NATO has issued a statement today expressing “deep regret” for the killing of three children in the Helmand Province over the weekend, saying that the deaths were “accidental” and promising further investigation. They also claimed two actual Taliban were killed
The comments were a stark contrast to initial NATO comments about the killings, in which they insisted that even though the three slain were between 8 and 12 years old, all of them were “Taliban.”
Family members say the children were sent out to gather dung, which is dried and used as fuel during the harsh winters in mountainous Afghanistan. Local tribal leaders confirmed bags of the dung were found at the attack site.
What wasn’t found at the site were the two “Taliban” supposedly killed in the attack, and while provincial officials echoed NATO’s claim that two Taliban in the area were killed, locals insist they never saw any bodies except for the three children.
Lt. Col. Stewart Upton, said Wednesday, “It appears the Taliban were using the children to emplace the I.E.D.[…]” Of course, children might want the occupying hordes out as well, seeing as "We’ve shot an amazing number of people […] to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force." –perhaps an amazing enough number to put most children only a few degrees of separation from some nobody you whacked. And why are the people who want you out all 'Taliban,' and why kill them? Don't you want information from them either way? Or is this a 'deterrence' terror campaign on the resistors, having little to do with affiliation? That would be embarrassing, wouldn't it? Embarrassing enough to label any resistors with a familiar name rather than admit you don't belong?
And how is it those brave souls who kill these kids keep on doing what they're doing? Do none of them ever resign out of shame and regret?
There is nothing more appalling than killing people you do not know for no apparent reason in a war that you have no reason to fight,.
The 51% most wealth and greedy in Empire USA, our enslavers the voting majority, do they not know that killing kids is essential to keeping Afghans in fearful submission?
Gentlemen, when this thing blows up in their face, we all are dead meat.
But John, by the time this " thing blows up in their face"…the Archons responsible will have long turned to dust…they won't give a rat's ass. But their children or their children's children will pay a hefty price for their father's ideological decisions.
Well when you're killing people 'by accident' you have the luxury of being able to a) blame somebody else and b) be real sorry while getting ready to do it again.
If you were dong it on purpose, neither obstruction would apply. And those are the 'gloves' that are losing this war to a merciless, destructive enemy less than twice our size. Geez!
Will any kids who survived this atrocity join the 14 yr old Pakistani poster girl in Britain's shiny hospital in a blaze of publicity? Yeah right….
No, but you can be sure that they will, when they grow up a little more, offer themselves as fighters against the occupiers and murderers. You can rest assured that someday, something very bad is going to come home to roost…far, far from the hills of Afghanistan.
NATO's apology is long overdue! It should have been received in October, 2001 following the massive assault on a tiny nation that played no role in 9/11. But apologies aside, this collective assault on Afghanistan is baqsed on a fabrication, totally without foundation and definetely immoral if not illegal. This episode in war-making was tied to regime (Taliban) change to facilitate pipeline negotiations. How is it that feel-good humanitarian intervention kills more of the innocent civilian population than some amorphous al-Qaeda affiliation assigned to all gatherings from herding a flock of sheep to a wedding party, all obliterated by unmanned indiscriminate US drone warfare?
Those wussies! We can't have a bunch of defeatest cowards apologizing everytime they kill someone. It's a war after all. So what if a few kids, or a few hundred, or a few thousand get killed. I'm sure if they knew it was the good guys who killed them they would feel that it was totally worth it.
And NATO is going to regret when the entire MIddle East,Asia, and Africa turn on NATO and expels it from all of their countries; because that is what is coming.
The world is tired of America's murder for hire for political system. American citizens are tired of being bullied by the rich CEO's that pretend to be politicians.
sorry! Ididn't mean it! it was an accident! Now I feel better
How can children be Taliban? Does this mean that they have a Kalashnikov and fight Americans? Or it means they are Taliban's children? One way or another, they are children and shouldn't be assassinated, maimed and subjected to cowardly terror tactics. Not that their elders should either. NATO will investigate? My ass.
liar liar plants for hire. I think spongebob said that.
Another thought. "Regret" on the part of the nebulous NATO will in no way shove these kids' spirits back into their broken bodies.
These empty, PR nods at the suffering of "the other side" are beyond double standard. When the Taliban kill the innocent, it becomes a front page, hate-inducing propaganda virus that spreads instantly and fills the headlines and airwaves for weeks. When it’s a Palestinian child playing in the street and shot by IDF psychopaths, or an Afghani child blasted apart by NATO criminals, you may read of this in the alternative press, but never in mainline newspapers or on TV. For every media-friendly, top-of-the-hour Malala Yousafza there are hundreds of nameless Palestinian, Iraqi, Pakistani and Afghan children who are slaughtered and then thrust into the black memory hole of Western self-righteousness.
Another fake apology. If there's one thing they don't regret that would be killing children. After all, what would the genocide brigade known as NATO do without bloodshed?