Civilian casualties In Afghanistan - The West's Epic Fail
By Steve Hynd Tuesday Dec 16, 2008 3:00pm
"We were walking, I was holding my grandson's hand, then there was a loud noise and everything went white. When I opened my eyes, everybody was screaming. I was lying metres from where I had been, I was still holding my grandson's hand but the rest of him was gone. I looked around and saw pieces of bodies everywhere. I couldn't make out which part was which."
That's the testimony of one man caught up in the disastrous airstrike on a Afghan bridal party wrongfully identified as a Taliban force back in July. The carnage was so complete they had to bury the 47 victims in 28 graves. US and NATO troops have denied the attack, but say they are investigating. In another similiar attack back in August they denied involvement at first too. Then investigated and found themselves blameless, only to finally admit their culpability and apologise once independent footage of the destruction surfaced. In a third such incident, in November, footage surfaced before the kabuki dance could begin. So far this year, such mistakes have cost over 600 Afghans their lives.
The Guardian report from which the above quotation was taken also includes a video report which contains footage of Afghans mutilated and crippled by mistaken Western airstrikes.
Afghans understand what's going on here in a way that Western leaders don't seem to.
"If things were going OK maybe we could accept the occasional mistake. But with the economy the way it is, the worsening security situation, and the lack of development - when they kill civilians on top of everything else, it's too much for people," says Jahid Mohseni who runs Tolo TV, Afghanistan's most popular television station, with his two brothers.
..."We know they don't intend to kill the civilians but we don't believe they care enough not to," said Ahmad Zia, a jeweller in Kabul's busy bazaar. "If it continues we will see a lot more people joining the fight against the foreigners. It's inevitable."
Although the Western media and coalition forces consistently paint all insurgents in Afghanistan as Taliban, and the Taliban leadership are happy to take the credit, it may be that resistance has become more widespread. One Taliban commander told the Guardian:
"When an American vehicle is blown up every day on the main road in Wardak, the order is not coming from the Taliban leadership. It is the people themselves who have turned against the foreigners. They have come together in their villages and do not allow the foreigners to pass through their areas."
We saw this in Iraq too. There, what began as a rump of the Ba'athist state soon added Al Qaeda and then a whole host of other groups, spanning tribal and ethnic divisions as it became a general insurgency. In its aftermath, that insurgency spawned an entire country's worth of new factions, warlords and criminal gangs to contest with the existing ones for political power, which is why Iraq looks to remain a deeply broken society for years to come. That the US and its allies seems to have created a duplicate of that incredible foul-up through indiscriminate attacks often based on poor or corrupt tip-offs, after what looked to be a success story as late as 2003 or 2004, is the very definition of "epic fail".
Crossposted from Newshoggers
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Questio:
Would you rather be sexually violated as a youth or robbed of all your retirement when your elderly.
It depends, how good looking is the violator?
I'm sure you think you are being funny, but your reply makes as much sense as saying that as a response to "would you like to be shot in the head?" Sexual assault is violence, not sex, it's about power, not pleasure, and it doesn't matter what the assailant looks like if it's unconsented to and unwanted. And it's the kind of attitude displayed here that fuels rape apologists who don't think it's all that serious.
"We know they don't intend to kill the civilians but we don't believe they care enough not to"
makes the shoe thrown at bush story sound silly. That pussy needs to be protected from shoes while these poor people's bodies get blown to bits.
Do you have to be sexist in your criticism of Bush? Bush is not worthy of the word pussy and you should rethink how you use it.
That's the cost of war, particularly against untraditional combatants. That's why we need to avoid war as much as possible. One day I need to read about the so-called Just War (was it St Aquinas?) But that doesn't seem to exist anymore. And even when we have imbedded reporters, it all looked like some kind of video game, except when Geraldo on FAUX news gave our positions away to the enemy.
A Time For War? Augustine's just war theory continues to guide the West
What a fu*king hellish way to live. All of this done in the name of keeping us safe. It sounds so damned selfish when you think of it that way.
