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Call it a Massacre, Not a Mistake
Yesterday, as many as 150 people were killed by US warplanes while they were huddled in their houses in Farah, Afghanistan.
So today, as Afghan President Hamid Karzai meets with President Obama, US officials in Afghanistan are heading to the site of the latest US massacre.
That's not a word we often use to describe the mass killing of civilians by US forces. Instead, reports of Afghan civilian casualties are followed by a now-routine pattern of official denials, self-investigations and apologies.
Yesterday's killings are now in the self-investigation phase, in case you're wondering. The denial phase was short because villagers who survived the attack trucked about 30 mangled corpses of children, women and other non-combatants to their local governor's office in order to prove that civilians had been killed.
Soon enough we'll be hearing the official "regrets." I don't want to hear them. I'm sick of the twisted logic that allows the US military to drop bombs on people and then claim it was a mistake when the bombs land on people. You don't deliberately do something with a known outcome and then get to call the result a mistake.
A massacre is a large-scale, indiscriminate killing; which is precisely the known outcome of the US air strikes in Afghanistan. So let's call this a massacre. And let's work to end the air strikes before another Afghan family has to hear how sorry the US military is.
Yifat Susskind is MADRE's Policy and Communications Director.
85 Comments so far
Show AllWhy do people keep giving their money for acts such as this?
Something novel and simple but so pure. Make it a crime to produce anything that kills people.
Too Radical?
Well this could work. Order that all Military Contractors must be non Profits whose CEO's receive the pay of the average wage earner.
the only problem with that is people always fine novel ways to kill themselves with seemingly innocuous items ;-)
Today the drivel mouthed AP is reporting the new commanding liar in Afghanistan Mckiernan as saying the Talibs did it with grenades.
The pictures show complete rubble, no way grenades.
The USA military = Al Qaeda
Grenades tends to mean RPGs too...which can very easily blow homes to rubble. I was doing my laundry last night and caught Katie Couric reporting on this, she pointed out something we don't think about, it does take more time for the military to investigate something like this than for the Taliban to claim it was us. But for starters, it should take only an instant for the military to find out if there were any US aircraft in that area at that time, and if they used any weaponry. If they're not claiming they had no aircraft in the area, then yes it's more likely it was an airstrike, and then they have to determine how it went wrong so that (theoretically) the same mistakes aren't made again. Or at least, that's how I imagine this type of investigation should work.
They lie about this too. Early in the Afghan war a village was attacked with a US Gunships. As I recall some 29 villagers died.
First the Pentagon claimed there were no bodies and the people were making it up.
Some news paper reporters sent back pictures of the graves. The US then said no Gunships were in the area and that it was likely bullets falling back to earth from a celebration.
The Same reporters provided pictures of casings from the US dropped bombs with some of the Serial numbers still intact.
After a few more months the US admitted that there were aircraft in the area and that it was all a "regretable mistake".
This is SOP.....delay until the shock of the Murder and slaughter wears off, then apply the "Well that was in the past...we have to move on" tactic that so many on these boards use.
Here is a simple fact that should be obvious to anyone.
PEOPLE live in houses. The PEOPLE of Afghanistan live in houses. This includes women and children.
Just because there is a house and the ground and it labled a target it does not mean that the only persons inside are Taliban Terrorists.
If you do not know WHO is in the house do not drop a bomb on it.
"Here is a simple fact that should be obvious to anyone.
PEOPLE live in houses. The PEOPLE of Afghanistan live in houses. This includes women and children.
Just because there is a house and the ground and it labled a target it does not mean that the only persons inside are Taliban Terrorists.
If you do not know WHO is in the house do not drop a bomb on it."
Of course I totally agree with that. My premise is even more restrictive; if you can't do a war right, don't fricking do it. But I am asking, what do you expect the military to do when something like this happens? Of course it must be investigated...I have no idea how long a genuine, honest investigation like this takes. Do you?
"investigated" = "covered up"
Seriously, are you going to just always assume whoever is in charge is lying about absolutely everything?
to zmann May 7th, 2009 10:42 pm
Exactly!! "All Governments Lie" I. F. Stone
So the EPA finding that CO2 is dangerous to human health and welfare is a lie? Climate change isn't happening? Mercury isn't bad for your children's health? Whew, what a relief!
I believe the McKiernan/AP lie was "they threw grenades in"
I read an updated AP article today, the military says yes, most of the deaths are from an airstrike, some might be from the Taliban. I didn't think it would take too long to acknowledge whether there was an airstrike or not.
