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Reports of Civilian Deaths Inflame Tensions in Afghanistan
KABUL - Foreign and Afghan forces killed five children in two separate incidents Monday, further inflaming tensions in the country over the killings of civilians by troops from the U.S.-led coalition.
Slain Afghan children lie on a bed covered with flowers, in Kabul on September 1, 2008. Hundreds of Afghans took to the streets Monday in protest at what they said was the murder of four civilians, including two baby boys, in an early morning raid by international troops. (AFP/Massoud Hossaini) NATO said Monday it had accidentally killed three children in an
artillery strike in eastern Afghanistan. It said NATO forces had fired
the rounds after insurgents attacked its patrol in the Gayan district
of Paktika Province and one of the rounds hit a house, killing three
children and injuring seven civilians.
In a separate incident, foreign and Afghan forces killed a man and his two children and during a raid near Kabul, the police and witnesses said. Angry men gathered at the victims' house in the Utkheil area east of the capital, where the three bodies were displayed inside a mud-walled compound. The man's wife was wounded in the operation, said Yahya Khan, a cousin.
NATO issued an unusual statement Monday warning that the Taliban planned to make a false claim about the killings of civilians in the south.
The latest deaths deepened strains between the Afghan government - under pressure from an increasingly irate public - and foreign forces in the country who are accused of killing dozens of civilians only in the past few weeks.
Afghan officials accuse foreign forces of killing up to 90 civilians during an Aug. 22 operation in the country's west. The U.S. denies the accusation, saying its troops and Afghan commandos killed 25 militants and five civilians in the operation.
The raid in the eastern outskirts of Kabul was conducted by U.S. troops backed by Afghan intelligence agents, said a police officer, Qubaidullah, who like many Afghans goes by one name. He said the raid killed a man and two of his children and wounded his wife.
The raid left the house with broken windows and bullet holes in the walls. Three other men, all the victims' cousins, were detained during the operation but later released, Khan said.
A U.S. coalition spokesman, First Lieutenant Nathan Perry, said no American troops had taken part in the operation. NATO-led forces said they had no information about the raid and could not confirm their troops participated either.
Separately, NATO said it was anticipating a Taliban claim of further civilian casualties in the south. In a statement late Sunday, NATO said it had received information from "a reliable source" that insurgents planned to falsely claim international military forces killed up to 70 civilians in the Sangin district in southern Helmand Province.
The military alliance also said its forces had helped more than 20 wounded civilians who approached two of its bases in Helmand province.
NATO said the civilians were wounded in two separate incidents involving insurgents.
"Insurgents ransacked three compounds and killed three women and an unspecified number of children," in Helmand's Sarevan Qaleh village, NATO said in a statement, quoting one of the wounded.
"He then reported that the insurgents had shot him in both kneecaps before fleeing," it said.
The claims could not be independently verified and have not been reported by the Afghan authorities.
NATO said it condemns the "use of the plight of innocent civilians for propaganda gain by insurgents."
The claim of civilian casualties came hours after the separate U.S.-led coalition command said its troops had killed more than 220 insurgents in a week of fighting in the same province. The coalition did not say where the militants were killed.
It was unclear whether the two reports were related.
The issue of civilian deaths is a particularly sensitive topic in Afghanistan following the Aug. 22 bombing of the village of Azizabad in Herat Province by the U.S.-led coalition. An Afghan government commission said 90 civilians were killed, a finding backed by a preliminary United Nations report.
The U.S. military has said 25 militants and five civilians were killed, and that it is investigating the incident.
The U.S. has long said insurgents use false civilian death claims as a propaganda tool to undermine support for international forces and the government of President Hamid Karzai.
Claims of civilian deaths can be tricky. Relatives of Afghan victims are given condolence payments by the government and the international military forces, providing an incentive to make false claims.
But Karzai has castigated Western military commanders over civilian deaths resulting from their raids. The Taliban and other insurgents use the deaths as leverage to turn Afghans away from the government, he says.
The top NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, Brigadier General Richard Blanchette, said Saturday that the U.S.-led coalition, Afghan government and United Nations would jointly investigate the Aug. 22 raid.