Very good post highlighting the number of Afghan civilians who have been slaughtered by 500 lb. American bombs. It should be pointed out that this so-called good war will soon be escalated even more when Obama decides as president to send in even more American soldiers into Afghanistan [as many as 25,000, if not more] and, by doing so, the [alleged] agent of change will then add even more misery and suffering to what has already been experienced by the Afghan people.
What is your source?
Additionally, if the citizenry are where the claimed 25,000 or more US soldiers are, they stand LESS chance of being bombed by us. Or do you believe Obama would bomb our own troops?
Ysbaddaden
Here is the source that you requested. Both Petraeus and Defense Secretary Gates are in favor of sending in that amount of American soldiers into Afghanistan which has the makings of becoming another quagmire like Vietnam. If you notice, that figure of 25,000 even exceeds Obama's original desire to send in 10,000 soldiers into that country. But since that story broke, I certainly have not read anywhere where Obama has condemned the above named personnel for advising that that number of American soldiers be sent into that graveyard called Afghanistan, which then must lead one to infer that Obama, through his silence, must approve of that plan to send those soldiers into that country. But unfortunately Obama's reticence should not be all that surprising since he still has not appointed one anti-war voice to fill a major cabinet position.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,...
Your second point is fatally flawed. When those newly arrived soldiers go out on their clandestine missions, they will call for backup which will be sent in the form of "air support." As the article of this post makes clear [or at least should have made clear], that air support will then in all likelihood end up slaughtering innocent Afghan civilians and children whom the American military will once again claim that they had mistaken to be the elusive jihadists.
I do not think this point can be stressed enough. As in Vietnam and as in Iraq, the citizens of Afghanistan, either by rising up themselves or by joining the Taliban, will never rest until the invader, i.e. the United States military, is driven from their soil. As in Iraq, it is the inflammatory presence of the American military that is exacerbating the violence in that war-torn country. And the civilians and the children [one should recall that of the 90 civilians that were butchered by American firepower back in August, 60 of them were children] will once again be on the receiving end of 500 lb. and 2000 lb. American bombs.
Citizens of U.S. oppression-resist the Empire.
Part of the problem is that we're trying to deploy fewer troops, and keep them safe on bases, so we're conducting an air war. Same thing we did in Vietnam.
Shifting to air power necessarily means fewer American casualties, but more civilian casualties. Personally I think the moral thing to do as a country is to suck it up, take your lumps and put boots on the ground to prevent civilian deaths. Yeah, I'm talking about more U.S. soldiers dying, but the alternative is murdering women and children in far greater numbers.
But like some of the raids in, was it Haditha, soldiers can go crazy on the ground and just start shooting,killing civilians of all ages at random too, and the onus of murder becomes worse, with the potential for trials.
Although I wasn't of age to fight in Vietnam, some of my non-coms in the Air Force were. It sounds there was plenty of ground fighting, lots of snipers, the disability to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, softening areas with air raids, and of course the blitzkrieg Nixon and Kissinger did on Cambodia.
What disturbs me even more is when I hear people suggesting that, in fact, this war should be conducted even more harshly and that civilian casualties while unfortunate should not dissuade us from being even more brutal in order to conquer our enemy (whoever that is).
I have always strongly condemned such attitudes, and will continue to do so.
These killings must never be forgotten or rationalized as a necessary evil.
If we want to really look at ourselves as courageous people who will do whatever it takes to overcome obstacles in our path, then we must inevitably stare at and accept our own culpability in setting the stage for this war. The enemy can be found staring back at us in the mirror.
The West's epic fail implies that the West cares or that their goal isn't to create massive instability in order to better gain control of their natural resources.
Just because the goal posts are labeled with "Freedom" and "Democracy" doesn't mean that is what's actually being scored.
The people of Afghanistan have been through so much so much suffering instead of help. The British, the Russians and now us.
Did you know that the government of Afghanistan asked the Bush administration for verifiable proof that Osama Bin Laden was directly involved with 9/11. The U.S. has never ever sent any verifiable proof.
boosh never sent any proof regarding Saddam Hussein's supposed link to Congress as the AUMF demanded.
Oopsie...
I meant Saddam Hussein's supposed link to Al Qaeda TO Congress...
That's what I get for typing drunk.
The phrase "epic fail" is my pet peeve.
And no, I'm not an English teacher.
