- Two years ago, October 7th, 2001, when Afghans bled to
death on somebody else's order and for some body else's profits. Every
poor Afghan killed was one more collateral damage. Each drop of their precious
blood added to the bloodstained land, where death has become a daily occurrence.
-
- Every bomb added to one more orphan to the long list
of wasted lives. Every warhead turned one more wife to a begging widow
on Afghan streets. Every daisy-cutter [15,000-lb. bomb] incinerated a father
from his family. Every bullet from the Americans' war machine made one
more mother sonless. And, yes, every impact and loud blast made children
distant and near scream for help, a precious commodity, nowhere to be found.
-
- Lucky were those children who had parents and relatives
to comfort them. But, this was not the case for the thousands of orphans
scared, painfully imagining that each bomb would be adding one more orphan
to their ranks. The thousands of orphans scattered all over Kabul and other
Afghan cities, inhabiting cemeteries and uninhabitable structures had no
one to scream to. And, there was no one to share these orphans' pain. Yes,
these beleaguered souls had no one to share their fear with except with
their creator to whom they had their heads raised looking at the dark sky
of the night, waiting for the miracle to happen. The miracle they wished
for was both hopes of quick death and speedy arrival of that so feared
inevitable demise.
-
- Yes, the death the thousands of orphans of Kabul, Kandahar,
Herat, and Jala-Abad and of other areas wished for came true, engulfing
their final breath. The scattered body parts of these poor orphans covering
cemeteries and abandoned structures had either become food for stray dogs
or were covered by windblown dust. In life, they were forgotten and in
death disrespected. In fact, the hundreds that did not become statistics
were not missed by anyone, and there was no one to mourn their loss except
their creator awaiting them on the other side.
-
- Mothers, wives and sisters ran with their surviving children,
hoping to find sanctuary in Pakistan, only to die from freezing weather
before even reaching Pakistani border. Yet, those that reached the border
with Pakistan became victims to the inhumanity of the Pakistani government.
Thousands were not allowed to either enter Pakistan or Iran, only to be
stranded in barren and dusty deserts and mountainous terrain. Thousands
died from hunger, while those who were able to enter Pakistan, ended up
dying in the infamous Jalozai Camp in Pakistan near the Afghan border.
Every night, relatives would wake up soaked in rainwater, only to find
their family members dead to the cold of the night or disease. Many thousands
did not even possess burial cloths for their dead, forced to rap the dead
children and adult alike in plastic sheets. On the one hand, they had to
mourn their losses, and on the other hand, they had to endure the indignity
their dead relatives faced in death.
-
- The women and children, who escaped the US bombing, wondered
if their husbands and fathers survived American daisy-cutters and bunker-busters
bombs and whether the thousands of POWs summarily executed by the US and
her allies included their loved ones. These concerns and worries landed
on deaf ears. There were no answers and there are no answers today.
-
- Should we call the surviving women and children lucky
who undoubtedly suffered the anguish of slow death from hunger and disease,
while the thousands not so lucky woke up to death by bombs landing on their
homes. A handful that survived bombed houses and villages pulled out their
dead family members a piece at a time. Fortunate were those people who
could find pieces of their relatives while children soaked in their parents'
blood were too disillusioned and terrified to mutter a word.
-
- Villages that were completely wiped out by US bombs are
cemeteries today. Where used to be villages full of living people became
shrines to the thousands massacred by US bombs. The few that survived,
return occasionally to their former villages, now cemeteries, to pray for
that dead buried there. As one of the survivors reminded the world:
-
- "All I had in this world was my family. American
bombs took them away from me forever. I am a poor man and can not reach
America to take my revenge, but I will fight against American forces, American
allies and American interests until the last drop of my blood and the last
breath I take." (Interview with Mohammad Alam, from Laghman province:
2002)
-
- Different survivors had different ways of expressing
their angers. A survivor from Khoogyani in eastern Afghanistan made a very
intriguing statement, when he said:
-
- "I used to hear bad things about Americans, but
did not believe them. Now I do, when I saw my children's flesh and blood
splashed all over the structures of my bombed house. Even if I can not
take revenge, tell Americans that I hate them the way I hated the Russians.
I will hate them as long as I live. But I know, they do not care because
these [pointing to the flesh & blood of his children] are not their
children."
-
- The other disaster Afghans faced at the onset of the
war as they do today is the impact of uranium weapons. In the immediate
aftermath of the bombing hundreds of people died with minor or no physical
injuries. Only those victims of US' uranium weapons, who had gone to local
hospitals, in particular in Kabul, were documented. The overwhelming majority
took the silent trip of death from their bombed houses to their local cemeteries.
A mother, who lost all of her children to US bombing, while laying on her
death bed said:
-
- "I know I am dying. Tell everyone that with my death
there is no one left of my immediate family", while breathing heavy,
she continued, "I hate Americans may god" she did not finish
her sentence because she took her last breath.
-
- It should not take too much of fertile of imagination
to figure out what could have been the last part of her sentence. What
a tragedy, not has only life ended for this poor woman, but also has her
name vanished with her death because US-UK-allies bombs have also ended
the lives of her children.
-
- Another woman crying while blood dripping down from her
hand, when people rushed to help her, she raised her arm holding the severed
arm of her husband, thanks to the liberation efforts of US bombs. She screamed
so deep that one could feel the pain trapped in her heart, one witness
said:
-
- "This is all I have of Hamidullah [referring to
her husband]"
-
- After this painful cry of helplessness, she fainted.
Everyone there, young and old, men and women cried with eyes full of tears
wondering what have they done to have fallen victims to this tragedy.
-
- And, yes, have I forgotten to mention that the criminal
elements of Bush's administration were fiercely engaged in public relation
propaganda, envisaging this war to be the liberation of Afghan women. Liberating
them from what? Off course, liberating them from life. Yes, they certainly
have liberated thousands of Afghan women from their children, husbands
and brothers by killing them. In fact, the overuse of such terms as "liberation",
"freedom" and other similar deceptive engagements has corrupted
the genuine decency associated with these words.
-
- Once again, imagine the thousands of orphans living in
cemeteries and abandoned structures, on the night when US started bombing,
that night and others they were longing for a quick death, a wish fulfilled
for hundreds of these orphans when their body parts scattered streets,
cemeteries, and abandoned buildings.
-
- I know you could never imagine that. In order to imagine
something so heinous, you had to experience it, something you Samaritans
could not in the comforts of your houses and joy of your children!!
-
- Mohammed Daud Miraki, PhD, MA, MA
- Director
- Afghan DU & Recovery Fund
- www.afghandufund.org
- mdmiraki@ameritech.net
-
- All Rights Reserved, 2003
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