Yes, The U.S. Did Kill 92 Afghan Civilians, 60 of Which Were Children
September 8th, 2008Via: Times Online:
As the doctor walks between rows of bodies, people lift funeral shrouds to reveal the faces of children and babies, some with severe head injuries.
Women are heard wailing in the background. “Oh God, this is just a child,” shouts one villager. Another cries: “My mother, my mother.”
The grainy video eight-minute footage, seen exclusively by The Times, is the most compelling evidence to emerge of what may be the biggest loss of civilian life during the Afghanistan war.
These are the images that have forced the Pentagon into a rare U-turn. Until yesterday the US military had insisted that only seven civilians were killed in Nawabad on the night of August 21.
Last night the Pentagon announced that it was reopening the investigation in the light of “emerging evidence” and was sending an officer to Nawabad to review its previous inquiry. Villagers and the UN insist that 92 were killed, including as many as 60 children. Locals say that the US and Afghan troops who came into the village looking for a Taleban commander, with US air support, used excessive force.
In the video scores of bodies are seen laid out in a building that villagers say is used as a mosque; the people were killed apparently during a combined operation by US special forces and Afghan army commandos in western Afghanistan. The film was shot on a mobile phone by an Afghan doctor who arrived the next morning.
Local people say that US forces bombed preparations for a memorial ceremony for a tribal leader. Residential compounds were levelled by US attack helicopters, armed drones and a cannon-armed C130 Spectre gunship.
“Last night the Pentagon announced that it was reopening the investigation in the light of “emerging evidence”” — HA! In light of the fact that they couldn’t conceal it any longer, is more like it.
The good news is, this is a story resistance fighters can tell their kids for generations to come, so the endless wars can be truly endless, and Big Military will keep racking up record profits. It’s all good!
land of the brave
home of the free
war is peace
night is day
and now for an interlude of truth:
bombing whole countries back to the stone age is very profitable
Does the BushReich seriously believe that the Afghan people are just going to move on and ignore these atrocities? Do they think that the Afghan people are still going to see us as liberators? Each of these children had parents, siblings, cousins, neighbors, etc. And they will remember. Not for week and months and years, but for generations.
I’ve just been reading the Fannie/Freddie Fiasco thread over at The Oil Drum. Quite a good read, IMHO.
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/4503#more
And I just cannot avoid coming to exactly the same conclusion I reached in December 2001, if for “slightly” different reasons.
Back then, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. The previous country to attempt a prolonged invasion of Afghanistan (to prop up the secular leftist govt. fighting a CIA/Pakistan-backed onslaught of Mujahadeen) was the Soviet Union. The USSR ceased to exist approximately 12 years after its 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.
Thus, in December 2001, I concluded that the United States of America would cease to exist by the end of 2013. A silly, superstitious conclusion, I admit. But now it really does seem like we are only about 5 years away from the dissolution of the USA. In concrete terms, the USA = the US Dollar + the Federal Reserve System + the US Treasury. These institutions really do appear to be nonviable over the medium term.
And anyway, the late Terence Mckenna said some bad shit was sure to happen in about 2012 or so.
Look, which is more surreal–Timewave Zero or the Bernanke/Paulson Comedy Duo??? Maybe both of them rely on little spacemen coming to the rescue? Oh well, never mind…