Last updated 2/22 10:15 PM EST
NATO warplanes launched an air strike against three minibuses traveling in the Uruzgan Province near Kandahar today, killing at least 27 civilians and wounding at least 12 others. The Afghan cabinet initially put the toll at 33, but revised it downward for some unknown reason.
The three buses were traveling along the road together in broad daylight, carrying a total of 42 people, all of them civilians, when US Special Forces ordered an attack on them, assuming they were carrying “insurgents” and calling in an air strike.
Afghanistan’s cabinet condemned the attack as “unjustifiable” and has promised to launch a joint investigation into the killings with NATO. The Afghan government has repeatedly taken the US-led foreign troops to task for killing massive numbers of civilians.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal said he was “extremely saddened” to hear of the latest massacre and said that it might undermine the Afghan civilians’ trust that NATO is there to protect them.
Today’s attack appears to be the deadliest air strike yet in 2010, but it is dwarfed by several previous US strikes in the nation, which killed enormous numbers of civilians.
An August 2008 air strike against Herat Province killed at least 90 civilians, according to the UN, with 60 of the slain being children. The US claimed the attack was “legitimate self-defense.” In May 2009 the US bombed a village in neighboring Farah Province, killing an estimated 140 civilians. The US initially denied this attack, but later confirmed it was a mistake. They refused to discipline anyone over the killings, however.
The most recent major attack was in the northern Kunduz Province, in September, when a German Colonel ordered a US air strike against stolen fuel tankers stuck in a riverbed near an Afghan village. The attack killed over 100 people, the vast majority civilians, and sparked a series of resignations in the German government.
Under intense criticism from the Karzai government over the killings, NATO has repeatedly pledged to revise its air strike rules of engagement, limiting attacks near civilian homes and attacks at night. Today’s attack, in broad daylight and far from any towns, underscores that civilians remain at serious risk despite these changes.
more good news from the land of corporate war and opium profits for the cia. the war pigs that run our country need to be tried for treason and crimes against humanity.
Who in hell is running NATO and what is their purpose? Seems the organization is filled with trigger happy convicts who don't know the difference between right and wrong…………………and why are they STILL killing innocents without knowing who is down below??? My guess is that their planes are flown by young guys who have been raised on video games, whose sense of conscience has been sadly dimmed after thousands of hours of negative conditioning by baby-sitter video screens………
YES, the war pigs are running all these wars for profit, camouflaged behind brainwashing media that tells the dumbed down mainstream wee-piggies that these wars are necessary to fight terrorism……………….when it is true-terrorist Western greed that has spawned them in the first place…………………who is there to prosecute them? No one. They must be defeated first (the Western imperialists), like Nazi Germany, before anyone has the balls to take them to court………….
Reality hurts………….so the illussions continue to dominate………… besides, there are just too many young men and women out there who need jobs! Like sharks teeth, they will always be replaced by another deadly tooth!
You got it right. With unemployment high it is easy to get more cannon fodor.
It is what we have ALWAYS done – fire bombed innocent German civilians in cities like Dresden and firebombed innocent civilians in fire bombed cities in Japan during WWII; there were a 1000 My Lais in the Vietnam War as we killed 1,000,000 Vietnamese; we slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi soldiers as they retreated from Kuwait in Gulf War I; we've killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and destroyed their country while making millions homeless and now we are killing innocent Afghan civilians – nothing new under the sun! Anyone remember having read in History how Union General Phillip Sheridan remarked that "the only good Indian was a dead Indian" as we comiited genocide against our own Native American Indians. We are "waging aggressive war" against countries that neither threatened nor attacked U.S. – that is a war crime!
So long as Uncle Seamus and his minions reside on the living end of the stick they use to measure the rest of the world you can count on the bodies piling up. And they will never "willingly" submit to any war crimes so long as they are in power. Why should they? History has shown it to be on their side because they can out-kill you.
What happens to you when you make a mistake that kills 27 people? Memo to the personnel file? I mean, I know they were in combat and deserve the benefit of some doubt about the nature of the mistake, but is there a countervailing incentive NOT to get the wrong people? I mean, aside from, you know, CONSCIENCE?
We have seen the 'terrorists' – they are looking back at U.S. in the mirror – it is U.S.!
I can't believe you deleted my post….. about how American pilots were probably high on meth, I posted the citation and it's URL… Did I take a cheap shot at McChrystal..?? Maybe, but his "We are here to protect the people" LIES deserve ridicule as and so does he for the hubris to utter such abserdities. HE and his legions are the ones from whom the people of Afghanistan need to be protected.. I remember when you deleted my post ABOUT Kurt Haskell, one or two days later Justin himself was writing about him… What is giong on there, are you tryiong to turn antiwar.com into a white bread factory…???
American Pilots Pop "Go Pills," Then Go Kill http://www.counterpunch.org/heard01232003.html
by LINDA S. HEARD
The expression "flying high" takes on a whole new meaning when viewed in the light of the admission by the U.S. Air Force that its combat pilots regularly consume uppers and downers with its blessing. In fact, American bomber pilots are encouraged to take amphetamines, and upon return to base are sometimes offered tranquilizers to help them sleep.
Deleting my posts DOES NOT make me want to reach deep into my pockets, and it's not like I'm name calling or singling out some group for special treatment… If there nare guidlines, I haven't found them yet after 440 posts, oh, maybe it was a bad number, not the content at all..?? Jus checkin….
MvGuy, I clicked on your link and apparently it has been taken down by Counterpunch. You mentioned deleted posts, is someone at Antiwar deleting your posts?
