Naimatullah's Sense of Justice

Dear Mr. President,

Naimatullah has been searching since November 20 for his brothers, Sediqullah, and Estmatullah. They disappeared in an American Special Forces raid on the village of Amer Kheil in the Nerkh district of Wardak province and were last seen being taken into the Special Forces base camp nearby. Naimatullah found his brothers yesterday—or what was left of them—buried outside that base (today’s NYT, p. A4). After 2 other bodies were dug up on Thursday, villagers kept digging until they found Sediqullah and Estmatullah. Like Nawab (my May 29 letter), they had been blown up and only bits of bone, flesh and clothing were left to identify them but there’s no doubt in Naimatullah’s mind that they were his brothers. They were among 17 men taken from the area by Special Forces; 14 have been recovered so far. The military denies any involvement in their deaths in spite of a video showing some of the men being tortured and killed by Zakaria Kandahari (with American voices in the background). Afghan authorities say Kandahari is an Afghan-American; Americans claim he’s a low-level Afghan translator. Mysteriously, Kandahari disappeared, the Afghans claim with help from the Americans—which the Americans deny—and the military’s sticking to its story that there’s no evidence U.S. forces were involved although they refuse to release the results of internal investigations. Naimatullah, however, no longer cares about official investigations; his brothers are dead and he asks, “If my brothers were guilty, if they were criminals or Taliban, which court proved that? Which law allowed them to kill my brothers and dump their bodies in the middle of nowhere?” This is a question we should all be asking: What gives America the right to kill anyone anywhere with impunity? Where’s the evidence Sediqullah and Estmatullah were a threat to the U.S.? What law justified the torture and murder of those 17 Afghans that Special Forces rounded up? What law justified last Wednesday’s CIA drone strike in North Waziristan that killed 4 people—a “courtesy killing” of someone the Pakistanis wanted killed but who posed no threat to the U.S.? Or the drone strike yesterday in Yemen that killed 7? And by the way, Mr. President, what law gives you the right to order the force-feeding of hunger strikers in Guantanamo? Or even to be held without charge, without a trial and without evidence? An Afghan villager has a clearer sense of justice than a Nobel Peace Prize winning American president.