In this age of CNN and O'Reilly, "Taliban Country" is a documentary that restores dignity to the word "journalist." Carmela Baranowska, an Australian filmmaker, was originally embedded with U.S. marines in Afghanistan's remote Uruzgan Province. The mission of the marines is to "hunt for Taliban and Al-Qaida." They are under the command of Asad Khan--the only "Muslim" to have attained the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. military. Together with Jan Muhammad, a Pushtun warlord, who cooperates with U.S. troops, they regularly patrol Uruzgan villages.
Baranowska's camera effectively captures the tranquility of the Afghan village. Birds are singing, children are playing, and one can almost feel the breeze circulating through the sunny courtyards of the traditional Afghan clay houses. The viewer gets a sense of what (state) terrorism means, when the marines descend upon this quietly serene village, with submachine guns and RPGs drawn, breaking down doors, and violating the sanctity of households. I was struck by the similarity in the behavior of the U.S. military with that of the Red Army--with their infamous house-to-house searches during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, also aimed at striking terror in the hearts of the Afghan population.
Still, in this scene, perhaps due to Baranowska's presence, the troops are relatively restrained. They find no Taliban, instead arresting a young local, named Janan, and confiscating only nine guns. Janan is turned over to Warlord Jan Muhammad for questioning. His interrogation of the young man is little more than a steady stream of explicit Pashto epithets, capable of making the most seasoned hoodlum in the American inner city blush. Jan Muhammad, master of homosexual innuendo, is the quintessential U.S. approved/appointed Afghan "leader," in the Karzai/Dostum tradition: ego ridden, power hungry, and willing to sell out his people for a small price. The contrast between the arrogant and scurrilous speech of this Tom, and the humility of the soft-spoken Taliban leadership so demonized in the U.S. controlled media is inescapable.
The marines and Jan Muhammad, accompanied by Baranowska, visit a second village, called Passau. They sit down with the townspeople to discuss their concerns. Despite the threat posed by armed U.S. troops and by the ruthless warlord, a villager bravely tries to raise questions about abuses enacted by the U.S. military. He is quickly silenced, by the marines' translator, who condescendingly tells him his concerns are more appropriate as a post-evening prayer topic.
Baranowska, a seasoned journalist with years of experience investigating atrocities in E. Timor and elsewhere, is immediately suspicions. She decides to return..unembedded--to the area, to find out what is really underfoot. She returns first to Janan's village of Masazai. Janan tells her that U.S. troops can't capture any Taliban fighters, so they make a show of nabbing innocent and helpless villagers like him.
She learns that militias like Jan Muhammad's exploit the U.S. presence in the region to gain the upper hand over their traditional tribal allies. Tribe I turns Tom, and falsely accuses their rival, Tribe II, of harboring Taliban. U.S. marines attack Tribe II based on false information provided by Tribe I. Atrocities are committed against Tribe II, which then vows revenge against Tribe I. Thus the exogenous U.S. presence fuels civil war, exacerbating conflicts which otherwise would be minimal and fought on equal footing. Imperialist instigated civil war is an old theme, common to many countries suffering from U.S. "democratization."
Baranowska returns to Passau, where the villagers had raised questions about U.S. troops' atrocities. The reason why this issue was censored during her previous visit immediately becomes apparent. In a raid conducted June 23, 2004, U.S. helicopters landed in the village fields and destroyed the crops, setting the stage for what was to come. According to the villagers, the troops broke china, pottery, and anything else they could find. They hacked through the mosque door, threw Qur'ans on the ground, and defecated in residents' living rooms. Thirty-five villagers were arrested, and taken away by helicopter to be interrogated by U.S. troops. Some were threatened that they would be taken to Guantanomo. The prisoners were tagged like animals before they were finally released.
The filmmaker finds that the villagers have been physically and sexually abused by the troops. Noor Muhammad Lala, a village elder wearing turban and traditional Afghan baggy pants and shirt sorrowfully tells his story. "They tied my hands and put me in a container," he says. He was then forced to take off all his clothes, and spread-eagled against the wall. Marines pulled at his testicles and jabbed at his anus. The elder had a bladder problem and became incontinent in front of his captors who stood laughing at his predicament. I could not help thinking of the resemblance to my own dear, elderly Afghan (ex-)father-in-law, his long white beard, gaunt face with hollow cheeks, and gentle manner. How would I feel if this were done to him?
Wali Muhammad, Noor Muhammad's son, was also held for questioning. The marines beat him, fingered his anus, and took pictures of him naked. There were twenty marines according to Wali Muhammad, and they stood around laughing and taking pictures of the nude captives. He and the others were held for three days, he says; they become hungry and repeatedly asked for food, but were denied it. An elderly woman, whose veil was removed and who was subjected to a body search, tells of the village women being pushed around by the troops. " We'd prefer death to this humiliation," the villagers tell Baranowska.
Back in Masazai, she learns that Major Cook, of the Civil Affairs Unit, has just visited. One of the village leaders tell her that Cook tried to give him medicines, corn seed, and a radio. Cook asked him if he needed anything. He told Cook, in a message that might have been the cry of the Afghan nation:
"We don't need anything. Don't humiliate us. Don't rob our country. Don't commit crimes. We don't need anything."
Before leaving Uruzgan, Baranowska returns to Passau a final time. The villagers tell her that "due to abuse and maltreatment by the marines," almost all of the families are gone. Of a village of two hundred, only fifteen or twenty people remain. How history repeats itself, I think to myself: During the Soviet occupation, too, millions of Afghans left their homes and possessions to escape life under occupation. Afghans are a dignified people for whom honor and respect are everything. Time and time again, they have chosen exile or death to life under occupation.
The film ends with a footnote that with the initial release of "Taliban Country," the army launched an inquiry into the abuses. They confirmed the detention of thirty-five villagers on June 23, 2004. Answering questions after the screening of her work at the University of Maryland Baltimore Country (UMBC), Baranowska told students that the inquiry had found the charges against the marines to be unsubstantiated; Lt. Colonel Asad Khan had been removed from his position; no others had been prosecuted. Baranowska has called for an independent inquiry.
An audience member at the UMBC screening, who said she and her husband worked for an aid organization in Kandahar, tried to convince the predominantly student audience that the film was an unfair treatment of the U.S. military, and that a tiny minority of U.S. troops engaged in this sort of behavior. I wondered, "Do you think your aid would be needed over there, if the U.S. hadn't gone in and destroyed that country in the first instance?" I politely remarked to her that wartime atrocities by occupying troops are statistically underreported, not over reported, and that the numbers were probably much higher. The bar on war crimes was set early on in the Afghan War, with the U.S. refusal to prosecute members of the Dostum militia who massacred prisoners in Mazar-e-Sharif; and the U.S. troops who murdered Taliban by suffocation in metal boxes. I commended Baranowska for her courage and integrity in reporting the reality of the situation in Afghanistan. U.S. presence in Afghanistan violates the sovereignty of that country, and U.S. troops there, as in Iraq, are occupiers. Hence their behavior is not surprising.
Baranowska's findings cry out for a war crimes investigation.