The story is still up.. Its the system here at antiwar.com If you copy and paste what you see in red it works.. This site add some HTML code at the end and often it makes the URL incorrect..
Asb far as deletions, I'd say I get four a month sometimes.. The things that cause it seem to change. The word (J)ewish can be a problem, and I don't think they like links to Alex Jones very much. This last time all I can guess was that I made a sentence with NATO METH STUPOR in caps, Something like NATO pilots are cranked on METH, Nato policy appears to be a STUPOR..
It was 1:15 0r 1:25 AM and at 8:00 AM, I had to deal with real world problems this morning (Electric Utility Inspectors on a 400 AMP commercial service).. Did I mention I was in living in Kabul… in the 1970s in the basement of the French cultural affairs attache selling a certain smoking substance (not opium) to the Hash Seekers traveling through or to Kabul.. Got to know the Afghan people s bit and developed a tremendous respect for them..
Here's my question: Does ANYBODY out there actually believe that Western troops will ever 'win' in Afghanistan? That the 'militants' – also known as 'locals' – will ever do what Americans tell them to do? How can the troops themselves believe it?
Wrong though they were, the War Pigs THOUGHT they had a chance in Vietnam. But Afghanistan? Come on. The citizens of a nation are always more dedicated to their country than the invaders are – they have nowhere else to go. Is this all just fun for the War Pigs, another excuse to twirl their dicks around in the air like a lassoo? Or is there more?
God Bless America.
I should like to focus on another aspect of these happenings. Whenever there is more than one level of command, some noise enters the actions. Then at some point in all multilevelled organizations there arises a need to simply ensure authenticity between thoughts and actions taken.
This is a very well known problem in bureaucracies, So they have procedures of documenting assumptions, facts, rules, decisions in writing of some kind, and by principle also so that anyone else could step in and make the decision, or handle the problem. With an eye to justice, trustworthiness, legitimacy, and of course the trust of the population into the system.
However, when we get to the military it gets more problematic. With secrecies not to be revealed, and thus of course no legitimacy being given as a matter of principle. However this problem is also well known, in fact the Americans made really a case out of it after ww2 by punishing persons only following orders. Another handle of this problem is then to generally make the supervisor responsible himself for actions taken by his men.
In this case, the problem is still more complicated, since the massacre and the obvious CRIME of manslaughter, is done with 2 barely cooperating or coordinated organizations. The one is NATO, where there is in fact generally observed things like documentation about who ordered what, and who was then responsible. This was done to the german officer, ad subsequently against HIS superiors, that tried to hide his war crime, thus making themselves responsible.
But the second struucture of "Special Operations" neither accepts, nor seeks, nor ever gives anything but spinned and empty accounts of happenings.
Of course, the president of USA is completely guilty of such illegal organisations, their existence and untertakings. . His accept of them, use of them, funding of them, and anything illegal coming out of it.
But here we stumble into a special American idiocy! The president is holy by being elected. And therefore never to be held responsible. Those with the job of holding him up to that responsibility, themselvesw benefits in their political "career" by all sorts of shadowy deals – from firms benefitting him, because he benefits them, because they benefits his electorate, and this benefits him later on. It is a plain form of circular logic and benefits.
It is sad, such obvious facts are too difficult to understand by citizens educated today. Hopefully they will be FORCED by economics to try and get a grab on things. But you do not help them by just waisting anger on someone acting in a specific bad happening. You must seek causes, and go after them. You make yourself into a lesser human by just venting anger, whereas the need for the population is to be stimulated into grow up as humans, and make some true and substantial alterations to their social reality.
Hold on! Wait a minute! I take it all back! Just when I thought the situation in Afghanistan was hopeless, the headline on the front page of Yahoo convinced me otherwise: "Tide turns in Afghanistan." LMAO!! Phew! For a second there…
The 'article'(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100222/ap_on_re_as/a… goes on to claim that the Taliban are 'battered' and 'on the defensive.' Well. That settles that.
Thanks to the AP for once again setting the record straight.
God Bless America.
"Gen. Stanley McChrystal said he was “extremely saddened” to hear of the latest massacre and said that it might undermine the Afghan civilians’ trust that NATO is there to protect them." Yea, right. This is what the Afghani people are thinking; with friends like NATO, who the hell needs enemies? It is time for America to end its wars. It is time for America to dismantle its worldwide network of hundreds of military bases. It is time for America to end all of its entangling military alliances such as NATO and bring the troops home. In short, it is time for America to cease being a military empire. The costs of empire can no longer be borne by the American people. Empire is destroying us; fiscally, economically, morally and spriritually.
I am french…yes i am!
You are rignt;In the past , i liked and admire your people, but not now like many , many in Europe, in the world : .We hate your bombing mehod
Your past -president Ike Eisenhower said that his successors should be wary of lobbies miltari-industrial . They did not and it has been and is a huge disaster for you and for the world
do you know who is the main war criminal since the second mondial war : Henry Kissinger
He ordered a Flood of bombs on innocent populations on the borders of Laos and Vietnam without agreement of your Congress: More than on Germany and Japon during the war !
One million of people killed and so much wounded by napalm and orange product
Many children are now still wounded by non explosed item
Stan "The Man" MethCrystal feels saddened, eh? This is the guy fingered for his involvement in torture and his eyes are moist? Was this before or after the poached eggs this morning?
They don't call Afghanistan the 'Graveyard of Empires' for nothing. And for those that remember the Vietnam debacle, the only thing different here is the name of the cities and towns in the media, the headlines are practically the same. So I can only assume we will achieve another humiliating defeat with honor. And the Empire continues its decline.