Here's a little trick or treat for those who may be noncommittal about the righteousness of our cause in Afghanistan!
The story is from TheTimesUK.online.com
[size=4]'I dream only of having my hand again'[/size=4]
[i]FROM ANTHONY LOYD IN GOLBAHAR[/i]
KARIMULLAH is an Afghan who does not want to relate his war story. In a land where everyone is quick to tell their tale, his silence makes him unique.
He stood alone in the narrow midday shadows of the hospital courtyard when I saw him yesterday, a mix of glittering fury and blank despair. He had hobbled into the Red Crosss orthopaedic centre in Golbahar on Saturday.
Even among the other amputees, his injuries stood out. Mines can take off both legs and both arms, or the limbs of one side, or, more often, just a single leg or foot. Karimullah's injuries, however, had a different cause. When, reluctantly, he had finished accounting for the loss of his left foot and right hand there was nothing to do but leave the man to his blade-eyed stare.
The son of Tajik parents, now 26 years old, he fled Kabul when the Taleban arrived in 1996. Moving north to a village in Northern Alliance territory with his wife and two children, he found work in a vineyard. But he lost his job and home to a Taleban advance in 1998. He joined the Mujahidin.
A shell hit his post on the Samali Plain in 1999. It killed four of his comrades. Karimullah escaped to a Pashtun village whose inhabitants handed him over to the Taleban. Tried by a "military tribunal" in Kabul, after torture he was sent to the city's Pulecharkhi jail for having served with the Alliance.
"I had been there 12 weeks when three Talebs came into my cell," he said. "They called my name out and said I was to be released." Baffled but relieved, Karimullah was led to a Datsun pick-up.
"They began driving me to the Ghazi stadium," Karimullah said. "I was silent at the beginning, but as we neared it I asked, 'What is this? What of my release?' They told me, 'Wait you will be released'."
The Datsun drove into the centre of the stadium. Karimullah recalls thousands of faces staring at him in silence from the stands, and between 10 and 14 mullahs on chairs in a line in the middle of the field. He was pulled from the truck and told to lie spreadeagled on the grass.
"The mullahs didn't even ask my name or speak to the crowd. Seven doctors approached me. They wore grey uniforms, surgical masks and gloves. I could see one was crying. They injected me. After five minutes my body was numb though I was still conscious. Then they put clamps on my hand and foot and began to cut them off with special saws. There was no pain but I could see what they were doing."
I asked him if he stared at the sky. He told me he was transfixed by the sight of his foot being removed.
"There was a sigh and murmur from the crowd when they finished. It had taken about five minutes. Taleban guards threw me into the back of the pick-up. One was crying too. Nothing was said. Even now I am unaware why I was chosen for amputation".
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