U.S. Account of Afghan Deaths at Odds With Head of Rights Group

KABUL, Afghanistan - Four civilians were killed early Friday by American and Afghan forces in eastern Afghanistan, according to the leader of a small human rights group who gave an account of the deaths entirely at odds with that of the United States-led coalition.

“The soldiers claimed they were looking for three Taliban suspects, and they blew out the door of the house that belongs to Haji Muhammada Jan, who was about 80 years old, killing him and two of his sons and a grandson,” said Lal Gul, chairman of the Afghanistan Human Rights Organization and a resident of the area in Nangarhar Province where the killings took place. “There were no Taliban here.”

The American-led coalition offered a markedly different version, saying its forces had been fired upon after “credible intelligence” led them to three separate compounds suspected of harboring Taliban fighters. It said that three militants were killed in the ensuing combat. A search of the compounds yielded rocket-propelled grenade launchers and grenades, Maj. Christopher Belcher said. Sixteen militants were taken prisoner, the coalition said.

Such competing versions of reality have become an almost daily part of the war in Afghanistan, where the nation’s president and many of its people vehemently complain that American and NATO military forces are causing needless civilian casualties.

On Friday, the NATO secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, addressed the matter in remarks made in Macedonia, promising, “We will do our utmost to reduce the loss of civilian life.” He continued, “Let me make one point unmistakably: NATO has never and will never intentionally kill innocent civilians.”

But the issue is not one of intent. Last week, President Hamid Karzai rebuked the United States military and NATO for “careless operations.” He spoke after a week in which more than 100 civilian deaths were reported from airstrikes and artillery fire against the Taliban. Among his specific criticisms were what he called “the disproportionate use of force to a situation and the lack of coordination with the Afghan government.”

If Mr. Gul, the human rights advocate, is correct, the events in Nangarhar on Friday may have been a result of another in a series of tragic mistakes. “The people who were taken away are not members of the Taliban,” he said in a telephone interview. “They are mostly farmers. The version being given by the coalition is baseless and a lie.”

Two weeks ago, seven Afghan policemen were killed by Americans in the same region when the two forces mistook each other for insurgents.

Also on Friday, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, visited Afghanistan for the first time in his present job, meeting with Mr. Karzai and the commander of NATO forces here, The Associated Press reported.

A spokesman for the United Nations, Adrian Edwards, said the visit was aimed at “ensuring solid coordination between the U.N. and Afghan government in their joint efforts here,” The A.P. reported.

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26 Comments so far

bobh June 30th, 2007 6:10 pm

Mistakes were made: “Four civilians were killed early Friday,” “Two weeks ago, seven Afghan policeman were killed by Americans…when the two forces mistook each other for insurgents.” “A boy wept after two of his uncles were killed and his father was detained in an American attack on several family compounds.” Mistakes were made. “Oops, sorry.”

“The version given by the coalition is baseless and a lie.”

What a commentary on the senselessness of war. The innocents die and are dismissed as just so much “collateral damage.”

abuelito June 30th, 2007 6:51 pm

Before they started bombing Afghanistan i was jumping up and down and yelling “no wait- not Afghanistan! Don’t you know these people have not known a minute’s peace for 20 years (now 26)? if you want Osama, send a swat team.

Then it started and every day it seemed we got reports of a village here a wedding party there getting bombed and only civilians hit.
the denials back then always came from a general in Florida. So of course we were more inclined to believe the Afghans at the scene of the crime.

And so it has gone on and on. The killing is always intentional. Their feeble excuse is that they had good reason to believe there might have been somebody with possible links to terrorists somewhere.

In addition to anything else one might say, it is a cowardly way to “fight” — dropping bombs on people who have no way to defend themselves.

Think about it when the parade goes by on the 4th.

beckyb June 30th, 2007 7:12 pm

I always wear my tie dye peace sign T-shirt to the parade on the 4th. Just a public symbolic gesture. Promoting peace while celebrating the founding of our country seems to baffle some. I think this year there will be more like minded folks though.

dcbeltway June 30th, 2007 7:27 pm

Afghan American author, Tamin Ansary’s letter holds true today as it did six years ago.

http://tcotrel.tripod.com/afghanletter.html

wcdevins June 30th, 2007 7:28 pm

“The people who were taken away are not members…They are mostly farmers.”

