Obama Orders Review of Alleged Slayings of Taliban During Bush Era vs. Horse Soldiers

Obama orders review of alleged slayings of Taliban in Bush era
CNN
Obama has ordered national security officials to look into allegations that the Bush administration resisted efforts to investigate a CIA-backed Afghan warlord over the killings of hundreds of Taliban prisoners in 2001.

“The indications that this had not been properly investigated just recently was brought to my attention,” Obama told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in an exclusive interview during the president’s visit to Ghana. The full interview will air 10 p.m. Monday, tonight.

“So what I’ve asked my national security team to do is to collect the facts for me that are known, and we’ll probably make a decision in terms of how to approach it once we have all of the facts gathered up,” Obama said.

The inquiry stems from the deaths of at least 1,000 Taliban prisoners who had surrendered to the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in late 2001.
The fighters were in the custody of troops led by Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a prominent Afghan warlord who has served as chief of staff of the country’s post-Taliban army.
Dostum, a former communist union boss and militia leader who fought against the U.S.-backed mujahedeen in the 1980s, is known for switching sides as Afghanistan’s political conflict has evolved. When the United States invaded Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, Dostum sided with the Americans and received military and CIA support to battle the Taliban.
At the time, the Boston, Massachusetts-based group Physicians for Human Rights said it found a mass grave in nearby Dasht-e Leili, where witnesses said the bodies of Taliban prisoners were buried. The finding prompted U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Afghanistan, to support an investigation into the allegations.

But The New York Times, citing government officials and human rights organizations, reported Friday that the Bush administration “repeatedly discouraged efforts to investigate the episode.”

When asked by CNN about whether Obama would support an investigation, the president replied, “I think that, you know, there are responsibilities that all nations have, even in war. And if it appears that our conduct in some way supported violations of laws of war, then I think that, you know, we have to know about that.”

If you have read Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan you will be outraged by the statement that Obama intends to investigate the actions of General Dostum in the death of 1,000 Taliban prisoners, while also investigating the Bush administrations unwillingness to press charges of some sort at the time.
You may not know, but Dostum is a colorful General in the Northern Alliance, working on various sides of various issues and often for himself, as warlords do. This event is with respect to the prison riot that erupted after the Taliban started to collapse in the fall of 2001. That is the prison riot where an American CIA agent was killed by the Taliban prisoners.
For background, a small team of US special forces and CIA agents went into Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, right after 9-11 and teamed with what was left of the northern alliance (Dostum and others) to take down the Taliban. They fought against the Taliban in some of the most unconventional ways – taking on Taliban Tanks while Dostum’s guys and CIA were on horse back, calling in JDAM GPS guided weapons from B52s built in the 60’s, using a satellite hand held radio. Special Forces, CIA, and the Northern Alliance did what the Russians had failed to do, take over Afghanistan. And they did it in months.
Franks and others had wanted to delay 6 months and deploy 50k-100k troops to do what these guys accomplished in a short time before winter came. Under the Franks plan thousands more would have died, on both sides.
The Horse Soldiers, as they were called, exhibited the best traits, true American spirit, working closely and respectfully with local leaders like Dostum to adapt to the regional realities. The book contrasts the success in Afghanistan to the difficulties in Iraq, where our policies were less integrated with regional politics and realities. Afghanistan and taught us that working with marginal characters like Dostum is a lesson in respecting others. Isn’t it Obama that keeps telling us to think about other people and their cultures? I suspect the Bush team understood that, and that’s why Bush did not investigate the deaths related to the prison riot in greater detail.
So the prison story goes a bit like this…
There are two types of Taliban, Afghan and non Afghan. When an Afghan Taliban gives up he pledges allegiance to the Northern Alliance, and won’t switch sides unless there is some other lost battle. The non Afghan Taliban will never surrender. So, Dostum beat the hell out of a key Taliban leader on the battle field. The Taliban surrendered. So Dostum had to take the radicalized non-Afghan Taliban and stick them in a prison (Because its easy to find a prision for 1,000 people in the middle of a bombed out country). The Afghan Taliban were all let go after pledging allegiance to Dostum. Well it appears, this surrender was actually a ploy of sorts. The non-afghan Taliban prisioners all kept their weapons (long story, read the book). And after some time staged an uprising to take over the prision. Dostum was not fully prepared. His troops shot their machine guns from the prison turrets and killed hundreds of prisioners, but they kept coming. The Taliban had no intention of surrendeirng. The fight lasted several days. Ultimately they had the last of the Taliban cornered in a lower level, pooring kerosene in to burn them out. When that did not work they redirected an irrigation system to flood them out. Something like 35, of more than 1,000 killed, were still alive and surrendered. One of those was that jerk John Walker Lynn.
This was a war. Dostum is a questionable character, but in a Jack Bauer kind of way. Hell Jack was probably there.
More importantly, if you listen to the guys who were in the book, you get a much better insight into what wars of the future might be like and how we need to work with local factions to achieve victory without putting 100k troops at risk. This is a dumb investigation. It works against the the lessons from the battle. Some things should just never be investigated. There is no way to judge the actions of someone in the battlefield 8 years after the fact. And for those that talk about civil rights, what about the rights of the 10,000 troops that would have died through a conventional American invasion?
I suspect there are other reasons for the investigation, as a matter of fact all the new investigations (Dostum, CIA, unwarranted this or that). If your poll numbers start going down, take on the the other guy (Bush) and start blaming him. Economy not doing well, can’t blame Bush its the Obama plan. But you can go after Bush about war Crimes.

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Wild Thing’s comment……
Obama has lost what little mind he has if he’s even thinking of a prosecution about this. Obama to stir up a “war crimes” is bad enough and WRONG, then add in that the surge he just ordered has just begun and our brave men are dying over there mostly because of his ROE not to shoot at the Taliban if one civilian could be hit. When we know the Taliban hide behind them, dress in Burqas and hide among children and in homes of civilians. He is also giving the Taliban a morale boost and some propganda support on top of that!
With declining poll numbers threatening his governmental take over of our country and all of it’s citizens lives, he props himself the only way he knows how, which is by attacking President Bush. And he chooses to villainize and stigmatize the one group of Americans he and Bill Ayers so jealously hate…our precious U.S. Military.
Obama doesn’t have a clue what war is, what our military go through, sacrifice, put up with, are in danger every second 24/7. Not a clue!!! This would fall under his BIGGEDT apology ever in the sickest way possible. Next Obama will be calling for NATIONAL Day of Mourning for fallen Taliban by U.S. Forces. And what the hell is wrong with killing the Taliban anyway!
Dostum may be a questionable character, but he, the CIA, and our awesome Special Ops guys did what had to be done. This investigation is nothing but cover for the Obama Admin.
The fall of the Taliban government in Kabul to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan was a fantastic achievement for our Special Forces, Bush /Cheney ( I still think Cheney had a lot to do with it in the background he is a take no prisoner kind of guy) and Rumsfeld.
The media was doing their propaganda machine on it and mostly only wanted to point out they still did not get Bin Laden.

* What you can do for your country