We were told to kill women and children! by #163425 ..... War Crimes Watch Debate Forum
Date: 3/29/2003 11:53:08 AM ( 21 y ago)
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URL: https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=451729
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According to a story reported in the Ithaca Journal, American soldiers were given orders to disregard civilian casualties in the 'clean up operation' against what was purported to be a Taliban stronghold during Operation Anaconda.To quote the story:
"We were told there were no friendly forces," said Guckenheimer, an assistant gunner with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum. "If there was anybody there, they were the enemy. We were told specifically that if there were women and children to kill them."
To see photos of the unreported (thousands) of civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan visit the Afghan War Photos page. This reminds one of the 3,000,000 deaths caused during the bombardments of the Vietnam war, and one of the 'lessons of Vietnam' was apparently to spread the myth of 'precision killing' and censor the media (remember the censorship of the Gulf War?) When the AlJezeera offices were bombed (the news agency responsible for photos of civilian casualities in Afghanistan), and the military then purchasing all civilian satellite photos of Afghanistan, and with censorship similar to that of the Gulf War put in place (the 'lesson of Vietnam'), the points made in this author's article on American military censorship policies seemed timely... Missing on the Home Front - Wartime Censorship and Postwar Ignorance
In an April interview with The Ithaca Journal at his family's Cayuga Heights
home, Guckenheimer, 22, shared his experiences during Operation Anaconda. He was
sent on March 6 in a company of more than 100 soldiers to participate in the
largest U.S.-led ground engagement in Eastern Afghanistan.
"We were told there were no friendly forces," said Guckenheimer, an
assistant gunner with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum. "If there
was anybody there, they were the enemy. We were told specifically that if there
were women and children to kill them."
Taliban al-Qaida soldiers had already been given about two weeks to surrender
when U.S. soldiers were ordered to demolish their last strongholds and finish
the operation, he said.
Guckenheimer said he loved learning about tanks and guns and watching battle
scenes on TV when he was young.
As a teen-ager, he said, his desire to prepare himself to confront the
challenges of war intensified despite his family's disapproval. After attending
Ithaca High School his freshman year, he transferred to a boarding school in
Bath, Maine.
His parents, Meredith Kusch and John Guckenheimer, attended Oberlin College in
Ohio and the University of California at Berkeley during the Vietnam era. They
used to joke that they would disown him if he ever joined the military, he said.
"They're just about the most passive people you could want," he said
with a smile. "I just ended up not being that way."
Guckenheimer said he believed his parents had been indoctrinated with a skewed
view of the Vietnam War that led them to undervalue war's place in defending the
United States. But he said he has noticed a shift in their outlook since Sept.
11.
John Guckenheimer agreed, to an extent, with his son's assessment.
"I think it was necessary for the U.S. to respond militarily to the events
of Sept. 11, but I don't feel completely comfortable with the way the war in
Afghanistan is being conducted," he said.
He thinks that the United States is settling into a long and entrenched war in
the region, and might repeat the mistakes the Russians made there.
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The Campaign to Impeach George W. Bush
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Afghan thumbs page two
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Afghan thumbs - page four
http://www.awitness.org/news/june_2002/american_soldier_civilian_casualities_...
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