So were the Vietnamese. The killing in the name of the imperium has got to stop. Notice how every Iraqi killed lately is “Qaeda”. More propaganda, more dead. Beware the bogeyman bin Laden - he’s likely already be dead, but he’ll be resurrected in time for Cheney to declare martial law.

Drex June 30th, 2007 7:46 pm

My god will Afghanistan ever be free of invaders? I mean peace should be declared a human right but I am not sure these people have ever had a moments peace in recorded history. But I suppose that any country that has natural resources (poppies in Afghanistan’s case) or anything to do with fossil fuel (pipe lines for oil and natural gas in the case of Afghanistan) there will be no peace unless your dead. Maybe that is the peace plan that the U.S. has for Afghans.

dcbeltway June 30th, 2007 8:25 pm

WC-I was in Vietnam in 1995 and witnessed a country still recovering from that war. Tanks were still rusting in the fields, children whose parent’s were exposed to the chemical defoliant agent orange were born and living with horrific gentically mutated diseases as a result of their parent’s exposure, older men were limping around with one leg in the streets-alot of them because of landmines, and a B-52 bomber was left in a lake in Hanoi to rot away. War lasts beyond ceasefires and this was a good life-lesson for me as a 17 year old visiting that country. Yet I was treated like royalty as an American there which I had a lot of mixed feelings about mostly guilt.

In Afghanistan there is much of the same with Soviet tanks still rusting away, millions of widows, children missing limbs from landmines, orphans, families living in poverty, and plenty of people coping with the physcological trauma of too many decades of warfare. That being said, Afghans are some of the strongest people in the world and some of the most generous when you get to know them. I would also like to state that most Afghans I speak with prefer the Karzai regime over the Taliban or the communists. However, the loved their former King Zahir Shah the most and have fond memories of those days back in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

peoplefirst June 30th, 2007 9:41 pm

beckyb

Good for you. Can’t remember the last time I was at a
parade, but was thinking today about making a flag to fly
upside down with the chimp’s face on it. Maybe alternating
chickens and hawks for the stars… Maybe the red stripes
could run/drip. I suppose if I tried to carry it in a
parade on the fourth I would be stoned.

Dana Visalli June 30th, 2007 10:25 pm

The one thing that always completely baffles me is that people spend their entire lives paying for the death of other human beings. I think taking personal responsibility for our existence on the planet is an evolutionary step whose time has come.

“Let them protest all they want, as long as they pay their taxes.” A. Haig

peoplefirst July 1st, 2007 1:17 am

That’s why I’m not paying taxes any more. Well, can’t
avoid gas taxes if you use gas, haven’t figured out how
to avoid property taxes if I want to own my own home, and
when you have to buy something, there is the sales tax,
but I refuse to work and pay income taxes at least until
this Bushit is out of office. (And I do as much as
possible to do things for other people so they don’t have
to hire it done or buy something new which results in
government taxable income - though most likely they will
spend their money on something else…)

lillulu July 1st, 2007 2:00 am

Go, dogs of war, Go! Rob their childhood from them! Here’s a link that shows a picture of a young Iraqi girl who probably is an orphan now, thanks to the war machine:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wirestory?id=3334166

The U.S. is a sad country. Greed superimposes humanity. It’s enough to make a person cry for these children.

frank1569 July 1st, 2007 5:07 am

Afghans and Iraqis and most of the rest of the world must tragically laugh their asses off at how we super over-react at the discovery of a bomb in London as they count the dozens of innocents slaughtered each day by us in the name of, er, limited freedom and a piece or two of democracy.

