Foreign Policy Blogs

NATO- The Second Enemy After Taliban!

Afghanistan is becoming a grave yard. Innocent people including women and children are losing their lives in every corner of the country. Sometimes they are shields to Taliban to fight with NATO and sometimes they are killed by NATO, mistaken for Taliban.

People are losing hope. They do not trust foreign troops any more. In every afghan network and communication centers, people are rolling the same questions over and over. Why are NATO killing innocent people including women and children? Why do they use the cover of “Mistake”? Why are people always having to be fooled with the same reply “the case is under investigation”?

However, if a(n) American, British, Australian soldier is injured or kidnapped, the whole world shakes and people spend thousands of dollars on investigating the case, but when it comes to Afghanistan the truth is hidden. Why?

3victimsgardezAfter first denying involvement, US forces admit killing two pregnant afghan women, one mother of ten; another mother of six and a teenager on February 12th. Afghan investigators told The Times of London that US soldiers tried to cover up the killings and reportedly dug the bullets out of victims’ bodies, then washed the wounds with alcohol. However, NATO officials claimed that women had already been killed hours before the raid.  The area of incident was sealed off from 4:00 a.m., when they first arrived, until 11:00 a.m. that morning. That’s more than seven hours. So it’s not exactly clear, still not clear, why the US Special Forces would have stayed on location for such a long time.

NATO also admitted killing five Afghans civilians, including three women at a home in Gardez. The joint American and Afghan assault team shot five Afghans – all family members – from the roofs of buildings in a large residential compound near Gardez, in southeastern Afghanistan.

khost-childrenOn December 27th another incident took place in eastern kunar, when ten Afghans, eight of them schoolchildren, were killed. According to the Times of London, US-led troops dragged innocent children from their beds and shot them during a nighttime raid. Afghan government investigators said the eight students were aged from eleven to seventeen, all but one of them from the same family.

And the recent incident on Monday 12th April in Kandahar, when US attacked a passenger bus. 13afghan_ca0-popupFive Afghan civilians have been killed and another eighteen wounded. The bus driver and a passenger told  The New York Times a US convoy opened fire just as the bus began pulling over to the side of the road to allow another military convoy to pass. The bus was full of civilian passengers when US troops opened fire. All of the windows on one side of the bus were shot out. Some of the wounded were left in critical condition, and the death toll could rise.

These are the tragic incidents which NATO in some cases denied and in some others admitted responsibilities. People are demanding answers, but not even a single hearing has happened so far.

Let’s see what people have to say about NATO!

 

Author

Tahera Nassrat

Tahera was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. She finished her primary education in Kabul and higher education in Mazar-i-Sharif Afghanistan. Tahera received her first Advance Diploma in accounting in Australia and is now undertaking her Bachelor of Business and Commerce at University of Western Sydney in Australia. Tahera has completed a number of training courses; including Career Development training in Australia, Assertiveness in London, Team Leading & Management in Scotland, Report writing & report Officer Workshop in London, Tools & Procedures for Effective Development- DFID-Kabul, Geographical Information System (GIS), and Program Manager System courses in Islamabad. Tahera has 13 years of working experience. She started her career with MSF-Belguim & Holland, then, UNICEF-Islamabad, DFID Kabul, Office of Fair Trading, Root Project Australia and Lindsay Taylor Lawyers in Australia. Tahera speaks English, Farsi (Dari), Pashto, Urdo and Hindi. She has lived in many different countries. She has a number of different hobbies that many of you might find interesting. She happens to love reading about Afghanistan. Of course who would not expect a prospective Afghan girl not to love reading about her country. However, She likes a bit of all types of topics. For instance, poverty, health, education, security and women rights. Areas of Focus: Social Culture and Politics.