians were brutally tortured. One family of six was hanged upside down from a tree and burned alive. Another civilian was skinned alive, then burned to death.

Others were murdered with bats, spears, stones, sticks, clubs, flails, and pickaxes. Women were assaulted and raped. US forces massacred tens of thousands of civilians systematically, ruthlessly, and brutally. Some were disemboweled alive.

Vietnam was similar. Atrocities were widespread and commonplace. They included massacres, rapes, torture, mutilations, wanton mass destruction, use of chemical and biological weapons, and much more.

US forces got carte blanche to carpet bomb, incinerate entire villages, burn people alive, fire freely on civilians, murder wounded prisoners, beat them to death, throw them out of helicopters, torture sadistically, gang rape young girls, and commit every other imaginable atrocity to people General William Westmoreland called “worthless termites.”

Operation Phoenix death squads murdered thousands of Vietnamese. Some were alleged high-value targets, others noncombatant civilians. Foreign Service officer Wayne Cooper called the operation a “disreputable, CIA-inspired effort, often deplored as a bloody-handed assassination program (and) a failure.” Before it ended, 80,000 or more died.

Throughout the Iraq and Afghan wars, Special Forces death squads murdered thousands of targeted subjects and others indiscriminately. Daily killing field slaughter continues.

Bush authorized them. So did Obama. Both approved global covert operations. Obama OK’d killing US civilians. Sociologist Emile Durkheim once said, “The immorality of war depends entirely on the leaders who willed it.”

Nuremberg prosecutor Justice Robert Jackson denounced “men who possess themselves of great power and make deliberative and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave no home in the world untouched.”

International and US laws are clear and unequivocal. So are US military standards, including Army Field Manual 27-10. It incorporates Nuremberg and Law of Land Warfare (1956) principles.

It prohibits any military or civilian personnel to the highest levels from committing crimes under international and US laws. It also requires disobeying illegal orders.

Nonetheless, mass murder, torture, and other atrocities are committed like sport virtually daily. They define all US wars.

Richard Nixon once told Henry Kissinger, “We’re gonna level that goddam country. We’re gonna hit ‘em, bomb the livin’ bejusus out of ‘em.” Kissinger approved, saying, “Mr. President, I will enthusiastically support that, and I think it’s the right thing to do.” After all they’re just “worthless termites.”

Major Media Scoundrels: Guilt by Complicity

Compared to America’s bloodstained history, killing 16 Afghan civilians on March 11 was a drop in the ocean. Yet it was too much for major media scoundrels to provide truth and full disclosure.

Various reports, including Russia Today, said up to 20 US troops were involved in the incident, not a lone sergeant. He’s been hung out to dry to absolve others, including commanders who deploy them on missions, as well as top US military and civilian officials who approve America waging lawless wars of aggression.

An Afghan parliamentary investigation team contradicts Pentagon lies. Two days were spent collecting eyewitness accounts, including from survivors. Investigator Hamizai Lali told Afghan News:

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 have been killed by the two groups.

He believes up to 20 soldiers were involved. Half their victims were children aged two through 12. He appealed for international help to disclose the truth and assure those responsible are punished in Afghan, not US, courts.

Investigatory team head Sayed Ishaq Gillani said witnesses reported seeing helicopters dropping chaff during the attack to hide targets from ground attacks.

Villagers said victims offered no resistance. Nonetheless, they were gunned down in cold-blood. Night raids like this are commonplace. Despite public outrage, US commanders said they’ll continue. Innocent civilians are murdered repeatedly.

One surviving family member said:

I don’t want any compensation. I don’t want money. I don’t want a trip to Mecca. I don’t want a house. I want nothing. But what I absolutely want is the punishment of the Americans. This is my demand, my demand, my demand and my demand.

His brother died in the slaughter. The Pentagon named one gunman, now identified as Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. He was whisked out of Afghanistan, flown to Kwait, then to army prison at Fort Leavenworth, KS Friday.

Afghan army head General Sher Mohammad Karimi said US military officials “ignored and blocked” his attempt to investigate the incident. They also prevented Afghan officials from interrogating Bales.