So, the lesson is: bombs in cars, bad; bombs dropped from the air, good. Pathetic.

simonhhh July 1st, 2007 8:09 am

“Boy in photograph weeps as his 2 uncles are murdered and father arrested”……

EQUALS FUTURE TERRORIST IN 2020…..

wcdevins July 1st, 2007 12:09 pm

I saw on TV an interview with a Vietnamese farmer who still lived where an early war battle, in which the American ground forces, employing faulty tactics, were outflanked and ambushed by the rag-tag “Viet-Cong”. It was a crushing defeat (Au Shau Valley?) which Army brass covered up, but that’s another story. The farmer was still confused - (paraphrasing) “We didn’t know why Americans were fighting us. We must have had something the Americans wanted, but we didn’t know want it was. We fought to protect our farms and our families.” Not because they were godless communists, or devoted followers of Uncle Ho, or because they hated our freedom - but because we were trying to take something from them. Such will always be the reaction to invaders and occupiers. At least the Iraqis know what we want - their oil. Afghan leaders offered Bush what we wanted, bin Laden, but Bush could not provide the proof that he masterminded 9/11. Still can’t. Still links it to Saddam. Still lies about everything. Still hates our freedom.

eris July 1st, 2007 1:00 pm

wcdevins:
“Afghan leaders offered Bush what we wanted, bin Laden, but Bush could not provide the proof that he masterminded 9/11. Still can’t. Still links it to Saddam. Still lies about everything. Still hates our freedom.”

Oh there’s so much that could be said, and has been said already!

Above all we need to shirk off this obsessive-compulsive disorder that is Imperialism. There are simply so many things that should be occupying our minds and hearts, instead of war.

What we need above all is complete honesty - in the government and in our own lives. And especially where the government is concerned, we also need FULL DISCLOSURE.

It will never happen while corporations (through ex-CEOs and their ilk) run our government. It creates an administration that quite literally has no conscience, only an eye for the bottom line. Usually their own.

BTW this was true during the 60s as much as it is today. Today however more people over 30 are aware of what’s going on (thanks largely to the internet and sites like this one). The percentages of awake, aware adults are far larger than they were during Viet Nam.

Why is today’s anti-war movement so much quieter?

getriddabush July 1st, 2007 1:13 pm

Hey Afgans and Iraqis,
Get used to it! Bush has given us the ok to blow up and torture as many civillians as we like - and we like!!!!!!!

Preston July 1st, 2007 1:28 pm

We always say Western “civilization” doesn’t target civilians; yet we use cluster bombs that inevitably kill civilians. We use 2000 pound bombs in neighborhoods. We torture civilians based on zero evidence. We bomb sewage and water systems that kill civilians. We’ve nuked and fire bombed entire cities of civilians. We’ve enslaved civilians, we enslave them now in maquiladoras. We commit genocide on civilians.

But, on a regular basis, radio hosts like Dennis Prager will say, “we don’t target civilians,” and very few call in to challenge is daily dose of BS.
We need to put the concept of “state terror” into the consciousness of talk radio listeners.
http://www.occupation101.com and “Arabs and Terrorism” are two excellent resources.

y2kcockroach July 1st, 2007 1:42 pm

To know what is really going on there, all one has to do is read what is “out there”:

“Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, addressed the matter in remarks made in Macedonia, (stating) ‘Let me make one point unmistakably: NATO has never and will never intentionally kill innocent civilians.” July 01, 2007;

“It also emerged that in an operation backed by Afghan troops on the same day, coalition jets targeted a compound that also contained a mosque and a madrassa, or Islamic school, in the Zarghun Shah district of eastern Paktika province. Coalition forces claimed that “nefarious activity was occurring at the site”. The statement gave no indication what such nefarious activity might be, however, a military spokesman later claimed that al-Qa’ida had been using the mosque and civilians to hide behind - a claim for which no evidence was provided. At least seven children were killed”. (The Independent (UK), June 19, 2007)

“Last week, 52 civilians died when artillery was fired into Chora, a town in Uruzgan province where NATO troops fought the Taliban for three days.
‘You do not fight terrorists by firing a field gun 20 miles into a target,’ Karzai said. ‘That is definitely surely bound to cause civilian casualties” (Boston Globe, June 23, 2007);

“A Nato spokesman said Mr Karzai had a right to be “disappointed and angry” over the scale of civilian casualties.
It came after a week in which up to 90 Afghan civilians were killed.
More civilians have been killed this year as a result of foreign military action than have been killed by insurgents, correspondents say”. (BBC news, June 24, 2007)

The above list took me one minute and twelve seconds to compile from “Google” (my wife timed me). The list would be huge, if I had the time and the space here. But the moral to this story is this: take one minute each day (just one lousy minute of your life), and read up on what is (really) going on there, and you will be disgusted, and horrified.

