The White House was well aware by that point of how serious the damage was in Afghanistan. In September 2009, a senior US diplomat in Afghanistan submitted a letter of resignation, in which he delivered a stinging indictment of the US war. Matthew Hoh, a decorated combat marine who had done multiple tours in Iraq and went on to serve as the top US civilian official in Zabul Province in Afghanistan, asserted that the “U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages” amounted to “an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified.” In a letter to the State Department, Hoh stated bluntly, “The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency.” He wrote:
I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan. If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc. Our presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilization and insurgency in Pakistan where we rightly fear a toppled or weakened Pakistani government may lose control of its nuclear weapons.
The Washington Post reported that Hoh’s letter “sent ripples all the way to the White House.” Senior US officials, including the US ambassador and Obama’s Af/Pak envoy, Richard Holbrooke, tried to offer Hoh other jobs to keep him from resigning. Holbrooke told the Post that he asked Hoh, “If he really wanted to affect policy and help reduce the cost of the war on lives and treasure,” shouldn’t he be “inside the building, rather than outside, where you can get a lot of attention but you won’t have the same political impact?” Hoh ultimately declined the job offers and went public with his opposition to the war.
When I met Hoh soon after his resignation, we discussed the night raids and the role JSOC was playing in Afghanistan. Hoh made clear that he had tremendous respect for Special Ops teams and that he believed there are dangerous people who “need to be killed.”
But Hoh questioned the use of such an elite force to fight against what had effectively become a popular insurgency against a foreign occupation. JSOC, he said, is “the best strike force the world’s ever known,” yet “we’ve got them in Afghanistan chasing after mid-level Taliban leaders who are not threatening the United States, who are only fighting us really because we’re in their valley.” Hoh told me, “We found ourselves in this Special Operations form of attrition warfare.” He estimated that there were “fifty to a hundred” al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan at the time. Under McChrystal, the pace of night raids accelerated as JSOC mowed its way down a kill list that seemed bottomless. McChrystal knew how to promote his agenda with the White House, and when he fought for his vision to be embraced, he did so “with the same fearlessness he used to track down terrorists in Iraq: Figure out how your enemy operates, be faster and more ruthless than everybody else, then take the fuckers out,” noted journalist Michael Hastings, who traveled with McChrystal and spent time in Afghanistan. McChrystal and McRaven’s Special Ops task forces began expanding the target list, going after Taliban “facilitators” and “suspected militants.” The intelligence feeding the operations relied heavily on Afghan sources. Hoh told me it was common for Afghans to accuse their enemies of being Taliban operatives to settle grudges over land disputes or tribal conflicts. The feeding of such false intel to the American forces, in turn, created an environment in which a tremendous number of innocent Afghans found themselves facing US commandos bursting into their homes in the middle of the night, snatching or killing people. “A lot of times, yeah, the right guys would get targeted and the right guys would get killed,” Hoh recalled. “And then, plenty of other times, the wrong people would get killed. Sometimes it’d be innocent families. Other times it would be people and their families who had been turned in because of grudges or because of rivalries that existed well before we showed up.
Jeremy Scahill. Dirty Wars (Kindle Locations 6624-6654). Nation Books.
[........]
Hoh said there were also times when a JSOC task force “would kill someone who was important to us. They would kill a tribal leader or some type of government administrator who was working with us or we were making inroads with. In the middle of the night, you end up shooting the guy.” He added: “There’s nothing like going into a village in the middle of the night, knocking a door down and killing a woman or child to just undo” any progress civilian or conventional military officials had made in areas around Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, I investigated several botched night raids, in which it was clear that innocent people had been targeted. None of them was more gruesome than what happened just outside of Gardez in Paktia Province, in February 2010.
Jeremy Scahill. Dirty Wars (Kindle Locations 6655-6660). Nation Books.
Mohammed Daoud was well respected police officer of in the Paktia Province of Aghanistan. He worked side by side American soldiers throughout his career as such. He had taken pictures, smiling with soldiers, and by all accounts despised the Taliban and what they stood for. He organized a celebration, in adherence to tradition that the grandfather names the child on the sixth day after birth. It was a large celebration that had a private band come to perform music. (which is against the Taliban's edicts) He was well known to be sympathetic to the Americans. It is not unreasonable to recognize that if captured, he would have been tried on the spot and subsequently beheaded. It is also not unreasonable to recognize that he was a hated man by many in the region.
At the celebration they had food, and danced their traditional dance called the Attan. The video is out there but not being able speak or write the language, I can't find it, though probably now on a list somewhere for even searching the terms. In any case, it's out there. The documentary "Dirty Wars" by Jeremy Scahill shows it. Through the testimony of surviving witnesses and the video, not to mention just considering the reputation of the police commander killed, it is easy to see how botched of a raid this was. To be clear, something of 900 night raids were happening every month at the height of this conflict. Mohammed Daoud is unlike the others because of who he was, and the circumstances becoming known. Many other men, women, and children were killed that no one will ever hear about. Their tragedy is the same.
Early in the morning as the celebration is coming to a head, they realize that their outside light had been shut off. (by someone not at the party) They feared a Taliban attack. Daoud and his son went to investigate and upon opening the door, were hit by sniper rounds. Daoud's brother Zahir was a local DA and knew a few words and phrases in English. He figured he could walk out with his hand raised, tell them of their mistake and get medical help for the wounded. "We work for the government" is what he reportedly shouted. Three women grabbed onto him to tell him to come back inside. Sniper rounds hit and killed all four of them. The women had sixteen children collectively and two were pregnant. The soldiers raid the home.
Daoud and his son were still alive at this point. They were promised medical attention soon. The uninjured party guests begged and pleaded that they had cars, to let them take the wounded to the hospital that wasn't far away. They were denied.
After some time guests began to prepare the burial shrouds for the dead as per Afghani custom. They tie a scarf around the feet and a scarf around the head to prevent the mouth from hanging open. Three bodies were prepared for burial before they were all handcuffed. At this point soldiers began digging the bullets out of the women killed. The captives were marched outside on a frozen winter day, barefoot, mostly. The soldier beat them for any reason and fired shots around one male. He pleaded that they were pro-government, and to not kill any more women. They were taken on different helicopters to various regions of Afghanistan.
They were held and assaulted by men who wore no uniform with "big muscles." (JSOC - Joint Special Operations Command) They accused the family that there were dozens of Taliban hiding there, that there were suicide bombers being recruited or given commands there, and other baseless accusations. After a few days they were released with an apology of a misunderstanding. The father missed their burials.
That is all I will type about the case tonight. It is disturbing, depressing, and affecting my mood. I will say that this isn't even the most disturbing part. The aftermath is even worse.
Much respect to Jeremy Scahill and his reporting. Michael Hastings as well. All rights to the author.
