While Aisha was at the hospital, a woman, a foreigner, visited Mya Jan. The woman, tall with white hair, told Mya Jan that she was planning on taking Aisha abroad for treatment, he recalled, but that he would have to sign some paperwork. If he had a passport, he could come with her. Mya Jan told her that he didnât have one, and that he wouldnât let his 4-year-old niece travel to a foreign country without a guardian. The woman left. The next day, she returned. She asked again that he sign the papers, this time in a firmer tone. Again, Mya Jan said no, invoking the Pashtun saying that a female traveler must be chaperoned by a male relative. âPlus, she could not see anything. She might need my help,â Mya Jan explained.
Soon after this visit, Aisha lost consciousness. The surgeon treating her told Mya Jan that Aisha might not survive if she experienced further delays. When the woman returned to see Mya Jan the next day, he was prepared to sign the four-page document. She did not explain what the papers were for, Mya Jan said, and he did not know to ask. She told him where she needed his signature, and once she had it, she gathered up the papers and left. Twelve days after the strike, Aisha was gone.
A few days later, Mya Jan dialed the number that the woman had left behind, but the call did not go through. Mya Jan, a mason from a remote village in eastern Afghanistan, began the search for his niece. He met with parliamentarians and provincial council members. He waited in front of ministries and embassies, trying to get an audience with anyone who might know something about the whereabouts of the 4-year-old. He returned to the French military hospital, but he said no one would let him in.
One day, months after Aisha disappeared, Mya Jan was again in front of the hospital gate when a call from an unknown number came through. A man spoke to him in Farsi. Mya Jan explained that he spoke only Pashto. Some minutes later, another call came through, Mya Jan recalled, and this time a man identifying himself as Zaman Rashid explained in Pashto that Aisha was in America at a hospital in Washington, D.C., called Walter Reed.
Rashid was an Afghan who was then living with Patsy and Richard Wilson, the founders of a Mooresville, North Carolina-based organization called Solace for the Children. Solace brought child war victims to the United States to receive medical treatment, Rashid among them and later, Aisha. The organization was founded in 1997 to help victims of the Chernobyl disaster in Belarus but remained inactive until it reopened in 2007 to work in Afghanistan. In the decade since, Solace has brought over 200 Afghan children ages 7 through 12 to the U.S. for care, according to director Patsy Wilson.
The children who Solace brings to the U.S. have been profiled in People, the Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, and CBS News. What has not been documented is the intricate web of religious and military connections in which the organization is involved.
Wilson said she could not explain how her organization became involved with Aishaâs case, except to say that while there was no official relationship between the U.S. military and Solace, individual members of the military often reached out to Solace, which had been the case for Aisha. Wilson would not say who in the U.S. military contacted Solace about her situation. âWe just get calls. We get calls from the military all over Afghanistan,â she said. She repeatedly deferred to the military, stating, âI am sure they donât say we kidnap children.â Wilson also expressed doubts that Aisha had been injured in a drone strike, despite the claims of scores of villagers interviewed by The Intercept. âWe do not necessarily believe Aisha was in a drone strike, but I know that is one of the stories,â she said. When pressed for details, she said, âI have been told not to discuss that,â adding, âWe have no facts. There are no facts.â
When he started speaking out in 2008, Spanta told me, Condoleezza Rice, then-U.S. secretary of state, called Karzai and warned him that if he continued to speak about this subject in public, it would impact the bilateral relationship. Karzaiâs answer, Spanta told me, was to say, âMadam Rice, I saw on TV that Sarah Palin brought her children onto the stage during the campaign, and Biden also brought his grandchildren. This is good that you love your children. We are poor, but we, too, love our children, and I will continue to publicly condemn their killing.â (Rice did not respond to a request for comment.)
By February 18, 2013, Karzai had already barred Afghan military forces from calling in U.S. airstrikes. This was in an effort to minimize the number of civilian deaths that had begun escalating under President Barack Obama, who, with advice from counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, had opted for more drone strikes in operations. But after the hospital visit to see Aisha, Karzai said, he was âmuch tougher, angrier with the Americans,â so much so that he at times âwouldnât even receive them,â he said.
On November 21, 2013, Karzai announced that he would not sign the bilateral security agreement between Afghanistan and the U.S. unless new conditions were met. When his team urged the president to sign the 10-year security pact that would allow continued U.S. presence in the country, according to a former adviser, Karzai responded by saying, âHow will we answer to that 4-year-old girl? What is going to become of her?â
According to the rules of engagement, the U.S. military must conduct a pre-strike assessment to evaluate collateral damage. The methodology remains classified, but the assessment must be accountable to the legal questions of distinction and proportionality. Does the strike distinguish civilians from combatants? Is the potential collateral damage of the strike in proportion to perceived military gains?
In a May 2013 speech at the National Defense University, Obama issued a policy that would serve as a guideline for counterterrorism operations whereby actions could only be taken against those who posed a âcontinuing, imminent threat to the American people,â and only if they would have ânear certaintyâ of no civilian casualties. But the system remained replete with opportunities for error, according to a former U.N. official working on a registry of Taliban and Al Qaeda affiliates who are under Security Council embargo. The official, who was not authorized to speak with the press, stated that even a small error could mean tracking the wrong target.
When the Pentagon issues neat press releases about which commander was killed when, it does not mention the missteps and the oversights that kill, destroy, and upend lives. The precision strikes are not as precise as they would have us believe. Oftentimes, we donât even know who we kill.
Even when we do, the U.S. military effectively categorizes every fighting age male as a legitimate target. Given that metric, according to interviews with Kunar residents, there were thus eight potential suspects in the truck that early fall day: three drivers, a shopkeeper, a teacher, a carpenter, a day laborer, a fruit seller, and a high school student. Because four of them had family members willing to vouch for their innocence, suspicion fell on Abdul Waheed, a 36-year-old carpenter; another Abdul Waheed, a 27-year-old recent graduate of a teacher-training institute with impeccable attendance records; Mohamadullah, a 16-year-old high school student; and Hayatullah, a 28-year-old fruit vendor who sold apples and grapes that fall.
During my travels in Kunar, I spoke with colleagues, family members, and neighbors of the four men and concluded that the chance of any of them being involved in insurgent activity was possible but slim. If the four suspects were Taliban or Al Qaeda, it would have been charitable to call them mid-ranking fighters. Regardless, âeven if any and all of the men present had some military role, it doesnât render the vehicle a military target,â longtime Afghanistan expert Michael Semple, who now teaches at Queenâs University Belfast, told me. âThe U.S. relied on the theoretical doctrine of guilt by proximity.â Such willful killings of innocent civilians were, he said, serious violations of the laws of war and possible war crimes.
