While the official statements in the US surrounding the March 11 Kandahar massacre make a point to present it as an isolated incident, and one that is absolutely not going to change policy, inside Afghanistan the US military is doing very much what it always does when it kills civilians: cut a check to the relatives.
The payments this time are considerably larger than normal, perhaps owing to the extremely high profile of the massacre and the number of children involved. Families are being paid $50,000 per slain Afghan and $11,000 each for the wounded, meaning a payout of $916,000.
The practice of US and other NATO members paying “blood money” to the victims of massacres, night raids and assorted air strikes has been controversial. The US military in particular has often made a show of paying extremely trivial sums under the rationale that Afghan civilians would exaggerate the tolls of massacres to up the payout.
This has had the side effect of the victims often rejecting the “blood money” payment on general principle, something the US clearly couldn’t afford to have happen in this high profile case.
The wild variation in the value of a human life by US estimations certainly will remain a subject of discussion. Many Afghans have been offered $2,000 for the lives of family members in past killings, and even the $50,000 offered in this case is dramatically less than the Raymond Davis murders payout, $2.34 million for two victims. In the end such payments are an attempt to buy silence, and silence is clearly getting more expensive in Afghanistan.
Pass the money on to the Afghan resistance to purchase weapons. And what about all those thousands Aghans who were 'accidentely' killed in 'incidents' by drones, helicopters and what have you….and 'incidentely' urinated on ……….??????
According to the AP news agency, "The families were told that the money came from President Barack Obama."
http://news.yahoo.com/afghans-us-paid-50k-per-sho…
Does this make anyone proud of our President?
Typical US response: when in doubt, buy your way out.
Looks not so much like 'blood money' and a whole lot like 'hush money' to me.
Borrowing from East Asians to make war on West Asians and pay off the families of those who get in the way or somehow piss off our troops. What a concept!
They should get no more and no less than the 9/11 families got or perhaps the Lockerbie families.
An exellent suggestion.
Just in from the Christian Science Monitor re Bales. It is now reported that Bales had two separate shooting sprees! Picture this: Bales leaves the secure base and 'shoots up' some Afgans. Then returns to the secure base for a while, leaves the secure base again and 'shoots up' the remaing Afgans and then returns to the secure base. What! He probobly had to go back to get something to eat, have some more scotch, go to the 'bathroom', change his uniform, get some more ammo and wave to the guard on the way out! What garbage…….or is it?
Pretty much rules out the 'insanity' defense, though, doesn't it?
I'm still waiting to find out who the OTHER shooters were- you know, the other ones the Afghans are claiming to have been on the scene?
It should now be clear as to why the U.S. economy is out of money.
The twisted, sick idea that the fascist amerikan military can pay its way past the terrorist atrocities that it commits IS one of the big reasons that the empire IS falling, fast ! The burden of blood and suffering caused, will surely continue to drive the empire into the abyss !
They won't see a penny of that 'cash'. They'll get it in pomegrante tree seedlings, chickens and 'L'il Debbie' boxed desserts. Anything that could be swapped, or used to buy weapons and ammunition is 'against policy' – so that limits the 'grab bag' of goodies. New shoes for the surviving kids are precluded by the possibility of Taliban with very small feet.
They should demand their payment be in gold. Can't trust the dollar these days.
I have to wonder who the hell's idea this was. I can't be the only one who thinks this an incredibly bad — though unsurprisingly so, considering the authors — approach.
First, if you pay blood money as compensation, but you pay substantially more than in other less prominent cases, it just makes it seem like you really, really want this one to go away, where all the others were, you know, just invisible dead wogs. It does not at all persuade anyone that you are proportionately more contrite. Just the opposite, it seems you have no contrition at all. It seems that you think money can satisfy any grievance, and if the grievance happens to be severe, well then, you just need to peel off a few more of them there greenbacks.
Better to have just paid the usual profane pittance, be seen as cruel, cheap, and indifferent, and quietly (after a while) have done with it. But no. Some superloser from the current clue-deficient executive opts instead to pay substantially more, amplify the effect so that the entire world gets to marvel at your crassness. Making it into a perverse kind of celebration, sort of accidental, there in the spotlight, guilty, cruel, arrogant, clueless, and monstrously insulting. Mission Accomplished, yet again.
$50K is super cheap, not much more than it costs to hunt and kill a polar bear. The Lockerbie victims got more than $5,000,000 apiece, similar to the 9/11 victims. Afghans are worth not even 1% of a human life.
What a dirty game.
Refusing to judge the other 15-20 US soldiers who did kill and rape the women together with him is unforegivable !
See the results of the Afghan parliament investigation group which did find 15-20 US soldiers in this massacre.:
http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2012/03/15/20-us-troops…
When those 20 us killers and rapists are not sentenced, soon the next group will provide such a massacre !
http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2012/03/15/20-us-troops…
Brown lives are indeed cheap. And at that price, they can afford to use them as target practice.
Yes, we're hearing all about that in the news from Florida these days.
I heard that among the victims an entire family was wiped out. In this case, who gets the dough?
Where is the payment from karzi when the terrorist and afgans killed American Soldiers. I would not have given them one penny.