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35 Comments so far
Show AllMove along.....no story here.....nothing unusual. Clearly,
the NeoCons who have a chokehold on the US government have no reluctance to kill any number of innocents in order to kill a few bad guys. Of course, these NeoCons do not serve in the US military, nor do their children.
We see this type of murder constantly in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.
When you say "neocons" what do you mean?
Obama wants to move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to fight the real "Global War on Terror!" It is abominable to me that one has to sell-out to the imperial military industrial complex to be President of the USA.
Everyone should send the picture of these two angels who were made ghosts by the evil war ON terror...to the Obama campaign and to Michelle Obama who made a big point of saying how much their two young daughters mean to them.
I think these beautiful young children meant a lot to their parents, too...in fact, I know they did.
Obama wants more dead babies lying on flowers with their jaws tied closed with rags. He is no different from McCain on this issue...none!
In sorrow
Cindy
Thank you _ C I N D Y _
You bring up a valid point that the distinction of neoCONers is wasted upon the fixed-☠-bayonet fascism-☠-loving duopoly.
Please do persevere, we need many more people with your commitment, vision, and stamina. You're courage is renown and inspires us all, and I give you lovingly my blessings, heart strength, and prayers for your gaining strength to prepare for the storm brewing.
I'm also _O U T R A G E D_, although that word is no longer descriptive enough against widespread
__ ( atrocity ) ^ ∞
__ & abandonment of humanity's core values, …
Namaste « Presence »
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world » — Gandhi
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed » — Gandhi
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — ML King
None of this happens without our tax money.
I continue to write to my Congressman asking him to please stop killing babies.
None of this happens without your tax money either.
I have a son in Iraq...I am truly sorry for your loss...
but please get psychiatric counseling and stop being used as a tool by the left
I truly mean no disrespect...I would be devestated if anything like you suffered happened to me...there are support groups for Parents and Spouses that have had a tragedy...
I believe you are vulnerable and being used for somebodies agenda...
Cindy is not being used. If you actually have a son in Iraq, she is your best friend. She is trying to bring our soldiers out of a hell in which they have no choice but to kill (anyone, as they do not know who is who) or be killed.
It is disgusting that you would basically tell her that she is being irrational and should get counselling. That's typical of how people treat women who tell the truth.
Joe
SW,
You write a lot of things I disagree with, but you were way, way out of line here. And what aspects of "the left" which yoiu accuse Cindy of being a tool of, do you disagree with?
W O L F,
Perhaps you might consider the reverse, that it is you who might be irrationally believing the propaganda spewed by the war making apparatus of FEAR inducing reactionary right ?
After so many years of continual disappointment, most rational people no longer support the war -- because it was based upon a constellation of perversely contrived lies, and has resulted in massive casualties, soaring deficits & costs to our future's children, gutting of productive life affirming economy, way too many wounded and suffering -- for both Americans and Iraqis.
Never once has there been a shred of evidence of the Iraqi people being our enemy, as we are the aggressor in neo-colonial pursuit of oil wealth, being right now stolen from its rightful owners. They deserve massive reparations and our support to rebuild, w/o invasive corporate cronyism and fleecing of their national riches.
_ C I N D Y _ is a courageous heroine of our modern world, and needs no patronizing attempts from those seeking to undercut her confidence and commitment.
We know she is standing herself, REPRESENTING the NEEDS for ALL living children and healthy families of the world -- that deserve so much better than has been dealt by our current criminal administration. She also stands and speaks for those no longer living, whose voices were silenced and whose cause for PEACE must be heard and carried forward for lasting changes to occur.
I think that you'd have more luck convincing darth cheney of the error of his being a dull tool of Israel, than what you vainly attempt here with Cindy's mission.
Namaste
Wolf,
I mean no disrespect, but please get psychiatric counseling and stop being used as a tool for the military-industrial complex.
I know it must be scary to have a son put in harms way for basically no good reason whatsoever, and it'd be absolutely horrible to have to face the fact that, if your son dies, it won't be for any lofty ideals like "freedom" or "democracy," but it will be for purely economic reasons and the geopolitical pipe dreams of neocons who have hijacked our country.
