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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAfghan NYT op-ed author accused of ordering massacres
Link to tweet
"To take this out of irony mode, the NYT ran an op-ed by an the Afghan National Army corps commander for Helmand complaining that he'd been betrayed by Joe Biden.
Two weeks later, the New Yorker reports he was out there ordering the massacre of civilians."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/opinion/afghanistan-taliban-army.html
(non paywall version: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/panorama/i-commanded-afghan-troops-this-year-we-were-betrayed-1023943.html )
General Sami Sadat headed one of the seven corps of the Afghan Army. Unlike the Amir Dado generation of strongmen, who were provincial and illiterate, Sadat obtained a masters degree in strategic management and leadership from a school in the U.K. and studied at the nato Military Academy, in Munich. He held his military position while also being the C.E.O. of Blue Sea Logistics, a Kabul-based corporation that supplied anti-Taliban forces with everything from helicopter parts to armored tactical vehicles. During my visit to Helmand, Blackhawks under his command were committing massacres almost daily: twelve Afghans were killed while scavenging scrap metal at a former base outside Sangin; forty were killed in an almost identical incident at the Armys abandoned Camp Walid; twenty people, most of them women and children, were killed by air strikes on the Gereshk bazaar; Afghan soldiers who were being held prisoner by the Taliban at a power station were targeted and killed by their own comrades in an air strike. (Sadat declined repeated requests for comment.)
The day before the massacre at the Yakh Chal outpost, CNN aired an interview with General Sadat. Helmand is beautifulif its peaceful, tourism can come, he said. His soldiers had high morale, he explained, and were confident of defeating the Taliban. The anchor appeared relieved. You seem very optimistic, she said. Thats reassuring to hear.
I showed the interview to Mohammed Wali, a pushcart vender in a village near Lashkar Gah. A few days after the Yakh Chal massacre, government militias in his area surrendered to the Taliban. General Sadats Blackhawks began attacking houses, seemingly at random. They fired on Walis house, and his daughter was struck in the head by shrapnel and died. His brother rushed into the yard, holding the girls limp body up at the helicopters, shouting, Were civilians! The choppers killed him and Walis son. His wife lost her leg, and another daughter is in a coma. As Wali watched the CNN clip, he sobbed. Why are they doing this? he asked. Are they mocking us?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/the-other-afghan-women
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)When, exactly, were all these things happening?
muriel_volestrangler
(101,264 posts)This appears to be the CNN interview - shown 3rd June:
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/06/03/amanpour-afghanistan-sami-sadat.cnn
The New Yorker article does start "As the Afghan government crumbled this summer, I travelled through Helmand Province...".
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)when they published his Op-Ed, because the New Yorker didn't publish their article (9/13 issue), discussing things that happened in June ... until 2 weeks after NYT published his op-ed.
Do I have that right?
dalton99a
(81,391 posts)Backseat Driver
(4,379 posts)power and control while enriching themselves sicken me! So glad we've the best thing possible - LEAVE!
That population of "civilians" of coerced allegiances survivalist women, children, and even men drawn into the chaos are so traumatized - some only seem resilient and don't mind the primitive normalness of their former lives and worse, but in their hope, one can also see the delusions and mental shambles of broken hearts, dreams, deep depression with falls into addictions, anger, and never again with peace likely in their lifetimes.
JUST SICKENING!