wcdevins July 1st, 2007 2:13 pm

We don’t “target” (intentionally aim at) civilians, we target terrorists, or insurgents, or Qaeda, or The Taliban, or guerillas, or Iranian agitators, or Baathist dead-enders, or Shia death squads, or Sadr’s Army, or Saddamists, or Zarqawi supporters, or those who harbor the enemy, or whatever Cheney’s enemy of the day is. Pretty soon no one fits the definintion of civilian any more, so everyone’s a target.

eris: My intention at times gets lost in my sarcasm (see above paragraph.) I agree with you 100%. Part of the problem personally is disassociating yourself from the brain-washing you received studying American history, how all the Presidents are worthy of veneration, how our Constitution is sacred, swearing allegiance to the flag. Finding out for yourself that the picture isn’t quite so rosy is tough. Many never get past the “My country, my president, right or wrong” sentiment engendered by that indoctrination, when in fact, The Declaration of Independence speaks exactly the opposite.

Currently I am having difficulty reviewing and reconciling 9/11. I don’t consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but there is certainly more there than meets the eye. But are we willing to believe our government is so evil and calculating as to murder its own citizens to further the ends of corporate imperialism? Tough to swallow, but if the citizens of other countries and their governments don’t mean anything to the power in our country, is it too much of a stretch to think that we don’t mean squat to them either, except as pawns to be sacrificed in their corrupt game of power? Is it far-fetched to think Cheney and Bush abandoned New Orleans because the poor were “nothing but a bunch of ignorant welfare criminal nigras who wouldn’t vote for us anyway?” What about Cheney telling W those WTC New Yorkers are merely “intellectual elite gay-loving liberal Jews who wouldn’t vote for us anyway?” Can you see it? I think I can…

wcdevins July 1st, 2007 2:30 pm

y2k’: Reminds me of the WW II incident at Montecassino in Italy. Now recall that WW II was “The Good War”, and everything we did was right and just. The ancient monastery at Montecassino was on a hill commanding a broad view of the route of Allied troops. The German Army in the region claimed never to have occupied the monastery or used it for military purposes. The Allies could not believe this and so bombed the monastery into ruin. Many Italian civilians had taken refuge there, thinking no one would bomb a Christian holy place. It was found that not only had the German Army never set foot in the monastery before its destruction, their commanders had urged the Abbott to move irreplaceable art and treasure to Rome, because they could not guarantee the safety of the sanctuary. Interesting postscript - the Montecassino crypt contained the relics of St Benedict, a fact obviously not lost on a Pope choosing Benedict as a namesake.

eris July 1st, 2007 3:41 pm

wcdevins: Thanks, and yes, exactly - there is so much that has been said. Had no-one said it we wouldn’t know. But we do - it’s available even to those who don’t have internet. Perhaps the most eye-opening reading I’ve done in the last 20 years is “People’s History of the US” (Zinn) and “Jihad vs. McWorld” (Barber) - both bookstore purchases. I’ve met plenty of people who’ve read either or both, and then some.

But it’s a sad sad fact that Americans are addicted to wishful thinking. This is why I say we need honesty. Brutal truth, and megadoses of it. To ourselves first and the larger world will follow. The downside is what this cognitive dissonance does to our psyches, and how people react to our changed behavior.

Once I understood what really went before, and what’s happening now I became quite shrill. My friends’ reactions were predictable. That’s when I realized it’s not just about ignorance, it’s about deliberately deceiving ourselves because the alternative means having to rethink everything you think you know, everything you want to believe. Admittedly a harsh task.

