Sunday, March 4, 2007
U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan destroy reporter’s photos
A suicide bomber hit an American convoy in eastern Afghanistan with an explosives-packed minivan and militants then fired gunfire from several directions. American forces returned fire in defense of the attack. 16 Afghan civilians were killed and another 25 people were wounded.
Several wounded Afghans said they were shot by U.S. forces fleeing the scene. One U.S. soldier was injured in the attack.
The incident is supposedly under investigation. What’s not very clear is who exactly killed the Afghan civilians. Finding out what really happened may be next to impossible. This from the AP article:
U.S. soldiers at the scene deleted photos taken by a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and video taken by a freelancer working for AP Television News. Neither the photographer nor the cameraman witnessed the suicide attack or the subsequent gunfire. It wasn’t immediately known why the soldiers deleted the photos and videos. The U.S. military didn’t immediately comment on the matter.
The freelance photographer, Rahmat Gul, said he took photos of a four-wheel drive vehicle with four bodies that had been shot to death inside.
An American soldier then took Gul’s camera and deleted the photos. Gul said he later received permission to take photos from another soldier, but that the first soldier came back and angrily told him to delete the photos again. Gul said the soldier raised his fist as if he was going to strike Gul but that he didn’t.
How are we the American people supposed to know what is happening if reporters are forcibly having their photos destroyed?
I personally have a hard time believing my personal freedoms depend on my government invading and occupying two different countries. Did any of those 16 dead or 25 wounded Afghan civilians had anything to do with the terror attacks on 9-11? Was there a chance that any of the 16 people killed would ever come to the United States to commit a terror attack? I would say that since they were not Saudis, the chances of that ever happening were absolutely nil.
What a complete and utter waste.
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Deleted photos, botched reports and intimidated reporters are part of the reason we will never know what is really going on over there, but if it is being covered up, we can be sure it is something that someone, soldiers or the government, don’t want us to know.