I don't understand. Who can we believe? The Taliban? US ARMY? Afghan government? Rueters? If the Taliban hurded civilians into buildings and kept them hostage should they be blamed for their deaths? Or should the Army for using air strikes instead of fighting it out with small arms or negotiating like a hostage situation? Or the Afghan army for not controlling the situation? And it only spreads lies and creates hatred to report these numbers as facts when no one can confirm anything more than the 30 or so that were delivered on trucks. Or am I just missing something?
Start by demanding a re-investigation of 9/11....the reason we are there to begin with...supposedly...The last two are long reads, but you will not regret the time spent. Please spread it around.
http://www.ae911truth.org/
911dvdproject.com...FREE DVDS
http://www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/Collateral_Damage_911.pdf
www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/Collateral_Damage_Part_II_26122008.pdf
Stevie Wonder said "When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer.'
I say "When you shoot recklessly at people in situations you don't understand, then they suffer".
We don't have to believe anyone. Just don't go around killing recklessly like a maniac. We don't have to shoot at anyone. Or is that just too far away from the way we think?
Joe
You may be missing quite a lot....We don't belong there. Only prime grade US Air Force cowards would bomb the innocent from the air and then lie about it. The guys who murdered these 150 civilians and injured 10 times that amount are sitting in the United States at the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada sipping diet cokes and eating little Hostess Twinkees from a coin-op machine like the little chicken-sh-t sissies they are, raining down death from a video game console sitting in a plushly padded chair and discussing their kids softball league.
michael jordan
http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/
Your missing alot. Except for the total disinformation of McKiernan; this is not the typical situation of civilians being in or near a firefight between freedom fighters and invaders. This is a situation where people removed themselves from the vicinity of the battle. And even thuogh they distanced themselves from the battle the USA slaughtered them ala Gaza.
I do believe USA policy verges on bombing any large gathering of Afghans. Otherwise why would villagers need to inform to inform the USA every time they have a funeral or wedding.
Your missing something when you do not realize the USA "Projection of Power" is vicious and crazed.
You are missing the fact that the U.S. is the invader in Afghanistan. We have no justifiable reason to be there. So the army should not be using air strikes OR fighting on the ground. The army should not BE there at all.
Any disaster that happens is OUR fault, just for being there, just as when you are breaking a law--if you're driving without a license, for example--any accident that happens is your fault.
Not that bombing houses is an "accident." You seem to accept Israel's false argument that if civilians are killed, it is the fault of the "insurgents" or "militants" who live with them. Actually, it is the fault of whoever bombs them.
Where did the U.S. get the right to label people as "insurgents" or "terrorists" or whatever, and then kill them out of hand? Where did we get the right to attack and occupy countries at will?
Please realize that these labels are just that--labels. Using a label as a license to kill another human being is criminal. This is what we can believe.
Are we losing support of the Afghan people? Quagmire again???
The man who's responsible for this massacre is Mr. "I'll take responsibility," sitting in the White House; the man Pete Seeger shilled for on the National Mall; the man Amy Goodman was so proud of because of that admirable human quality: being black.
There is nothing "progressive" about supporting or coddling an invading and murdering president - "progressing" towards empire.
Barry Obama is looking more and more like Netanyahu's puppet.
michael jordan
http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/
Out of Afghanistan. Out of Pakistan. Out of Iraq. Hands off Iran. No more material support for Israel's siege of Gaza. Destroy all nukes.
PEACE! It is the only sane way.
Joe
A picture is worth a thousand words. It's also worth a thousand troops. How many more enemies for the United States will acts like this create? There will come a time and the price will be terrible, you mark my words.
I will predict again that the dire consequence to the USA for having a president who promises change, that the whole world put their hopes into, that humanity put hope into only to have more of the same.....are unimaginable.
I shrink to think of the potential outcomes and possible connotations that could befall us and the world of humanity if we cannot choose change, and instead let change befall upon us.
Dear Obama Administration:
Lying, blaming the Taliban for making this stuff up, is a just plain backfiring policy. Your administration gets itself kicked around the next day. It always hurts! I realize that you inherited the stupid policy from the dum-dum previous occupant of the White House, but you have to rethink what he gave you.
Next, you can start thinking through whether carpet bombing the villages is backfiring any.
I am no medical expert but the picture of the injured child seems eerily familiar: it reminds me of the injuries caused by DIME weapons during operation "Cast Lead" (read: the recent massacre in Gaza...
See for yourself here: http://medienschafe.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/gaza-die-neue-dimension-des-terrors/
(the blog is German but all sources are English websites (weblinks mostly at the end of the article)
To claim that the Taliban did this is absurd....
toc 22 12:58 --------- I had the same thought when I heard the casualties were de- limbed. USA killing in your name.
If they did not drop bombs on someone the MIC profits would dwindle.