High time for it though.

ezeflyer July 1st, 2007 3:44 pm

Not in my name.

jade July 1st, 2007 6:13 pm

i have been so touched by this story and especially the photograph that i sent a message to the journalist at the times…i want to hold this boy and soothe him…i want to apologize to him, his family and his country…i want the people of afghanistan to know that there are people like us who are viscerally opposed to our country’s policies of murder and mayhem under the guise of protecting us–NOT IN MY NAME, indeed…dear god, where are the voices of opposition?
i have printed a large picture of this boy and will display it on my vehicle with the question YOU’RE PROUD OF THIS???

we must never be silent……

iris July 2nd, 2007 12:05 am

eris: How very true. Sueharto speaks of the need for coming to terms with our basic values as a people, as Americans, and you are saying the resistance to doing that lies in the fact that admitting to the truth of one of these corrupt and putrid acts opens a Pandora’s box of questions that most people don’t want to face. But it is up to us to continue asking our own questions and let them come to terms with their discomfort. As Jade says, “we must never be silent…….”

y2kcockroach July 2nd, 2007 12:48 am

To “wcdevins”: you are so correct. While the “winners” get to write the history of the event, every now and then a story such as the obscenity that was the bombing of Montecassino comes out (there really was nothing there to bomb; the whole thing was the product of overactive Allied imaginations). The problem is that we are not “winning” in Afghanistan, or anything close to it and so we are having one helluva time getting our version of events to stick. However, one thing is for certain: those families of the dead will not forget us, nor will they forget what we have done to their poor little country. Afghanis are known for having long memories, and for bearing grudges for life. They who are getting bombed, shot at, imprisoned and abused in their own homes, schools and churches will have their day.

saywhat July 2nd, 2007 12:49 am

MURDER?

bobh June 30th, 2007 6:10 pm

Mistakes were made: “Four civilians were killed early Friday,” “Two weeks ago, seven Afghan policeman were killed by Americans…when the two forces mistook each other for insurgents.” “A boy wept after two of his uncles were killed and his father was detained in an American attack on several family compounds.” Mistakes were made. “Oops, sorry.”

“The version given by the coalition is baseless and a lie.”

What a commentary on the senselessness of war. The innocents die and are dismissed as just so much “collateral damage.”
abuelito June 30th, 2007 6:51 pm

Before they started bombing Afghanistan i was jumping up and down and yelling “no wait- not Afghanistan! Don’t you know these people have not known a minute’s peace for 20 years (now 26)? if you want Osama, send a swat team.

Then it started and every day it seemed we got reports of a village here a wedding party there getting bombed and only civilians hit.
the denials back then always came from a general in Florida. So of course we were more inclined to believe the Afghans at the scene of the crime.

And so it has gone on and on. The killing is always intentional. Their feeble excuse is that they had good reason to believe there might have been somebody with possible links to terrorists somewhere.

In addition to anything else one might say, it is a cowardly way to “fight” — dropping bombs on people who have no way to defend themselves.

Think about it when the parade goes by on the 4th.
beckyb June 30th, 2007 7:12 pm

I always wear my tie dye peace sign T-shirt to the parade on the 4th. Just a public symbolic gesture. Promoting peace while celebrating the founding of our country seems to baffle some. I think this year there will be more like minded folks though.
dcbeltway June 30th, 2007 7:27 pm

Afghan American author, Tamin Ansary’s letter holds true today as it did six years ago.

http://tcotrel.tripod.com/afghanletter.html
wcdevins June 30th, 2007 7:28 pm

“The people who were taken away are not members…They are mostly farmers.”

So were the Vietnamese. The killing in the name of the imperium has got to stop. Notice how every Iraqi killed lately is “Qaeda”. More propaganda, more dead. Beware the bogeyman bin Laden - he’s likely already be dead, but he’ll be resurrected in time for Cheney to declare martial law.
Drex June 30th, 2007 7:46 pm

My god will Afghanistan ever be free of invaders? I mean peace should be declared a human right but I am not sure these people have ever had a moments peace in recorded history. But I suppose that any country that has natural resources (poppies in Afghanistan’s case) or anything to do with fossil fuel (pipe lines for oil and natural gas in the case of Afghanistan) there will be no peace unless your dead. Maybe that is the peace plan that the U.S. has for Afghans.
dcbeltway June 30th, 2007 8:25 pm

WC-I was in Vietnam in 1995 and witnessed a country still recovering from that war. Tanks were still rusting in the fields, children whose parent’s were exposed to the chemical defoliant agent orange were born and living with horrific gentically mutated diseases as a result of their parent’s exposure, older men were limping around with one leg in the streets-alot of them because of landmines, and a B-52 bomber was left in a lake in Hanoi to rot away. War lasts beyond ceasefires and this was a good life-lesson for me as a 17 year old visiting that country. Yet I was treated like royalty as an American there which I had a lot of mixed feelings about mostly guilt.