It must suck to come to terms with the fact that your son is being used a disposable tool for the interests of a privileged elite. So you toe the party line and tell yourself that what your son is doing must have some lofty meaning. Otherwise, you might have to radically readjust your life (as Cindy has) to fight the injustices that have jeopardized your son's safety.
Cindy is running for office. Cindy left her old life behind to dedicate herself to stopping the war machine! How dare you treat her in this way.
The bottom line is your own worldview is threatened by her actions, so you must lash out.
Support groups will do nothing to prevent sons and daughters from being needlessly sent to slaughter, from having their humanity stripped from them as they are transformed into little killing machines for the empire, from the post traumatic stress and haunting nightmares of the faces of their fallen comrades and dead children. You know who will put a stop to that? People like Cindy.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Just so.
This photo is heartbreaking.
Obama's supporters, at least those who pride themselves on being "realists" and "pragmatists", ironically practice the willing suspension of disbelief-- they rationalize Obama's warmongering as a necessary "tactic" to gain the respect of primitive pro-war voters.
But unless he's an utter hypocrite and liar, he'll make good on his promises and strap on the War Goggles as soon as he ascends his throne in the Oval Office.
And through those abominable and diabolical War Goggles, he'll see these photos as images of "collateral damage".
I share your sorrow, Cindy ♥
"SO" END QUOTE !!! - Why is it that I believe an Afgan police officer rather than a coatition spokesman?
It seems to me that everyone has forgotten just why forces went to war in Afghanistan in the first place. For 7 years innocent Afghans have been slaughtered in the name of the war on terror. The only terror in Afghanistan is that caused by foreign troops.
Having lived there in 2006, I saw exactly what billions of aid dollars have NOT achieved. I saw exactly how Afghans were treated as second class citizens in their own country....how they are the last consideration. In the end, foreign troops will leave having achieved nothing....history tells us so.
The next two months till election day may be very stressful for political realists like the commenters on common dreams and alternet, etc..
American liberals have been going deeper and deeper into denial of the deliberateness or at least "de facto" genocidal and ecocidal results of our government's Middle East Wars. They may be very resistive and resentful of our attempts to explain that Obama's war strategy is far worse than that of the Bush neo-cons.
Obama's attempts to fool anti-war voters into thinking that a modest remnant of 50,000 troops remaining in Iraq is not an obvious Dien Bien Phu strategy that will result in the slaughter of Americans followed by a new surge more genocidal than the previous one. The last Americans had to get out of Saigon from the roof of a building.
Most liberals may also be very irritated when we warn realistically that expanding the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan will be devastating to our limited military personnel. (My son is a combat-trained, highly decorated, Bronze Star veteran of the current Iraq War, 23 years a Navy diver.)
I am a 76 year old life-long anti-imperialist activist, former founder and head of the most successful American-Soviet Friendship Society (Hawaii).
I live in the deep South where even most of the well-educated liberals have become very scared and silenced on the issue of permanent U.S. imperialism. When I give talks at church meetings, faculty clubs, the U.N. Society, etc. I realize that liberals have accepted U.S. imperialism as a "given" that is never spoken about in public or private conversations. People say things like, "At least we don't kill people (like you).
The Democrats have settled for "identity politics" and show no concern about the two million Vietnamese, the more than a million Iraqi's, or any of the likely future millions of innocent victims of our oil, gas, and profits wars.
All their hopes of our liberals will be going for a while with Obama and a corrupted Democratic Congress.
This may be very frustrating to us because we do not have a viable third party movement yet.
But, we can ask the liberals what would disillusion them from supporting or puting all their hopes for peace in more pro-imperialist candidates.
We can ask them if they care about our troops or about the millions of innocents we have killed, maimed, or permanently traumatized by the false hope that corrupted Democrats will someday end America's totally unnecessary profiteering global war- drives.
I have an article and a bibliography for educating friends about the
"Military-Industrial-Mass-Media-Educational-Governmental Complex.
www.psycho-imperialism.com e-mail:drmacdon1932@bellsouth.net
Cameiros
Why do 'progressive' news sources uses unsubstantiated U.S., or 'coalition', statements.
It is always false and used as disinformation to mitigate any blame or responsibility.