You have to love it folks: Obomba says we are killing innocent women and children and supporting corrupt puppets and drug dealers like Karzi because they are " democratically elected " which is another way of saying they are the "good guys", but they are not "good guys" but our thugs who are good guys because they are corrupt for the U.S.hegemony or should we spell it HEGEMONEY. The only reason Karzi is in power is he is a puppet for the major oil companies who has sold out his people and if they held a fair election in Afghanistan he would lose by a landslide; so much for the euphemism " democratically elected ". Case in point: Chavez in Venezuela, was a REAL democratically elected leader that is loved by a majority of his people, but he is demonized as a "bad" guy.
It really hurt, looking at the picture of that child. Flashed me back to napalm in Vietnam. I couldn't help wondering if Michelle Obama saw that picture. Somehow I doubt it.
Obama knows perfectly well what creates "terrorists". Poverty and hopelessness. He discussed that in his campaign. So what changed? I can only think reality bit - in the form of the corporatocracy telling him how it is. That is, as president, he will do what they say. Since that is exactly what is happening, and has been for a very long time, what else can it be?
So let's face it. Our country has been stolen. A president is only one person. One person can't take it back. We need an uprising. I'm not suggesting it needs to be violent, but it needs to be an uprising. Such as, a general strike. With picket lines.
I am creating 3 bumper stickers at BumperArt:
Single Payer Healthcare
Banks Stole Our Country
Take It Back - General Strike
Support Unions - EFCA
Kathy
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
"Support Unions - EFCA"
make it: Support Americans - EFCA.
Gee, zmann, I would, but no one has even heard of EFCA, except for the 19 yr old who cuts my grass, because his Granny is an old warhorse like me. He's the first person I've talked with who has heard of it. And to be honest, most aren't even that interested. Too uninformed to even know what's being done to them.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
lol, I think I'm too insulated from regular people who don't watch 8 hours of TV news for a living and read this site all day.
Exactly, most of us lefties tend to be isolated - all too often self-isolated - from the attitudes of the unreality based world of ordinary USAns that live on all sides of us.
EFCA? Go out a find out how many people have heard of the phrase "Single Payer".
And you are about as likely hit the powerball lottery than run into someone who knows about the travesty in that Senate Comittee Room the day before yesterday.
Well, since I watch Fox Business all day and receive a couple hundred emails daily about crazy stuff on other news sources, I'm exposed to what much of the populace is exposed to. But most of them don't know where to go to find the truth, or even know that they're not being told the truth.
Saint O'Bamba has blood of children on his hands. The tipping point could be soon.
zmann, maybe you are insulated. I talk with "ordinary" Americans all the time. My neighbors, store clerks, strangers on the street. Until I talked with the teenager cutting my grass, I was getting zero awareness of EFCA, and yes, many had "heard" of Single Payer, but their understanding was that the govt would regulate our health care. Now where did they get that idea? And I don't think FOX Business News is quite the same as FOX News.
Kathy
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Be for kids 11:41 ---------Is O Commander in Chief of the Military or not?
He could order the robokillers to start pulling weeds on there knees in the poppy fields tommorrow if the fraud decided to order thusly.
glenn ford, what I'm saying is that the MIC, banks and insurance industry OWN this country. The president just follows their orders. And within the narrow range of those orders he can do whatever he wants. That's what's left of our democracy.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
How long will it be before H. Clinton or Joe Biden or Barack Obama proclaim, as was said in Vietnam, that they see the light at the end of the tunnel? That picture of that grievously wounded child should be the lead story on all the television news programs and on all the front pages of all the major newspapers of this country. It should receive just as much exposure [to use another example from the Vietnam war] as the iconic picture of the naked Vietnamese child who was running down a Vietnamese road with her body covered with burns received from napalm, courtesy of an American bomb. But in all likelihood it will not happen because the last thing that the corporate media does today, especially when compared to the media coverage that was given to the Vietnam conflict, is to engage in any deep criticism of American foreign policy especially if that criticism involves graphic footage of foreign children being ripped apart by 500 lb. American bombs. The author of this piece has it exactly right. This atrocity committed by the Obama administration should be rightly viewed for what it is-a massacre instead of a mistake.
As American artist and activist Lorraine Schneider [1925-1972] once noted:
"War is not healthy for children and other living things."
To get our country back we should speak the language that the people who run/stole our country understand but instead of going on strike why not just buy our country back. That is how they got it and I'm sure that all they want is money. There should be a peoples lobby, so instead of bank lobbyist telling our reps what to do...you get the point.
intjocd, we can't. It's too late. Our noses are one inch from being under water and they've hijacked the treasury. The Fed has printed $10 trillion for the banks, and they're running off to the lobbyists with their loot. I just watched an amazing video of the Fed Inspector General umming and ahhing her way through being questioned by Rep Grayson of Florida. The outcome: no one is watching the store. No one knows where the money went or what the banks are doing with it. Talk about don't ask, don't tell.