In lockstep, US media scoundrels regurgitated Pentagon lies. Outrageously, the Washington Post quoted Captain Chris Alexander, Bales’ platoon commander, saying he’s “hands down, one of the best soldiers I ever worked with.”

In fact, he like other death squad members are cold-blooded killers. The Post also quoted Bales commenting on his participation in a 2007 Iraq battle, saying:

We discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants and then afterward we ended up helping the people that three or four hours before were trying to kill us. I think that’s the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy, someone who puts his family in harm’s way like that.

The quote’s so deplorable it sounds like someone made it up, but Post scoundrels made it look legitimate to portray Bales more as hero than cold-blooded killer.

A Pentagon statement said Bales received over a dozen medals and badges for combat service and good conduct. His wife Karilyn was quoted, saying “all of the work Bob has done and all the sacrifices he has made for his love of his country, family and friends.”

The Post suppressed evidence that up to 20 US soldiers were involved, or that numerous other atrocities like this occur regularly.

The New York Times was just as shameless. Cover-up and denial suppressed vital truths. Bales alone was mentioned. The article said he was injured twice in previous deployments and cited his lawyer calling his military record exemplary.

How much more blood has he on his hands? For sure plenty, but this was the first time he got caught. Moreover, The Times, like the Post, characterizes him as heroic, not villainous.

In medium security confinement, he’s yet to be charged a week after the incident. The Times said Pentagon officials found no clues explaining what “motivated the killings.”

They lied, saying:

When it all comes out, it will be a combination of stress, alcohol and domestic issues. He just snapped.

Bales’ lawyer, John Henry Browne, dismissed allegations of family problems and drinking. He said his family hoped he’d avoid this deployment after three previous ones. He also called him “mild-mannered.”

In lockstep with other US media scoundrels, The Times article suppressed what readers most deserve to know – the full truth about death squad killings as policy, and the many thousands of noncombatant Afghans, Iraqis, and earlier victims affected.

Blaming this incident on a lone gunman suppresses the gravity of what goes on routinely and the responsibility up the chain of command to Joint Chief heads, Defense Secretary Panetta, and Obama.

It also defiles the pain and suffering of surviving family members, relatives, friends, and others victimized by similar incidents.

Nothing compensates for their loss. Afghans want US occupiers out of their country immediately. After over a decade of daily atrocities, they want what no one should endure finally ended.

It’s their country, their lives, and their right. It’s true everywhere America shows up. Death, destruction, and vicious occupation follows. Iraqis and Libyans feel the same way. Can you blame them?

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected]

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Here is another article about previous massacres.

‘Death Squad’: Full horror emerges of how rogue U.S. brigade murdered and mutilated innocent Afghan civilians – and kept their body parts as trophies

• Rolling Stone reveals how U.S. troops murdered Afghan civilians
• Soldiers cut off 15-year-old boy’s finger and kept it as trophy
• Video captures U.S. troops cheering as airstrike kills two Afghan civilians
• New pictures show dead Afghan man’s head on a stick
• Soldier stabbed the body of a dead Afghan civilian
• Military tried to pull pictures out of circulation to avoid another Abu Ghraib
• Army says photos are ‘in striking contrast’ to its standards and values

An investigation by Rolling Stone magazine details how senior officers failed to stop troops killing Afghans and keeping their body parts as trophies.

In one horrific episode, the magazine claims troops threw a grenade at an innocent Afghan boy before chopping off his finger and later using it as ‘gambling chip’ in a game of cards.

The disturbing detail included in the dossier accuses American troops of a new level of depravity and is likely to be a public relations disaster for the military.

The U.S. Army says the photos of American soldiers posing with dead Afghans are ‘in striking contrast’ to its standards and values – apologizing for any distress caused by the images.

The investigation by Rolling Stone also revealed how:

• Troops shot dead civilians and tried to cover their tracks;
• U.S. soldiers hacked off part of a dead man’s skull;
• Soldiers cheered as they filmed a U.S. airstrike blowing up two Afghan civilians;
• A video showed two Afghans on a motorcycle being gunned down.

[…]

Read more: The Daily Mail