PLEASE, refrain from publishing any 'coalition' sources until substantiated.
They get enough exposure in the mainstream media.
Cameiros
Cameiros
Cameiros
Cameiros
Cameiros
Cameiros
Cameiros
Did anyone see this heartbreaking picture in the MSM?
Regarding: "Did anyone see this pic in the MSM?"
Yeah, right here on CD. CD=MSM...
Secondly:
With Afghanistan seeming a justifiable war to enough Americans to continue the slaughter; and with Afghanistan thus becoming the war of choice for the US political elite; The flames of Afghani hatred of the Empire need to be stoked that they are well prepared to kill the US militia.
Elbridge Gerry on the floor of the constitutional convention said "Why sir do governments raise an army but to destroy the militia." The militia was then thought a force against tyranny. The constitution defined the militia as every 17-45 year old who was armed and willing to fight to defend their liberty. The constitution established no army. It was then widely recognized that the government (then the British government over the colonies) was the greatest threat to people, even their supposed own people. Which might cleverly be expressed owned people...
With the next revolution so close at hand, the government here is doing their all to weaken the people who will eventually recognize their oppressors and fight the oppression. Especially those who are trained to fight effectively.
The US death toll in Iraq is a mere 4,000+ soldiers. The debilitated by injury though is beyond 50,000. The exploded vets are surviving due their body armor protecting their vital organs. As a result of this war there are many limbless and otherwise weakened (depleted uranium contaminated) US militants. Many of the depleted uranium contaminated are still in theater and when they get home they'll be diagnosed as PTSD and shuffled through vet "hellth care".
rocyahsoul@yahoo.com
www.lamegame.name
Daniel Vincent Kelley
The one thing that is consistent about Afghanistan is this, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." This is now happening in Afghanistan. Civilian deaths caused by foreigners in Afghanistan energize those are perceived to be fighting against them. The Taliban know this well and set up scenarios where Western troops wind up killing civilians, while they can re-brand their mayhem as "freedom fighting." What the West fails to learn is that the Taliban are a Pashtun triumphalist group who's prior reign boded quite ill for Afghanistan's other ethnicities to the point of genocide (especially for the Hazaras and other Dari speaking groups). The West would be better served to let those groups (with discrete aid) go after the Taliban, as they have a much better idea of who is who. It would soon become in the interest of local Pashtun war lords to get rid of the Taliban themselves, rather than have armed Hazaras, Tajiks, & Uzbeks running around their lands. In fact, Puktanwali would demand it.
I have some nice feelings about Barack Obama, but really, he, Joe, John and Sarah had better start commenting on American indifference to gratuitously killing innocents from other countries in the name of what? It's time for comment on that, too. No prominent politicians, no talking heads with ready made audiences, no superstars of any type (except for a few menschen
like Cindy Sheehan) want to touch this subject, they shrink from it as fast as they can, and this really sucks.
Friendly fire (that would be killing our own Military), unfriendly killing of Afghans and Iraqis, shooting people indiscriminately, seems to be a HUGE, HUGE
problem in the wars we're now so eager to conduct. I listened to the Winter Soldier testimony just as much as I could, and from that believe the incidence of these killings is much greater than anyone has reported.
Some of the reasons are obvious, the first of which is that no one knows whom to shoot or blow up. This subject is a main reason (though far from the only one)
that we must draw in our horns and take care of our huge issues at home.
Also, I'm sorry, I can't do the "praise our soldiers" bit. One of my very best friends, an Ohio conservative lawyer, has used the death of one of the young men he was coaching in a sports program as an excuse to fight endlessly in Iraq.
Me, I hate the guts of every soldier, contractor, newspaperman, bloviator, president, candidate and politician who ever leant weight to our clearly misguided efforts everywhere in the Middle East.
The soldiers I admire are the Winter Soldiers. And the persons who saw through the horrid, deceiving Military recruitment program even if they had to get off a sofa and do some research. And I can't buy the usual nonsense about how they didn't have enough education to do that. I've known people with nothing but street smarts who could identify a phony anywhere. It's more a cast of mind than education. I don't know how people get it, but those people who have it are the only Americans who can become fully developed human beings.