But goddam it, is it so uncool to say "failure"?
*tilts at another windmill*
Cerniq had the quotes around the phrase too, so how is his use any worse than yours? At least he was more informative.
Easily the best "main stream" source for news about the US, the UK, and the world in general.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
is that the leaders of this country see ongoing war as a way to stimulate the economy.
There just is no other plausible explanation (good, bad, or otherwise) for our military presence in Afghanistan.
The Military-Industrial Complex pervades the US economy, to the point that the US economy would fail utterly without it.
To quote my dear departed dad, "It has never been shown that Capitalism can succeed without war."
It's not just a question of convincing the warmongerers not to start wars, the REAL issue is creating an economy that does not require war to keep the economy afloat.
Why don't we try to look at some economies that function without resorting to war.
Canada. Finland. Sweden. How do they do it?
And the more bombs you drop, the more need to be made, the more money for the military contractors, AND, nobody real important dies. I mean, they ARE just poor people that would eventually die of something anyway. Pretty sure that is the thinking by government officials.
So far Obama and Britain's P.M. Gordon Brown have expressed their intention to send ever more troops to Afghanistan. Obama is talking about poppies and Al Qaeda. Gordon Brown is talking about defending "democracy". Here we go again.
Where is the "left" on this?
Left Behind?
no behind left.
Dontcha know that evile al keeda is really in AfghanistanIraqIranPakistanIndia?
Actually it's a canard that war stimulates the economy; it's the preparation for war that does. War just convinces people we still need to make, test and develop new weapons, but that's hardly transferable to the economy at large anymore, and in the meantimes costs a great deal.
how many people the arms industry employs in the US? I thought Michael Moore mentioned it in Fahrenheit 911, but I can't seem to find the number. I know it was a pile of jobs.
Nevermind...found it online
Arms industry employment after the Cold War
Country
1991 1996 1998
USA 3,045,000 2,210,000 2,180,000
I should add that if we can arm combatants in another war where we're not necessarily involved is even more profitable. The figure I heard in the mid 90's is the US spends more on cigarettes a year than on foreign aid, and the bulk of our foreign aid is armaments.
As far as the war in Afghanistan goes, I think it has gone way beyond protecting a fledgling "democracy", fighting the Taliban, protecting women's rights or killing Bin Laden.
In my view it's just yet another shift of focus in the never ending war against whatever enemy is most convenient at the moment.
It doesn't really matter who the enemy is. All that matters is that the war can be sold to the populace, so that the cogs of war don't stop moving.
Powerful forces at at work here, and they're not about to let up just because a few civilians get killed. At best, they'll just shift focus again to yet another venue.
As far as killing Bin Laden goes, they could have done that a dozen times by now. With the technology our collective nations possess, finding one man is surely not impossible. Surely they COULD track him down, if in fact it was in their interests to do so.
That they have not tells me that they do not see it as being in their interests, and so he remains at large.
A convenient bogeyman, for the present.
So it goes.
I think these moves are deliberate. The neocons want fractured Muslim societies. They want the wars to go on forever. If things start getting too peaceful, the neocons lose too many convenient justifications for theirs crimes against the American People and against the world. They wars without end as a fundament for all of their plans. Inciting popular resistance is a good way to assure those wars.
I don't think the American soldiers themselves would be waging these air raids against civilians deliberately. That said, I will agree with the premise that the armchair generals at the Pentagon have deliberately placed our soldiers into these situations without proper equipment, support or coordination with the Afghanis themselves -- that is, I agree with you that this is part of a strategy to undermine societies in the Middle East. It seems as though Islam has become the new "Red Scare" -- the military/political hierarchy has shown it can't function unless it has an existential threat to tout -- even if that threat is exaggerated, conflated, and part of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"which is why Iraq looks to remain a deeply broken society for years to come. That the US and its allies seems to have created a duplicate of that incredible foul-up through indiscriminate attacks"
some people think that this may be being done on purpose. some people remember all the military adventures of the 70's and 80's that seemed to have the same goal.
The Christofascists slaughter innocent people by the thousands and get away with it. Christian terrorism is far, far worse than even Islamic and Israeli terrorism which are obnviously monsterous in their own rights.
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