US Agrees To Afghan Airstrike Probe
Afghans prepare graves for people killed by a US airstrike on Azizabad village in Herat province. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) says it has has found "convincing evidence" that 90 civilians -- including 60 children -- were killed in US-led air strikes last week.(AFP/File/Reza Shirmohammadi)
Some of you might remember this story from last Sunday. The UN has backed Afghan claims that a recent airstrike in Afghanistan didn't kill Taliban militants as the US military claims but instead killed 90 civilians, about 60 of them children. Under pressure, the US has now agreed to a joint investigation.
Evidence from all sides regarding the raid has been scant, with no conclusive photos or video emerging to shed light on what happened in Azizabad. But the claim of high civilian casualties by the Afghan government, which is backed by the U.N., is causing new friction between the Afghan president and his Western backers.
... The U.S. military says civilians are never deliberately targeted and that forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.
... Three Afghan officials said Thursday that U.S. commanders were misled into striking some 15 houses in Azizabad.
They said U.S. special forces troops and Afghan commandos raided the village while hundreds of people were gathered in a large compound for a memorial service honoring a tribal leader, Timor Shah, who was killed eight months ago by a rival clan.
The officials said the raid was aimed at militants who were supposed to be in the village, but they said the operation was based on faulty information provided by Shah's rival, whom they identified as Nader Tawakal.
Afghans targeted in U.S. raids have complained for years of being pursued based solely on information given by other Afghans who sometimes are business rivals, neighbors with vendettas or who are simply interested in reward money for anti-government militants.
The local Afghan version of what happened is terribly reminiscent of the "bounties for terrorists" system that led to literally tens of thousands of Iraqis being arrested after being fingered by neighbours with grudges. The US military have released 11,000 Iraqi detainees this year and about 20,000 remain in US-run prison camps at Camp Cropper in Baghdad and Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. It's also reminsicent of the bounty system that led to them filling Gitmo with detainees, over 80% of whom were later released without charge.
You'd think by now they'd have worked out that the bounty system isn't working, it's just being used to settle local grudges. That's piss poor COIN doctrine - losing hearts and minds even among the fingerers, who surely see the US as just an unthinking oppressor of whom they can take temporary advantage.
POW!
If a bomb is a direct hit on a village and vaporizes the bodies how do we get an accurate head count ,so to speak?
The creep on last night said the pentagram,pentagon, folks have a secret number of dead to the value of the target. Out of how many cases the intended targets lived as to the hundreds dead, as an aside.
My acceptable number would of course be zero but the kill boys wouldn't like that,especially those HEROS who bomb innocent men ,women and children from 30,000'.
Somehow this will be tied to Obama's inexperience...I mean...he did suggest we surge in Afghanistan. Look what his sure has done.
If the troops keep doing this, I don't support them anymore. :(
The forward observers have not gone very near the target, if this is the result. Bad, bad soldiering and/or par for the course for the kind of doctrine that hasn't been (after all these years) modified to the kind of warfare fought in Afghanistan.
This stuff is simply unacceptable. Heads need to roll in our military leadership every time something like this happens.
Heads need to roll in Washington too. If we had more people on the ground, we wouldn't be using airstrikes. We should, ideally, have very little use for airstrikes. We're not fighting a conventional army here, with bases and fixed positions. You can't just bomb a house or a village and pray that the people there were militants and not civilians!
Why is our military so incompetent? I don't seem to recall the British (or Germans or French or..) causing nearly as many civilian casualities (alleged or confirmed).
Here's what I think: If you want the hearts and minds we desperately need, we should beef up language training for our troops. We've got time. We've been in Afghanistan for nearly seven years now. With intensive training you could have even an average troop speaking Pashto within a few months. We should have THOUSANDS, maybe even tens of thousands of troops speaking their language now. Not hundreds.
The mindless juggernaut in action. I'm so sick of war. It would be better to just airdrop loaves of bread and get the hell away from any place except inside our own fucked up borders. I see people every day with absolutely no place to go or work or live. Our country is in a shambles and here we are killing babies overseas. It is wrong to continue either war or start any war. War is the problem itself at this point. Time for a paradigm shift.
Lusmu @ 5:
That is of course assuming that there are U.S. forward observers there to begin with. From the sound of it, the U.S. has given the Afghans the ability to direct U.S. airstrikes themselves which results in what we are seeing here. In other words, the U.S. has no idea who or what they are targeting.
It is wrong to continue either war or start any war. War is the problem itself at this point. Time for a paradigm shift.
Don't expect any 'paradigm shift' from the Dim nominee, St. Barry.
He's NOT gonna end USer global, military adventurism, just relocate it.
Alexdem @ 6:
Thats a good plan. However, there simply are not enough troops in theatre that are available. All or most have been committed to other areas. The Bush Administration has left little to no reserve ground forces at all.
woody, tokin librul @ 9:
Now THAT'S "Change You Can Believe In" (tm)
and like in iraq and afganistan, the gop is
using the local authorities and this same criminal
system to come down on peaceful groups in minn.
who are there for PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATIONS.
the fbi and the local law officers are breaking the
Constitutional rights of civilians to their 1st amendment
rights before they have even demonstrated.
thank you bush/cheney and the whole fucking
gop reichwingneocons for the fascist state of Amerika.
