a screaming

[Doug Millison]

"[...] As survivors and refugees, and their stories, have begun to trickle
into Pakistan, the scope of the civilian destruction the U.S. is creating
is only starting to become clear. [...] Independent witnesses have now
confirmed that in the northern village of Karam, between 100 and 200 people
-- mostly women, children, and old people -- were killed when bombers made
repeated passes and flattened the village during early evening prayers.
[...] In Jalalabad, the Sultanpur Mosque was hit by a bomb during prayers,
with 17 people caught inside. Neighbors rushed into the rubble to help pull
out the injured, but as the rescue effort got under way, another bomb fell,
killing at least 120 people. [...] A five-year-old child was killed while
sleeping in his family's home outside Kandahar when two bombs fell on a
munitions storage area half a mile away. The explosion threw shells and
rockets in all directions and one of those shells smashed through the
mud-brick wall of his bedroom, slicing open young Taj Muhammed's abdomen
and burning his six-year-old sister, Kambibi. Taj suffered for 12 hours at
a nearby hospital before he died. [...] On Oct. 11, a bomb aimed at the
Kabul airport went astray and hit Qala-e-Chaman, a village one mile away,
destroying several houses and killing a 12-year-old child. On the same
night, another missile hit a house near the Kabul customs building, killing
10 civilians. As of Oct. 12, the U.N. had independently reported at least
20 civilian deaths in Mazar-i-Sharif and 10 civilian deaths in Kandahar.
[...] The civilian death toll is probably in the thousands, and sure to
rise with two new developments. U.S. Air Force pilots may now fire "at
will" -- at anything they desire, without pre-authorization from
strategists peering at satellite and surveillance photos. In fact, there
are now regions of the country that have been designated "kill boxes,"
reminiscent of Vietnam's "free-fire zones" but without benefit of advance
warning to Afghanis. Kill boxes are patrolled night and day by low-flying
aircraft with the mission to shoot anything that moves within the area.
American planes are also now dropping cluster bombs, an anti-personnel
weapon that disperses small bomblets over a wide area -- essentially,
hundreds of flying landmines, slicing through people, cars, trucks, and
even certain types of buildings. About 8-12 percent of the brightly-colored
bomblets don't explode on impact, leaving behind attractive but deadly toys
for children to play with later. [...] "

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11782
Where the Bodies Are
Geov Parrish, WorkingForChange.com
October 23, 2001



Doug Millison - Writer/Editor/Web Editorial Consultant
millison at online-journalist.com
www.Online-Journalist.com