I'm going to put a copy of this in John Escher's Blog at the Barack Obama Website as well.
As we discuss this, we should keep in mind that escalation in Afganistan is already the "plan". The Generals are deploying at least 10,000 more soldiers and marines to there by early 2009, with more possible after that.
Thus, Escalation is not really "Obama's plan".
The President is mainly a Figurehead.
And now, up next, a report on civilian casualties of the illegal Russian invasion of Georgia.
Not likely...
Well Said...
And the ethnically-motivated attack of Georgia on S. Ossetia that started the conflict?
The other night on PBS I watched the film Moby Dick with Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab. There's a scene in it where the crew begins to idolize Ahab for the bloodthirsty oaths he swears and his maniacal fixation on hunting and killing the white whale. They gradually identify with his obsession as some weird "manly" form of courage in the face of a great storm. The second in command confronts the two senior mates and tries to explain to them that Ahab is breaking the fundamental law of the sea by ignoring his proper duty to focus on the equally vengeful Moby Dick at the risk of their true enterprise. The senior mates are appalled and express respect at how manly Ahab is and fear and awe at how powerful captains are in their own ships. The second walks out of the scene in shock saying, "I've seen a madman beget madmen!"
For five years now and more we've watched Bush and Cheney beget legions of madmen and madwomen; all part of a willing mass unknowing combined with a small fearfully clung to evil knowing cloaked deep in denial that is but a diluted form of the mass psychosis that spread throughout Nazi Germany. I'll never forget when our own Ahab, Bush had just pulled his Orwellian bait-and-switch from Afghanistan to the invasion of Iraq and there was a housewife in one of the last protests before the 2003 invasion carrying a sign that simply asked,
"What Have We Become?" The faces of those two babies is what we have become. The fact that most of us will never see them and most of those who might have seen them would refuse to look and storm at the very idea.
Good analogy, except Bush will not ride Bin Laden into the depths, cursing "From Hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee."...He'll have his butler do it.
In fact, I doubt Bush and Cheney really give a shit beyond how it all promotes their twisted Fascist adgenda.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
This Moby dick quote perfectly sums up Bush's hunt for bin Laden.
"I turned in, and never slept better in my life." Chapter 3, pg. 21
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Some scary agenda there, huh, LoneWolf- not wanting to kill other people's babies. When people in this nation kill other people's children it's called MURDER, why is that different in foreign lands ? You have an agenda of righteousness, no matter who is driving it. It is a sickness that the world needs a cure from, and no one is sicker than our nation right now. We have lost our moral compass.
Thanks Cindy for continuing to dialogue here.
&YYY&
War is tricky public relations business, for both sides.
The attacked nation is split into two, one part that is easiest is conquered first,
And the population that remains, as not everyone can flee, becomes conscripted,
converted into an occupied, defended, controlled hostage land.
The remaining parts are always the hardest areas, the far flung corners and hideaways.
The only way for the invader to win is to kill nearly every human being found in gun and bomb site in the hardest areas. There is not any humane or selective warfare methodology that can avoid the sort of casualties of mothers and children, which are regarded in the training manuals as the breeders and young of the enemy. Killing them helps reduce the numbers of the next generation of fighters, as one kills the breeding stock of animal pests. The murdered casualties described are not mistakes of war, but an unavoidable consequence, of the highest policy planning levels in the Vampire States of Corruption.
Paul Siemering
Afghanistan is an open wound in the soul of the u.s. !9 guys, none from Afghanistan, hit the towers, and those are the only people proven guilty. So why did they decide to bomb this poorest, most bombed out, war weary of countries?
Because the citizens of the u.s. were in high hysteria and would bomb anybody
to get even. But that was seven years ago. Are we all still crazy enough to believe
there is, or ever was, any reason to bomb those people? Apparently so, and our
stupid nato allies as well. Villages have been getting bombed, mud huts blown up,
little kids and old ladies getting killed every week. Cries from the bombed villagers answered by some military spokesman reciting from the military book of common lies " we try to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, as much as possible". But"possible" to them means "given that we are bombing the place like lunatics without any idea why we are doing it".
There is no war on terror. There is only the massacre of the innocents. Terror brought daily to the children by the u.s.a.