In Afghanistan there is much of the same with Soviet tanks still rusting away, millions of widows, children missing limbs from landmines, orphans, families living in poverty, and plenty of people coping with the physcological trauma of too many decades of warfare. That being said, Afghans are some of the strongest people in the world and some of the most generous when you get to know them. I would also like to state that most Afghans I speak with prefer the Karzai regime over the Taliban or the communists. However, the loved their former King Zahir Shah the most and have fond memories of those days back in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
peoplefirst June 30th, 2007 9:41 pm

beckyb

Good for you. Can’t remember the last time I was at a
parade, but was thinking today about making a flag to fly
upside down with the chimp’s face on it. Maybe alternating
chickens and hawks for the stars… Maybe the red stripes
could run/drip. I suppose if I tried to carry it in a
parade on the fourth I would be stoned.
Dana Visalli June 30th, 2007 10:25 pm

The one thing that always completely baffles me is that people spend their entire lives paying for the death of other human beings. I think taking personal responsibility for our existence on the planet is an evolutionary step whose time has come.

“Let them protest all they want, as long as they pay their taxes.” A. Haig
peoplefirst July 1st, 2007 1:17 am

That’s why I’m not paying taxes any more. Well, can’t
avoid gas taxes if you use gas, haven’t figured out how
to avoid property taxes if I want to own my own home, and
when you have to buy something, there is the sales tax,
but I refuse to work and pay income taxes at least until
this Bushit is out of office. (And I do as much as
possible to do things for other people so they don’t have
to hire it done or buy something new which results in
government taxable income - though most likely they will
spend their money on something else…)
lillulu July 1st, 2007 2:00 am

Go, dogs of war, Go! Rob their childhood from them! Here’s a link that shows a picture of a young Iraqi girl who probably is an orphan now, thanks to the war machine:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wirestory?id=3334166

The U.S. is a sad country. Greed superimposes humanity. It’s enough to make a person cry for these children.
frank1569 July 1st, 2007 5:07 am

Afghans and Iraqis and most of the rest of the world must tragically laugh their asses off at how we super over-react at the discovery of a bomb in London as they count the dozens of innocents slaughtered each day by us in the name of, er, limited freedom and a piece or two of democracy.

So, the lesson is: bombs in cars, bad; bombs dropped from the air, good. Pathetic.
simonhhh July 1st, 2007 8:09 am

“Boy in photograph weeps as his 2 uncles are murdered and father arrested”……

EQUALS FUTURE TERRORIST IN 2020…..
wcdevins July 1st, 2007 12:09 pm

I saw on TV an interview with a Vietnamese farmer who still lived where an early war battle, in which the American ground forces, employing faulty tactics, were outflanked and ambushed by the rag-tag “Viet-Cong”. It was a crushing defeat (Au Shau Valley?) which Army brass covered up, but that’s another story. The farmer was still confused - (paraphrasing) “We didn’t know why Americans were fighting us. We must have had something the Americans wanted, but we didn’t know want it was. We fought to protect our farms and our families.” Not because they were godless communists, or devoted followers of Uncle Ho, or because they hated our freedom - but because we were trying to take something from them. Such will always be the reaction to invaders and occupiers. At least the Iraqis know what we want - their oil. Afghan leaders offered Bush what we wanted, bin Laden, but Bush could not provide the proof that he masterminded 9/11. Still can’t. Still links it to Saddam. Still lies about everything. Still hates our freedom.
eris July 1st, 2007 1:00 pm

wcdevins:
“Afghan leaders offered Bush what we wanted, bin Laden, but Bush could not provide the proof that he masterminded 9/11. Still can’t. Still links it to Saddam. Still lies about everything. Still hates our freedom.”

Oh there’s so much that could be said, and has been said already!

Above all we need to shirk off this obsessive-compulsive disorder that is Imperialism. There are simply so many things that should be occupying our minds and hearts, instead of war.

What we need above all is complete honesty - in the government and in our own lives. And especially where the government is concerned, we also need FULL DISCLOSURE.

