Convoy of Corpses

By Dr. Aslam Abdullah, TMO Editor in Chief

What happened in 2001 in Afghanistan is still recounted in tiny Afghan villages whose residents taken as prisoners by the US-supported Afghan war lords were tortured and murdered. it was a massacre on the verge of almost mass murder in the presence of US. The bullets used to kill the Afghans were American, the orders to kill the prisoners came from the US commanders, and the blueprint to torture the prisoners was planned by CIA operatives in Afghanistan, many of whom were religious zealots working to eliminate the hostile Muslim infidels from the earth. More than 2,000 Afghan prisoners were killed. They were transported from one location to another in containers with no ventilation where they stayed for days.

No investigation was ever ordered. The Bush and Cheney Administration never agreed to one.

The media kept a lid on the story as many of its correspondents were friendly with CIA operatives or Pentagon officials. In the process the truth was lost for ever.
Now the Obama Administration for the time has given an indication that an investigation is possible. The is a positive step and it would determine the level of the US involvement in the killing of 2,000 prisoners against all human rights conventions and above all against the mandate that the taxpayers give to their government.

As taxpayers we have every right to question this undeclared policy of our intelligence agencies to kill and murder those whom they don’t like. But, our opinions and perspectives are shaped by a media that reports events on the basis of the interests of those who own it. It has less concern for justice and it raises cries for justice only to serve its own interests.

This once again brings the issue of a fair and balanced media to the forefront of our discussion. The fact is that Muslims, regardless of their political and ideological orientation, have no free media–and whatever they have is driven by the interests of a narrow few who are not always committed to truth and objectivity.

We hardly have a well documented media report in any Muslim media on either Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq or Pakistan. Most of the reports that we see are motivated by political interests. Most of the time these reports are more like a sermon or an emotional outburst then actual reporting of what happened.

For instance, what happened in Afghanistan came to the surface not because any Muslim media reported on the tragedy in an objective manner, but the world came to learn about it only when Physicians for human rights and other non-Muslim human rights activists decided to go to Afghanistan to investigate the event. It was the consistent pressure of these groups that led Obama to concede that an investigation might be needed to determine the role of CIA in the tragedy.

While we must support the president in this endeavor, we must also devote our efforts to strengthening the existing Muslim media that shows the potential of investigating the truth regardless of the consequences.

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