Posted on 08/26/2008 7:30:22 PM PDT by austrian
There is convincing evidence that 60 children and 30 adults were killed in a US air strike in western Afghanistan last Friday, the United Nations says.
The US originally said its planes had killed 30 militants in the attack in the province of Herat.
President Karzai sacked two senior Afghan army officers over the incident. The US says Afghan forces led the operation in the district of Shindand.
The incident has worsened relations between Mr Karzai and foreign forces.
On Monday the government said it wanted to renegotiate the terms under which US-led forces and Nato-led forces operate in Afghanistan.
If confirmed, the Shindand incident is one of the worst cases of foreign forces killing Afghan civilians.
Destruction evident
The UN investigation was carried out by its Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama). Investigations by Unama found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men," the UN's Special Envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
"The destruction from aerial bombardment was clearly evident with some seven-eight houses having been totally destroyed and serious damage to many others.
"Local residents were able to confirm the number of casualties, including names, age and gender of the victims."
Call for help
The UN investigation adds further weight to the Afghan government's own report into the incident. President Karzai's office said on Sunday that "89 of our innocent countrymen, including women and children" died in the incident....
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Here we go again! Fat Jack Murtha is going to have a field day with this. I can hear his chuckling already.
Hey UN.. Muslim terrorists killed 2400 innocent persons in U.S. soil on 9-11-01!
Need more be said?
but 60 dead kids is really really bad news. btw. it will turn more angry locals against the coalition force. very bad news.
Who designated and called the target? It may have been Afghan officers who called in the air strike. Some more facts are needed.
excerpt..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article4601497.ece
The coalition forces were trying to detain Mullah Siddiq, a mid-level Taleban commander in the area, who was presiding over a gathering of militants in the district of Shindad, said First Lieutenant Nathan Perry. They were ambushed as they approached the target and pursued their assailants back to the compound, before calling in an airstrike from the C130, Lieutenant Perry said. Afghan and foreign troops on the ground checked the battlefield afterwards and reported initially that 30 militants had been killed, including Mullah Siddiq, without any civilian deaths, he said. However, later on Friday they reported five civilian deaths — three women and two children believed to be Mullah Siddiq’s family. The attacks sparked angry protests on Saturday from locals, who set fire to a police vehicle and waved banners reading “Death to America”. Local officials said many of the dead had gathered to mark the 40th day since the killing of a militia commander.
Who designated and called the target? It may have been Afghan officers who called in the air strike. Some more facts are needed.
from bbc:
Reports say that Afghan soldiers were fighting Taleban militants in the village of Azizabad and called in US air forces for help.
President Karzai subsequently sacked Gen Jalandar Shah Behnam, head of the army in western Afghanistan, and Maj Abdul Jabar, for “neglecting their duties and concealing the facts”, indicating that they were partly to blame for the incident.
Even if children were present, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a valid hit. These guys are the ones who build bomb belts in the basements of schools knowing we can’t blow up a school to get them.
If it was a terror camp that we hit, then it was a terror camp period - whether or not kids were present. Or do you think we should treat our enemies as untouchable as long as they keep their families close by?
That’s a good way to get more Americans killed. These scum would not have that kind of consideration for OUR families, nor did they on 9/11.
Well, they could get rid of the radicals in their midst and things like this (if true) would disappear. I doubt 60 kids … propaganda always supplants the truth in the minds of those that want to believe ( a saying attributed to Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels).
Even if children were present, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a valid hit. These guys are the ones who build bomb belts in the basements of schools knowing we can’t blow up a school to get them.
If it was a terror camp that we hit, then it was a terror camp period - whether or not kids were present.
Pttshhh! Whatever! I'd like to see the UN do better. Oh but wait, you can't make any mistakes when you just sit there and don't do anything. Oh well, so much for the UN's credibility.
So, give us your thoughts on WWII and America’s whole cities firebombing and the use of the atomic bomb.
And I'll be damned if my kids are valid targets. Kill the terrorists before they get MY kids.
Look, the death of children in war is a gross injustice to the children (to humanity in general). However, how many children died in Nagasaki and Hiroshima to save millions upon millions of lives (remember the Japanese started the war in Asia) that would have occurred by our invasion. How many children died because of WWII during the fighting in Europe and Russia (remember Hitler started that war)?
We didn’t start this thing, muzzies did on 911.
So, give us your thoughts on WWII and America’s whole cities firebombing and the use of the atomic bomb.
Don’t remind him about starting wars. His ‘nation’ was pretty efficient at that, some little time ago.
NO ONE on this thread has stated or even intimated what you are decrying. This is an entire strawman.
Kids are valid targets only for our enemies, not for us.
What we are saying is that the target was a good one - not that the kids were the target. this distinction seems obvious to me, but it seems to be lost on you.
If you are a renegade a-wipe, the scum of the earth, and besieged by the forces of righteousness on all sides, and you know a smart bomb is coming with you coordinates programmed in, and you keep your kids at your side, what kind of man are you anyway?
Like I said, the scum of the earth.
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