Unembedded in Afghanistan
Dinovella, Elizabeth
Unembedded in Afghanistan By Elizabeth DiNovella "Afghanistan is safe," Laura Bush said after her six-hour visit to the country in April. "There are certainly parts of it that aren't right now....
...Baranowska passes through other villages and hears similar accounts...
...The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has catalogued at least 120 complaints of abuse by coalition forces, including excessive force and sexual abuse...
...troops and a private army under the command of Governor Jan Mohammad, a man Baranowska calls "local warlord, police force, and judiciary...
...After Taliban Country aired on Australian television, the U.S...
...An American reservist disclosed that rough treatment of prisoners was standard operating procedure at Bagram Air Base at his March military hearing on charges of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of two Afghan detainees...
...The ACLU also requested military documents regarding prisoner mistreatment under the Freedom of Information Act...
...Mohammad is an imposing figure with his shocking white beard, dark green cloak and turban, and an AK-47 slung behind his back...
...I want to find out the real story behind the American and militia operations," she says in the film...
...Women are scarce...
...Lieutenant Colonel Khan, who was in charge of the unit Baranowska embedded with, was fired and six Marines were reassigned...
...She interviews people who were allegedly detained by the U.S...
...Mohammad is corrupt, and the Marines know that...
...One young man named Jannan says militia leader Jan Mohammad targets his village because he belongs to a different clan...
...Democracy is more than just elections," Laura Bush said at a teacher training institute in Kabul...
...the U.S...
...How true...
...And obviously there were Taliban in the area, but there were all these unanswered questions...
...The Marines released him after three days of detention...
...In this remote corner of the country, Marines are turning the local people against them," she narrates...
...More disheartening than the utter poverty is the torture, as told by Afghans...
...But, in general, I think it is a very safe place to travel...
...and their Afghan allies...
...In the village of Passau, a group of men hold up cards that read, "Enemy Prisoner of War...
...and violence against women remains virulent...
...Yet their presence is felt...
...Traveling with her translator, her driver, and two armed policemen, the filmmaker wears a burqa...
...She's been touring the United States and has begun discussions with Congressional staffers...
...But so much goes underreported: Parliamentary elections have once again been postponed...
...Our government would have us believe that we've brought democracy to Afghanistan, complete with presidential elections and girls going to school...
...The U.S...
...From the first day, I was overhearing conversations," Baranowska told The Progressive...
...They would say to each other, 'Oh, the governor is shady...
...To see government documents relating to treatment of detainees, log onto the ACLU website at www.aclu.org...
...Marine Lieutenant Colonel Asad Khan jokes with a local leader about the nearby poppy fields...
...The Australian filmmaker embedded with 800 U.S...
...In the next scene, a Marine says to the Afghan militia: "Don't worry, when we're done with the war on terrorism, we'll start the war on drugs, and you're not going to be our friends anymore...
...Villages look barren, as only children and old men seem to inhabit them...
...Both the American and Afghan young men giggle over photos of bikini-clad women...
...military spends tens of millions of dollars to fortify its military bases there...
...Taliban Country reveals the desolate landscapes of central Afghanistan, a dusty place where neither the U.N...
...Carmela Baranowska tells a different story from that of the First Lady in the documentary Taliban Country...
...Marines in Oruzgon province in May and June of 2004...
...I pleaded through an interpreter that it was against Islam...
...Some of them were pulling my testicles...
...One militia commander acknowledges there may be a few Taliban sympathizers in his town...
...And that's what it means to have a culture of impunity...
...In searches in this area, they imprison people according to their tribe," Jannan says...
...Hamid Karzai appoints war criminals to his administration...
...Baranowska is pushing for an independent inquiry...
...custody...
...After trekking with American troops, she returned to the isolated and dangerous region in central Afghanistan the Marines had dubbed "Taliban Country...
...Central Command confirmed thirty-five men were detained in Passau...
...We have no more honor," one man tells Baranowska regarding treatment in U.S...
...Noor Mohammad Lala, an elderly man, quietly tells Baranowska what he claims happened to him when he was detained by the Marines: "They tied my hands and then they put me in a container...
...Carmela Baranowska's website is www.talibancountry .com...
...They removed my clothes...
...Other than that, the people here are very poor and very helpless," he says...
...Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have filed suit on behalf of prisoners who claim to have been abused in Iraq and Afghanistan...
...Department of Navy-Evidence Tag...
...The more lack of public transparency and accountability, the more that these abuses will just keep continuing," she told The Progressive...
...We don't see much of Mohammad's army, though there is a terrific scene of Marines sharing the lad mag FHM with the militia...
...Weeks later, Baranowska revisits Oruzgon province...
...We'd prefer death to this humiliation...
...Elizabeth DiNovella is the culture editor of The Progressive...
...When I went back independently, people were saying that if you didn't like someone you call them a Taliban," Baranowska told The Progressive...
...The Taliban are never captured on film...
...We're paying him to be our friend.'" Opium poppy cultivation skyrocketed in Oruzgon province in 2004, and we get a glimpse of the illicit drug production in the film...
...But the Jacoby Report, an official investigation of abuses in Afghanistan, has not yet been made public, despite its completion in July 2004...
...nor aid agencies work...
...military ordered an investigation into the alleged abuses...
...The film reveals an alliance between U.S...
...I couldn't see behind me, but someone was fingering me...
Vol. 69 • June 2005 • No. 6
