Frontier Justice In Afghanistan: The Killing of Mirza Khan

Dear Mr. President,
An article on Afghanistan, buried on page A9 in Saturday’s New York Times, is as depressing and damning as that front-page story about withdrawing under fire. “Afghan Insurgent Is Killed on U.S.-Led Military Base” sounds like the shootout at the OK corral but it’s not; it's about the killing of Mirza Khan by American Special Forces last Wednesday. Mr. Khan, his 6-year-old son and his brother were returning home after medical treatment when they were stopped at a checkpoint near Poza, close to a Special Forces base. “A quick check of his identity documents confirmed that he was a wanted man,” and they were taken to the base and questioned for 2 hours, then released. Khan was angry, said something in Pashto and, according to one report, was walking rapidly to his car when he was shot in the back, neck and head by Special Forces; they said his actions were hostile. “Mr. Khan was almost certainly involved in illegal and violent activities,” he was on the Joint Prioritized Effects List of people to be killed or captured (is this your Kill List, Mr. President?) and was accused of sheltering a man who shot and killed 3 U.S. soldiers on the base last August. The article goes on to say that Mr. Kahn “was almost certainly unarmed, since no Afghan suspected of insurgent ties would be allowed on an American base with a weapon,” but “…the Special Forces may have worried that he was about to detonate a bomb in his car.” In the military’s account there is no doubt: “On 13 February, an engagement between coalition forces and a known Taliban member in Sangin District resulted in the death of the insurgent.” This was not an “engagement,” Mr. President, this was a summary execution of an unarmed man in front of his 6-year-old son and brother and by the end of the article it’s doubtful Mr. Khan was even a member of the Taliban. He was a tribal leader, a businessman and, as a member of Parliament from the area said, “He was a rich man, and the Taliban would make him provide them with food and money…It was a matter of survival.” Mr. Khan’s brother-in-law put it this way: “If we support the Americans, the Taliban kill us, and if we support the Taliban, the Americans kill us. And if we do not support any side, then both of them kill us.” Killing and brutalizing people does nothing but create future enemies and make us less secure. The killing of Mirza Khan sounds like the Wild Wild West, like frontier justice. Mirza Khan’s blood is on your hands, Mr. President.