They've been bankrolling Congress for hundreds of millions of dollars and you want to get into a food fight with their resources? Good luck with that. Here's the link. It's a sobering sight of what we're up against.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/06/fed-inspector-general-kno_n_197934.html
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Glenn Ford
I wrote this to Mr. Obama after reading the following article on Common Dreams. I guess we’ve got to keep trying.
Red Cross Confirms Dozens Dead in Afghan Air Strikes
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/06-3
Mr. Obama,
I do not understand what is going on. When you inherited the White House, did you also inherit the bubble that your predecessor lived in?
You campaigned for change. We the People, after eight years of Cheney/Bush flouting the Constitution, causing a million or more deaths in their endless search for oil, thought we might have a new broom in Washington that would sweep these people into the dustbin of history and reverse the draconian laws that were put in effect.
Instead, what do we see? On the home front, the billionaires get richer and the poor, the retired, the workers whose jobs have been outsourced are winding up living in the streets. There is more surveillance, more restrictions on our individual lives. Habeas corpus is still a corpse, NorthCom’s combat brigades are still getting intensive training on suppressing civilian unrest. Now you want to keep the Military Commissions for Gitmo because, apparently, the fear is that the civil courts might not allow hearsay evidence, and evidence obtained by torture into their courts, and that the attorneys might have the right to cross examine witnesses, or actually see the evidence!
Our endless wars, which we thought would finally end, are expanding. Iraq gets a change of occupiers from combat troops to “advisors.” Same troops, different name.
We are upping the killing in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Every time we bomb a village full of civilians on the off chance of killing what we term insurgents, we create still more Afghan and Pakistani patriots yearning for the end to occupation, as I hope we would if we were occupied. What we consider insurgents, they consider freedom fighters trying to rid their country of yet another foreign invader,
Look at the number of bases we have worldwide. We cannot spread ourselves over the earth like peanut butter on a slice of bread. Especially if the jar is getting moldy.
We have horrible problems here in the US to deal with, yet you sidestep any suggestion that those who committed unconstitutional actions such as violating the treaties which we have signed and which are therefore the Law of the Land (read the Constitution) against torture, indefinite imprisonment, and treatment of prisoners, should be tried and punished. These people were not ignorant, they knew what they were doing and that, if the United States ever became a Constitutional Republic again, tthey would face trial and punishment. According to you, they will not, but their victims, here and abroad, will continue to suffer.
We are still dealing ineffectively from the effects of Katrina, yet we can continue to allow misappropriation of funds and no-bid or fixed contracts with the big money contributors. Veterans, destroyed mentally or physically, and their families, are living in the streets. Runaway inflation and the depression are destroying the lives of retirees.
The Military Industrial Complex has billions and billions in war profits. Can’t you stop feeding them and start caring for We the People who elected you? So far, all that those of us below the rank of Congressman or CEO have seen is Bush Lite and Bush style lies.
Please! Show enough gumption to get rid of these old parasites and turn the country around. We the People will be glad to help. That’s what we elected you for!
Sincerely,
Steve and Adrienne Osborn
Very well said Steve and Adrienne.
so the quote I heard this morning was 'the Taliban used these innocent
civilians to draw fire that was intended for them' --
in other words, the Taliban are the bad guys --
what else is new?
why is everyone so fucking nice to Obama?
everyone wants to give him a chance...he's so much better than the
last guy...blah, blah, blah...
look, he's the commander-in-chief, he even goes on about the buck stopping with him --- here's my take: fuck Obama -- f - u - c - kastrophe Obama --
fuck him -- he is another jerk con artist pol who wants the world to suck the fungus out of his big toenail -- a total fucking jerk who doesn't give a shit who gets killed, as long as it isn't anyone people might notice --
afghani children are less than a joke to him -- get real -- Obama is not anyone's friend, just dick cheney in sheep's clothing
damn straight.
its the old switcheroo. put some barely tolerable, in-your-face jackass prick as boss for a while then put in a smoothe talking used car salesman in his place. Good cop/Bad cop; bush 1/bill clinton. classic desensitization.
150 people dead after taking cover in a few houses was not the result of RPG's or grenades. They were killed by bombs dropping from the sky, courtesy of the freedom loving U S of A.
Their insulting lies are sickening.
It's very clear who the terrorists are.
Does anyone get the unmistakable sense that these atrocities occur besause the US simply doesn't value the life of any of the invariably darker complected or almond-eyed people that it drops it's bombs on?