U.S. Marines massacred Afghan civilians

The brutal U.S.-NATO occupation of Afghanistan continues to take its horrific toll on the Afghan people. On March 4 U.S. Marines carried out a massacre against unarmed civilians. According to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, the Marines killed 12 people in several incidents in the same vicinity near Jalalabad. The victims included two children, a 1-year old and a 4-year old, along with three elders. About 40 more people were wounded.

“All available evidence and reports suggest that the . . . response at the very least employed excessive force against civilians as it was almost certainly disproportionate to any threat faced,” according to the human rights group’s report. The group also stated that, based on many eyewitness reports, other Marines did away with any evidence implicating the soldiers directly involved in the massacre, while denying access to the Afghan police who came to investigate the crime scene. This massacre is no isolated incident but almost a daily way of life that the Afghan people face under racist occupation, as do the people of Iraq. These crimes against humanity expose Bush’s phony war on terror.

—Monica Moorehead