It will never happen while corporations (through ex-CEOs and their ilk) run our government. It creates an administration that quite literally has no conscience, only an eye for the bottom line. Usually their own.

BTW this was true during the 60s as much as it is today. Today however more people over 30 are aware of what’s going on (thanks largely to the internet and sites like this one). The percentages of awake, aware adults are far larger than they were during Viet Nam.

Why is today’s anti-war movement so much quieter?
getriddabush July 1st, 2007 1:13 pm

Hey Afgans and Iraqis,
Get used to it! Bush has given us the ok to blow up and torture as many civillians as we like - and we like!!!!!!!
Preston July 1st, 2007 1:28 pm

We always say Western “civilization” doesn’t target civilians; yet we use cluster bombs that inevitably kill civilians. We use 2000 pound bombs in neighborhoods. We torture civilians based on zero evidence. We bomb sewage and water systems that kill civilians. We’ve nuked and fire bombed entire cities of civilians. We’ve enslaved civilians, we enslave them now in maquiladoras. We commit genocide on civilians.

But, on a regular basis, radio hosts like Dennis Prager will say, “we don’t target civilians,” and very few call in to challenge is daily dose of BS.
We need to put the concept of “state terror” into the consciousness of talk radio listeners.
http://www.occupation101.com and “Arabs and Terrorism” are two excellent resources.
y2kcockroach July 1st, 2007 1:42 pm

To know what is really going on there, all one has to do is read what is “out there”:

“Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, addressed the matter in remarks made in Macedonia, (stating) ‘Let me make one point unmistakably: NATO has never and will never intentionally kill innocent civilians.” July 01, 2007;

“It also emerged that in an operation backed by Afghan troops on the same day, coalition jets targeted a compound that also contained a mosque and a madrassa, or Islamic school, in the Zarghun Shah district of eastern Paktika province. Coalition forces claimed that “nefarious activity was occurring at the site”. The statement gave no indication what such nefarious activity might be, however, a military spokesman later claimed that al-Qa’ida had been using the mosque and civilians to hide behind - a claim for which no evidence was provided. At least seven children were killed”. (The Independent (UK), June 19, 2007)

“Last week, 52 civilians died when artillery was fired into Chora, a town in Uruzgan province where NATO troops fought the Taliban for three days.
‘You do not fight terrorists by firing a field gun 20 miles into a target,’ Karzai said. ‘That is definitely surely bound to cause civilian casualties” (Boston Globe, June 23, 2007);

“A Nato spokesman said Mr Karzai had a right to be “disappointed and angry” over the scale of civilian casualties.
It came after a week in which up to 90 Afghan civilians were killed.
More civilians have been killed this year as a result of foreign military action than have been killed by insurgents, correspondents say”. (BBC news, June 24, 2007)

The above list took me one minute and twelve seconds to compile from “Google” (my wife timed me). The list would be huge, if I had the time and the space here. But the moral to this story is this: take one minute each day (just one lousy minute of your life), and read up on what is (really) going on there, and you will be disgusted, and horrified.
wcdevins July 1st, 2007 2:13 pm

We don’t “target” (intentionally aim at) civilians, we target terrorists, or insurgents, or Qaeda, or The Taliban, or guerillas, or Iranian agitators, or Baathist dead-enders, or Shia death squads, or Sadr’s Army, or Saddamists, or Zarqawi supporters, or those who harbor the enemy, or whatever Cheney’s enemy of the day is. Pretty soon no one fits the definintion of civilian any more, so everyone’s a target.

eris: My intention at times gets lost in my sarcasm (see above paragraph.) I agree with you 100%. Part of the problem personally is disassociating yourself from the brain-washing you received studying American history, how all the Presidents are worthy of veneration, how our Constitution is sacred, swearing allegiance to the flag. Finding out for yourself that the picture isn’t quite so rosy is tough. Many never get past the “My country, my president, right or wrong” sentiment engendered by that indoctrination, when in fact, The Declaration of Independence speaks exactly the opposite.