Vince @ 4:
don't blame the troops for following orders.
they are being misled by bush/cheney who
are the real problem and the real criminals.
Investigation, eh? By NATO, the UN and the Afghan Government, right? Would this be a US installed Afghan Government? Just asking...
woody, tokin librul @ 9:
That may be true. What else is there to expect from a country who's inhabitants in general, have been spoon fed lies from the very beginning. Manifest destiny? The only difference is that republicans can't think it through because they are evolutionary backwash towards the human experience of true intelligence. There is nothing in their heads that allows them to lead. They are all followers and will to to the gates of hell if they are told they must. Their so called leaders are nothing more than histrionic versions. Hell, I don't think liberty and justice is in their vocabulary. Even a horse being led to water is more intelligence. Republicans will drink til they drown.
With Obama, we may have someone who at least listens. You ever talk to a repub. That blank stare as they shut down before engaging in real discussion is the sign that they are going into autopilot. Cancer of the Earth and human kind is what they are!
Go, progressivism! Before its too late.
John McCain still perpetuates his POW mentality with his veep choice.
What he's done to his own party, however, is much more damaging. He's essentially said that there is NO ONE in the political wings of his party or THIS administration that is as qualified as Sarah Palin. He's destroyed the reputation of all GOP presidential contenders (they're not qualified), Congressional colleagues (they're not qualified) and women in this administration (they're surely not qualified).
He's also trivialized the position of POTUS in ways which will undermine our national security image and make us ripe for takeover.
It is absolutely SHAMEFUL that the USA resorts to airstrikes in areas KNOWN to have civilians. We have become no better (morally) than those who attacked us on 9-11
Bounty system works, it is used even in the USA, it is abused when police/military does not investigate before acting on the tips, there is no evidence that US military in most of those cases in Iraq did not investigate first. and regarding releasing detainees, this is part of US-Iraqi program for reconciliation, to release those arrested in fight, but never convicted of attacks on civilians, while handing over some other detainees to the Iraqi government. so overall, it is part of the program .
Bounty system always work if you follow the above, it worked in Iraq before and it works now, it encouraged a lot of people to come forward telling about their colleagues in the militias and AQ. If US stops it, Iraqi government continues it .
The US does this frequently, and it's hardly ever reported by the US media or their allies.
I'll give Vegas odds that this "probe" won't find any wrong-doing on the part of the US.
No one will be held accountable or responsible, for what (if it was done by another type of country) is clearly a massacre of innocent civilians.
No wonder we are hated! and still we don't get it. Platitudes, pontification and posturing have been all that we've ever done in response to all out atrocities.
woody, tokin librul @ 9:
Well said and unfortunately all too true. McCain wishes to add more troops into Iraq while Obama the bomber wishes to add more troops into Afghanistan which will then add more misery and destruction to the Afghan people. For those people who are supporters of Obama they should be cognizant of these very sober facts. Monthly air strikes in Afghanistan have increased from about 500 a month last summer to over 2000 a month now. An incredible 68 major air strikes occur across Afghanistan each day using 500 and 2000 lb. bombs to pummel the area and then cannon fire to finish off the targets which inevitably end up being not terrorists but civilians, as evidenced by those 60 children, aged 6 months to 16 years, who were ripped apart by American firepower.
It should also be evident that by advocating to not lessen but, incredibly, to ADD more troops to Afghanistan Obama does not give a damn about the carnage that is inflicted upon the Afghans and the screams and wails of pain that is inflicted upon victims and family members alike. Supporters of Obama believe that he is an agent of change. A better description of this militarist is an agent of horror and destruction, misery and suffering against the Afghan people.
You know, this is not the first time the US has put its nose where it doesnt belong and its resulted in a lot of deaths. There was a CIA project during Vietnam that rewarded people who had information as to who was working with the Viet Kong. This resulted in thousands of people fingering innocent people to make a little money and/or to get rid of rivals. If there were any experts in tribal Afghani history out there, these kinds of mistakes wouldn't happen.
By the way, this is the kind of stuff that creates new enemies of the US. Its called blowback.
I LOATH THE GOP @ 17:
The US was using airstrikes on civilians in Iraq from the time Bush 1 was in power, right up till Bush 2 invaded, including Clinton. This is nothing new and it won't stop. It's disgusting and against the Geneva Conventions. But hey, the US government doesn't recognize international laws unless they are in THEIR favour.
on the BBC and TV5, this news was reported about the large amount of civilian casualties that day.
On MSNBC and CNN, this news only focused on Taliban fighters getting killed and not mentioning the civies.
