Six children killed in US assault in eastern Afghanistan

Associated Press | November 10, 2003

[Fledermaus]

Notice the bias...."six MORE children". Like children weren't being killed, tortured, raped or forced to fight by the Taliban.

Sad development. War is hell.

[zarf]

Now it's the children riff. AP and Reuters are going to play this one into the ground.

[HAL9000]

Six children killed in U.S. assault on compound in eastern Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Six children were killed during an assault by U.S. forces on a compound in eastern Afghanistan, a U.S. military spokesman said Wednesday, the second time in a week that civilians have died in action against Taliban and al-Qaida suspects.

The children died during an attack on Friday against a complex near the eastern city of Gardez where a renegade Afghan commander, Mullah Jalani, was believed to have stocked weapons, said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty.

"The next day we discovered the bodies of two adults and six children under a collapsed," he said. "We had no indication there were noncombatants" in the compound.

Jalani was not at the site, 12 miles east of Gardez, but Hilferty said nine other people were arrested.

Hilferty said that U.S. warplanes and troops attacked the compound in a nighttime raid, setting off secondary explosions. The bodies were discovered the following day. They appeared to have been crushed by a falling wall, he said.

He expressed regret over the death of civilians in Afghanistan, but said it was impossible to completely eliminate such incidents.

"We try very hard not to kill anyone. We would prefer to capture the terrorists rather than kill them," Hilferty said. "But in this incident, if noncombatants surround themselves with thousands of weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and howitzers and mortars in a compound known to be used by a terrorist we are not completely responsible for the consequences."

Hilferty said he was not sure if the wall collapsed because of U.S. fire or the secondary explosions caused by weapons stored at the site. There was no word of U.S. casualties in the operation.

The news comes on the heels of a tragic U.S. military blunder in neighboring Ghazni province on Saturday. Nine children were found dead in a field after an attack by an A-10 ground attack aircraft that was targeting a Taliban suspect.

U.S. officials have apologized for that incident. They originally claimed that the attack killed the intended target, a former Taliban district commander named Mullah Wazir suspected of recent attacks on road workers. But U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on Tuesday said they were no longer certain.

Villagers say the man killed was a local laborer who had just returned from Iran and that Mullah Wazir had left the area days before the attack.

The Ghazni deaths produced outrage and concern, from Afghan villagers to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who said he was "profoundly saddened" by the deaths and urged a full investigation. Afghan officials warned that such mistakes will undermine support for the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai and tolerance of foreign troops.

"I can't guarantee that we will not injure more civilians," Hilferty said. "I wish I could."

[Justice]

I wonder if the intended targets of these attacks (i.e. The bad guys) are grabbing a bunch of kids and forcing them to get killed along with them in order to crank up the bad press?

[RLK]

That ought to polarize the situation more.

[zarf]

MAKE BUSH LOOK LIKE MEAN MAN. GOOD NEWS FOR THE DEMS.

[deadeye2]

It wasn't that long ago that the Clinton administration was trying to pump up the numbers on "children" killed by handguns in the US. Their definition of "children" included anyone up to the age of 25 years old.

[RLK]

MAKE BUSH LOOK LIKE MEAN MAN. GOOD NEWS FOR THE DEMS.

------------------------

I'm not making Bush look like a mean man.

When this mess started I warned that we'd be working in a population where every fifth person was a jihadist terrorist and there would be no way of telling who was who. It was imperitive to get out quickly or we'd end up killing the wrong people and creating bitterness that would sustain the jihadists for generations.

[piasa]

This is the sort of situation the old Geneva convention was designed to deter; lawful combatants don't surround themselves with kids in a compound nor do they stash their weapons and ammunition in civilian residences or where civilians are expected to be. Thus by the conventions the folks who are responsible- the terrorists- are unlawful combatants and are not protected by the convention, one of the reasons why they should not be considered POWs when captured.

Of course, when we choose to treat unlawful combatants as humanely as we treat lawful ones (POWs), we unwittingly toss away the very deterrent the Geneva Conventions were designed to create. So it is to be expected that unlawful combatants will continue to use such shoot-from-under-the-skirt tactics. After all, they get treated just as well whether they adhere to the rules of war or not, and why adhere ot the rules when violating them has so many advantages?

Not to mention that one of the advantages is being able to twist things around to make the lawful combatants responsible for the irresponsibility of the terrorists.

[RLK]

Guerrilla warfare does not operate within the Geneva convention.

[ppaul]

How many children were left orphaned by the 9/11 attacks?
Huh?
How about an answer you elitist bastard pigs in the press?!!!!

[piasa]

Obviously. The responsibility for noncombatant deaths goes on those who conceal themselves among noncombatants, without regard to what form the war takes.

[zarf]

I hate to tell ya: anyone with half a brain foresaw that fact.

Post /11 though, getting out quickly is not an option. In fact, there are no other options outside of building up the friendly indigenous forces..which is what we, in fact, are attempting to do.

[Democratshavenobrains]

This proves all the Lefties who complain that Iraq was a mistake are full of crap. If it weren't for the Iraq war, the Dems running for POTUS would just be harping on Afghanistan mistakes by Bush instead of Iraq mistakes.

[Dr. Marten]

Thats really ashame.
How many children died in the Trade Towers in 2001?

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Please share with our free (thanks to our military past and present) press how they encourage our enemies to place children in harm's way by trusting the word of an emeny with a history of murdering the innocent, over the word of a military with a history of saving the innocent ~ by being the biggest useful dupes any enemy of freedom could hope for, reacting predictably, irresponsibly, ignorantly, by ever implying that our heroes would wantonly, or carelessly, slaughter children. 

Look in the mirror, AP, BBC, and Co. You are partly responsible for the death of those children, used once more by an enemy with a history of using YOU to promote their hatred, and tyranny.

E-mail major media:

(cut & paste)

 

info@ap.org,

feedback@ap.org,

editor@reuters.com,

newsonline@bbc.co.uk,

newseditor@independent.co.uk,

news@sky.com,

memri@memri.org,

editor@nytimes.com,

letters@nypost.com,

webnews@washpost.com,
letters@washingtontimes.com,

viewer@c-span.org,

comments@foxnews.com,  

letters@MSNBC.com,

NBC's Nightly News,
Today@NBC.com,

 

~~~~~~~

Good mega-media e-mail link site

[hellinahandcart]

I noticed they're not giving ages.

"Children" always evokes the image of big-eyed toddlers in training pants.

That's why the gun-grabbers always refer to 16-year-old gang-bangers killed in shootouts as "children" who were "killed by handguns".

[Redwood71]

"there would be no way of telling who was who"

---

Unfortunely, there is a way to tell. And it needs to be done by the people that allow themselves, without resistance, to be utilized by the terrorist groups. I can't think of a way you can tell me that a local cannot go to the military, in secret, and tell the military where charlie is. If this was being done, there would be a limited amount of non-combatants injured or killed. And at this point, there is a limited amount. Far less than the media, in it's infinite wisdom, had predicted to include on the home front post 9/11.

I think you'll find that as more and more locals step forward, the problems will be solved. But you'll never see or hear that in the media stateside. They have a libeal agenda.

Red