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More U.S. GIs Wounded In Afghanistan
Monday, August 19, 2002
CBS News

Prisoners are crammed together in a notorious prison for Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in the northern Afghan town of Shibergan.
Image Credit: Reuters.

"The refusal of the United States to acknowledge and investigate the possibility that its military partner murdered hundreds or thousands of prisoners is a terrible repudiation of its commitment to hold perpetrators of war crimes accountable for their deeds," Leonard S. Rubenstein, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights, said in a statement released Sunday.

CBS
Two U.S. special forces soldiers were shot and wounded on an intelligence-gathering mission in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Monday.

"They were on an intelligence-gathering mission in southern Afghanistan," reports CBS News Correspondent Tom Fenton in Kabul. "They must have been ambushed. One of the soldiers was shot in the thigh, and the other was shot in the calf."

Meanwhile, Newsweek reports a confidential U.N. memorandum says there is evidence to justify a "full-fledged criminal investigation" into the deaths in Afghanistan of hundreds of Taliban prisoners held by the U.S.-backed northern alliance.

Colonel Roger King, a spokesman at Bagram Air Base just north of Kabul, said the names of the U.S. soldiers wounded were being withheld pending notification of relatives.

"They were flown here to Bagram, medically stabilized, and further evacuated to Germany for medical treatment," he said.

He said four people were detained during the operation, but he gave no details.
(More: CBSNews.com News Source)
2002 © Columbia Broadcasting System.

Methinks Physicians for Human Rights should coordinate their efforts with Lawyers for Human Rights. I don’t know too many soldiers who would care all that much about what happens to people who are trying to kill them. U.S. troops will protect an enemy’s rights once they are captured and taken to U.S. Forces custody, simply because it’s the law. They will not, however, rush to attack their own allies in combat for killing the enemy, regardless of how that killing occurred. Sort of like that hand that feeds you. You may need that ally down the road to save your butt.

Eventually (and it could even take longer than a whole year), crimes committed will be verified and tried, but, and understandably, there is no real rush.

Dan