Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-12-Speech-4-022"
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"en.20040212.1.4-022"2
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"Madam President, the ISAF troops and many other aid organisations are doing a lot of good in Afghanistan. Their work is, however, being sabotaged by the presence of the American forces.
Last year, I had the opportunity, together with an EU delegation, to visit the US headquarters in Baghram. It was clear that the Americans have no plans whatsoever regarding women’s rights, democracy or the fight against drugs. By their own admission, what interests them is that each government in Afghanistan should acknowledge the US troops’ right to return, if they ever leave the country. That is quite revealing in terms of what is at issue here.
When we were in Baghram, there was something we did not get to see and about which an American journalist told us, namely the prison in Baghram, in comparison with which reports from Guantánamo Bay seem like accounts of a Sunday school picnic. She had learned that, at that time in any case, there were several hundred prisoners in the jail at Baghram, exposed to torture. They were not being hit, but they were forced to stand naked for hours, day in and day out, under constant questioning. Finally, two prisoners died, and the journalist got an honest American doctor to state clearly in the death certificate that the cause of death was murder. It nonetheless took several months before the New York Times dared to publish the relevant article.
That is how sensitive it is to acknowledge that in Afghanistan, just as in many other places, the American soldiers are gangsters who use every means available to defend American interests but who are completely indifferent to the local population. Let us remove the Americans and replace them with reasonable people from the ISAF and aid organisations. There are so many others who can make constructive efforts. The Americans are merely making a bad situation worse."@en1
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