Currently I am having difficulty reviewing and reconciling 9/11. I don’t consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but there is certainly more there than meets the eye. But are we willing to believe our government is so evil and calculating as to murder its own citizens to further the ends of corporate imperialism? Tough to swallow, but if the citizens of other countries and their governments don’t mean anything to the power in our country, is it too much of a stretch to think that we don’t mean squat to them either, except as pawns to be sacrificed in their corrupt game of power? Is it far-fetched to think Cheney and Bush abandoned New Orleans because the poor were “nothing but a bunch of ignorant welfare criminal nigras who wouldn’t vote for us anyway?” What about Cheney telling W those WTC New Yorkers are merely “intellectual elite gay-loving liberal Jews who wouldn’t vote for us anyway?” Can you see it? I think I can…
wcdevins July 1st, 2007 2:30 pm

y2k’: Reminds me of the WW II incident at Montecassino in Italy. Now recall that WW II was “The Good War”, and everything we did was right and just. The ancient monastery at Montecassino was on a hill commanding a broad view of the route of Allied troops. The German Army in the region claimed never to have occupied the monastery or used it for military purposes. The Allies could not believe this and so bombed the monastery into ruin. Many Italian civilians had taken refuge there, thinking no one would bomb a Christian holy place. It was found that not only had the German Army never set foot in the monastery before its destruction, their commanders had urged the Abbott to move irreplaceable art and treasure to Rome, because they could not guarantee the safety of the sanctuary. Interesting postscript - the Montecassino crypt contained the relics of St Benedict, a fact obviously not lost on a Pope choosing Benedict as a namesake.
eris July 1st, 2007 3:41 pm

wcdevins: Thanks, and yes, exactly - there is so much that has been said. Had no-one said it we wouldn’t know. But we do - it’s available even to those who don’t have internet. Perhaps the most eye-opening reading I’ve done in the last 20 years is “People’s History of the US” (Zinn) and “Jihad vs. McWorld” (Barber) - both bookstore purchases. I’ve met plenty of people who’ve read either or both, and then some.

But it’s a sad sad fact that Americans are addicted to wishful thinking. This is why I say we need honesty. Brutal truth, and megadoses of it. To ourselves first and the larger world will follow. The downside is what this cognitive dissonance does to our psyches, and how people react to our changed behavior.

Once I understood what really went before, and what’s happening now I became quite shrill. My friends’ reactions were predictable. That’s when I realized it’s not just about ignorance, it’s about deliberately deceiving ourselves because the alternative means having to rethink everything you think you know, everything you want to believe. Admittedly a harsh task.

High time for it though.
ezeflyer July 1st, 2007 3:44 pm

Not in my name.
jade July 1st, 2007 6:13 pm

i have been so touched by this story and especially the photograph that i sent a message to the journalist at the times…i want to hold this boy and soothe him…i want to apologize to him, his family and his country…i want the people of afghanistan to know that there are people like us who are viscerally opposed to our country’s policies of murder and mayhem under the guise of protecting us–NOT IN MY NAME, indeed…dear god, where are the voices of opposition?
i have printed a large picture of this boy and will display it on my vehicle with the question YOU’RE PROUD OF THIS???

we must never be silent……
iris July 2nd, 2007 12:05 am

eris: How very true. Sueharto speaks of the need for coming to terms with our basic values as a people, as Americans, and you are saying the resistance to doing that lies in the fact that admitting to the truth of one of these corrupt and putrid acts opens a Pandora’s box of questions that most people don’t want to face. But it is up to us to continue asking our own questions and let them come to terms with their discomfort. As Jade says, “we must never be silent…….”
y2kcockroach July 2nd, 2007 12:48 am

To “wcdevins”: you are so correct. While the “winners” get to write the history of the event, every now and then a story such as the obscenity that was the bombing of Montecassino comes out (there really was nothing there to bomb; the whole thing was the product of overactive Allied imaginations). The problem is that we are not “winning” in Afghanistan, or anything close to it and so we are having one helluva time getting our version of events to stick. However, one thing is for certain: those families of the dead will not forget us, nor will they forget what we have done to their poor little country. Afghanis are known for having long memories, and for bearing grudges for life. They who are getting bombed, shot at, imprisoned and abused in their own homes, schools and churches will have their day.
saywhat July 2nd, 2007 12:49 am

MURDER?

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