As a followup to what I had written at comment #21, it should be pointed out what Ralph Nader recently said when he noted that if a war crimes tribunal is ever formed in the future, not only will Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice. et al, be the likely candidates to answer for the war crimes that they have committed but so will, if elected president, Barack Obama [American Exceptionalism notwithstanding] by his ordering air strikes against a people who never threatened anyone in these United States, thereby resulting in crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.
The U.S. has no military business in Afghanistan -- all the U.S. has done in all these years is turn the area into the biggest opium exporter in the world. The people are no better off and the U.S. is simply playing politics with civilian lives.
Message to Democrats like Obama: You don't have to cower to the military with rhetoric about moving forces from Iraq to Afghanistan. That's pandering to a mythical constituency. Simply, bring ALL the troops home and let's start over with humanitarian efforts which truly will help AND create true allies around the world.
60 children! Come on people, 60 fu*ckin children. God should send a hundred hurricanes to hit America. All of them hitting Washington D.C.
roger, sometimes you have to pander to the military, even when you're the president.
As JFK discovered. Allegedly.
roger @ 27:
Roger
Well said. My comments at #s 21 and 26 are in agreement with what you have written.
John at #29
It should be acknowledged that the president is the commander in chief, which means that the military takes its orders from the president, not the other way around.
seems im not the only one whos holding obama responsible for his warmongering, or is it im just the only one who uses the correct word to describe his call for inlargeing the war in afganistan that bothers some on this blog,
darn killed another thread! i hate when that happens!
It's not a war. It's an invasion of a country that has a puppet head inserted by the U.S. That country, on the Border of Pakistan is where Bin Laden is reportedly holed up and being protected by the Taliban. War-mongering is your pea-brained idea of what Obama wants to do, i.e., get Bin Laden. That is what Bush should have done but didn't and won't do. Obama wants justice for the 9-11 victims.
You have an over-inflated sense of self-worth but are completely transparent to most of us.
chicano2nd @ 33:
perhaps you have another word for warmongering i dont! as for bin ladden how many boys girls in uniform who hes going to send to afganistan lives are worth one flea bitten saudi? you want justice for 911 do yah? well sonny how many more deaths will satisfy you? give me a number so ill know when your justce seeker has done the job!
LOL! 2,541 days since George WMD Bush said he'd catch the Nine Eleven Conspirator Osama bin Laden 'Dead or Alive!'
Americans like to believe that they are so strong and brave, that the Military is fighting "For Freedom". We are ******* terrorists. Smart bombs are just as evil as homicide bombs, maybe more evil because you never see what you have sown.
Foreign and Afghan forces killed five children in two separate incidents Monday, further inflaming tensions in the country over the killings of civilians by troops from the U.S.-led coalition.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/01/asia/afghan.php
In a separate incident, foreign and Afghan forces killed a man and his two children and during a raid near Kabul, the police and witnesses said.
‘500 civilians killed, injured in Afghanistan’
http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=16967
At least 500 civilians were killed or wounded during the five-day US-led troops' ground and air operation in the Sangin district of Helmand province, a member of Afghanistan's parliament said on Sunday.
chicano2nd @ 33:
since you cant come up with a death count number , perhaps you can describe this tranprency of me that every one here can see! id be interested in my shortcomeings!
chicano2nd @ 33:
During his acceptance speech at the convention, Obama said:"...we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights".
That's a direct quote. Note that he says he'll take them out IF he's got them in his sights. In other words, he's not going to be actively looking for OBL.
Either way, it really doesn't matter if he's captured or not, it doesn't even matter if he's alive or not. His message has already been propagated and made popular by the U.S. government. If it weren't for the president going on TV and giving OBL free advertising he wouldn't be as popular. Had the U.S. not invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, OBL wouldn't have been so popular. Al-Qaeda has become a household name and a friggin' franchise.
Again, it won't make much difference if he's caught or not. An effective long term solution would be to treat the conditions that create "terrorism" in the first place. This so-called war on terror is a sham because it treats the symptom. You can't solve a problem by treating the symptom. It's akin to eradicating the flu by taking Tylenol to alleviate congestion and runny nose.
Generally speaking, if the people in the Middle East had freedoms and democratically elected officials, coupled with healthy stable economies, they wouldn't hate the U.S. so much. But, the problem is that the U.S. keeps supporting and often installing dictators who hog all the resources, keep their people oppressed while they're living the good life.
Why does the U.S. do that, you ask? Because a dictator is easier to manipulate and control than a democratic government. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has been getting billions of dollars from Uncle Sam to rebuild the country and help the U.S. in the war on terror. He's done neither of those things.
Simply a rhetorical question....since neither Al Qaida nor the Taliban wear anything that could even loosely be considered a uniform, how do you tell who is a "civilian"????? What Defines who is a civilian and who is not??? ...not talking about children here, of course (even though they seem to be using underage girls and some women as bombers).
"An effective long term solution would be to treat the conditions that create “terrorism” in the first place."
You'd have to rewrite the Koran.
capnmike @ 39:
You must be shaking in your boots and pissing your pants seeing as how 1.3 billion Muslims are out there and growing in number every day.
You better hide, boy!
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