Massacre mongering

NY Times Editorial:

...

President Obama has told aides to study the matter, and the administration is pressing Mr. Karzai not to return General Dostum to power. Mr. Obama needs to order a full investigation into the massacre. The site must be guarded and witnesses protected.

Some current American officials say there are no grounds for the United States to investigate because only foreigners were involved and the alleged events occurred in another country. But human rights activists say the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions provide ample basis. They say American forces accepted the surrender of prisoners jointly with General Dostum. A NATO base was near the grave site.

There is more at stake than just the history books. Out of desperation or fear, many Afghans have again thrown their lot in with the Taliban. There is no chance of getting them to switch sides if they fear being massacred. If there is any hope of salvaging the war, American forces must persuade all Afghans that they and the Afghan government are truly committed to justice.

There are things the Times Editorial Board should look at before they jump into this fray. This so called massacre occurred after a large group of Taliban had feigned a surrender and then started a massacre of their own at Qala-i-Janghi where they murdered among others Mike Spann the first American to die in the war. It took days to get back control of the fortress and many of Dostum's troops were killed in the process. This bad faith surrender was enough to make any commander wary of taking future surrenders by the Taliban. I am sure that is one reason why those captured the next time were put into the shipping containers.

The suggestion that US forces accepted the surrender of the Taliban does not even pass the giggle test. The only US forces in Afghanistan at the time were special forces troops who had been used to call in the air support for campaign against the Taliban. Some of their commanders had come into the country around the time of the surrender, but to suggest that they in anyway were responsible for accepting the surrender of the Taliban is laughable. At best they were in the background. Most of them were still trying to deal with the results of the first fake surrender where they were trying to help the NA put down the ambush at Qala-i-Janghi.

I again recommend Doug Stanton's Horse Soldiers and specifically his chapter entitled "Ambush." It gives more perspective on these events even if it does not describe what happened with the final capture of the Taliban at Konduz. One reason it does not cover that episode is that the US forces were not involved in any meaningful way.