Eyewitnesses Of Kunduz - "I took a piece of flesh with me home and I called it my son"

By Steve Hynd

In the last eight years, the Afghan people have experienced the equivalent of up to twenty 9/11s, over half of them inflicted by U.S. and allied forces. Recently, an airstrike in Kunduz province was the latest "mistake" in a war where commanders keep saying they're minimizing civilian casulaties and civilians keep dying horribly.

Today, the Guardian has an interview with 11 eyewitnesses to that senseless carnage of Afghan villagers who simply wanted some diesel fuel to help keep them warm through the winter. Read, as they say, the whole thing. But here's a sample:

"The villagers were fighting over the corpses. People were saying this is my brother, this is my cousin, and no one could identify anyone."

So the elders stepped in. They collected all the bodies they could and asked the people to tell them how many relatives each family had lost.

A queue formed. One by one the bereaved gave the names of missing brothers, cousins, sons and nephews, and each in turn received their quota of corpses. It didn't matter who was who, everyone was mangled beyond recognition anyway. All that mattered was that they had a body to bury and perform prayers upon.

"A man comes and says, 'I lost my brother and cousin', so we gave him two bodies," said Omar Khan. "Another says I lost five relatives, so we gave him five bodies to take home and bury. When we had run out of bodies we started giving them limbs, legs, arms, torsos." In the end only five families went away without anything. "Their sons are still missing."

...Jan Mohammad, an old man with a white beard and green eyes, said angrily: "I ran, I ran to find my son because nobody would give me a lift. I couldn't find him."

He dropped his head on his palm that was resting on the table, and started banging his head against his white mottled hand. When he raised his head his eyes were red and tears were rolling down his cheek: "I couldn't find my son, so I took a piece of flesh with me home and I called it my son. I told my wife we had him, but I didn't let his children or anyone see. We buried the flesh as it if was my son."

On 9/11 every year America honors its own dead, and that's right and proper. But is it possible that on 9/12 Americans might give a few moments to contemplate the enormity of suffering their zeal for blood vengeance has visited upon innocents and say "not in my name"?