Afghan President Hamid Karzai has cut short his high profile visit to China today and is returning home following the news that NATO killed 18 civilians in an air strike in the Logar Province yesterday.
“A Nato air strike in which civilian lives are lost and property damaged does not have any justification. It is not acceptable,” insisted Karzai. NATO insisted that everyone killed was a “militant,” but the dead include women and children as the bombardment destroyed several homes.
The exact details of the attack are unclear. NATO says that troops were attacked by militants in the village, and attacked them. Provincial police said that between six and eight militants were killed in addition to the civilians.
Even with militants among the slain, this is bound to renew the ongoing debate between NATO and the Karzai government about the occupation forces launching air strikes against areas in which civilians are present. NATO has insisted in the past that the strikes would continue, but another embarrassingly large death toll will leave them with more damage control to perform in continuing their official narrative that they are “careful” about these strikes.
Incidently What became of the investigation of the marine who killed 18 unarmed Afghans in a house-to-house rampage????
They kept his name a secret–I can't find it anywhere online. Everything just says "The suspect, who hasn't been named," etc.
I guess they kept his name a secret for damage control (they don't want to contribute to any anti-war sentiments). If you mention his massacre to someone who hasn't heard about it already then it seems less credible of a story without his name. Also, without a name it's easier for people to forget the incident.
Are you talking about Sargent Bale… He just hired Ted Bundy's old lawyer…
Perhaps this stupid attack was intended to get Karzai away from the talks with the Chinese.
If 18 people are killed in Syria, then SOS Clinton screams for regime change.
Making 18 civilians into body parts in one air strike, surely this is nothing NATO could do by accident. And Karzai being in China, such an improbable coincidence coupled to an impossible accident, surely a probability beyond the mind of man to comprehend.
Of course women and children are "militants"…that is if 'NATO' kills them. In fact: anyone 'NATO' kills is a "militant"… This is nothing new.
These *******s don't know what they're doing. They shoot like madmen, then 'guesstimate' how many insurgents they've killed. Because nobody's doing body counts, they don't have to go check out the damage they've done. If civilians get killed then either they were insurgent civilians, or the Taliban did it.
If blame can't be dodged aploogize for war being such a fuc*ker' and start negiotiating the price.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy – until the hobgobblies start keeping you up nights and get you that big DP.
It's our freedom they hate! Yea Yea Yea.
Let’s clarify a few points:
-Mr Karzai runs a puppet regime since he was installed by the Empire.
-The Empire and NATO are now buddies; you can count them as one.
-massacres like the present one have happened several times before.
So why does Mr Karzai suddenly cut his visit short, if not for a phony show of diplomatic posturing? He probably doesn’t give a hoot how many Afghans are killed, else he would resign.
In Afghanistan, he would have zero cred if he cravenly kept mum. By echoing what everybody and his aunt says and feels, he would have a little cred. Little cred is better than zero.
He is already trying to carve a place in post-USA Afghanistan. The Talibs may have the Pashtun vote cornered, but the Persian-speakers would be wary (especially of Talibs with a decade worth scores to settle). A Uzbek or Tajik leader is impractical (for one thing, none of them has a good rep, all are either communist or collaborators or bit players. Also, a non-Pashtun would rally Pashtuns even from out of Afghan, like in the 30s in the Bacha Saqa situation). So, in those circumstances, Karzai is trying to angle himself as the compromise candidate. Anyway, if he fails, there is always Dubai and Virginia.
The same old song and dance.
The U.S. drone program is reminiscent of the so-called Nazi "buzz-bomb" threat that terrified London during WWII. One would think NATO would recall the abject horror of that blitz and act with some consideration rather than with the current indiscriminate and inconsiderate deployment of drones. Acccording to a former CIA station chief, "we are creating more enemies than we remove from the battlefield." This poses the question…why would any other country wish to emulate the U.S., a country currently run by a Constitutional scholar, lecturer and self-professed champion of human rights?
Empire — A most glamorous and glory filled thing
One out of three of those murdered were resistance fighters. So, as no one is allowed to resist the Karzai dictatorship nor the NATO occupation and support of the dictatorship, the murder of 12 civilians who were in a house with the freedom fighters, this is acceptable behavior in a world where people think an Empire be a most glamorous and glory filled thing.