Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiAfghans Protest Against US After Missile Strike
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan - Angry Afghan villagers protested Thursday against what they said was the killing of 11 civilians by foreign troops, but local authorities said only fighters were killed.
![[Afghan children watch a line of cars carrying dead bodies as they arrive to Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009. Villagers in southern Afghanistan claimed an overnight air strike by international forces killed several civilians, including children. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaleq)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/afghansprotestmissile.jpg "afghansprotestmissile.jpg")
The NATO-led force said it had fired a rocket from the ground at a
group it believed to be planting a roadside bomb in Babaji in Helmand
province. It said it was not aware of any civilians in the area and was
investigating the incident.
Civilian casualties caused by Western forces have stoked anger toward foreign troops, which the NATO commander, U.S. army General Stanley McChrystal, says undermines the Western mission.
Some 300 protesters paraded dead bodies of the strike victims on streets of Lashkar Gah, capital of restive southern Helmand province, where 10,000 U.S. Marines and 9,000 British troops have fought the war's heaviest battles.
A spokesman for Helmand's governor said an air strike had taken place and had killed eight Taliban insurgents. A press officer for NATO troops said there was no air strike, only a surface-to-surface missile strike.
Demonstrators chanted slogans against the government and the United States. A Reuters reporter in Lashkar Gah said the dead bodies shown at the demonstration included young male teenagers.
"Are they Taliban or civilians?" asked one demonstrator in tears.
Protesters said the victims were killed in the raid late on Wednesday while working in a wheat field outside the city. Some women were among the demonstrators, a rarity in conservative southern Afghanistan.
"Death to the governor, down with the government and the United States," said Khan Mohammad, leader of the protesters, who said he had lost four of his nephews in the bombing.
Civilian casualties have been a main source of friction between President Hamid Karzai and the foreign troops led by NATO and the U.S. military in recent years.
McChrystal has issued new orders designed to reduce civilian deaths by placing limits on the use of air power. Foreign troops often rely on air power for hunting the Taliban, toppled from power by U.S. and Afghan forces in 2001.
The United Nations says 1,500 civilians were killed in the first seven months of this year. More than two-thirds were killed by Taliban fighters, and 23 percent were killed by Western and pro-government forces, it says. The rest could not be attributed.
(Reporting by Abdul Malik in LASHKAR GAH, Ismail Sameem in KANDAHAR and Sayed Salahuddin and Peter Graff in KABUL; Writing by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Alex Richardson)
25 Comments so far
Show AllThe use of the missile was to eliminate the need to figure out who was the target. IFFN is long gone from the list of US military acronyms; although the policy really always was kill 'em all, and let God worry about it, during the superpower standoff in Europe the US had to at least pay lip service to the concept of IFFN.
Let's not accept the term insurgents; if they were trying to kill NATO forces, they were patriots.
Protest after protest after protest...ad infinitum by the people of Afghanistan. These missiles are fired in my name and also in yours provided that you are a US or NATO-country citizen. We are all responsible no matter what we say or think about this issue.
More Civilians have been killed in Afghanistan by the O'Bomber than by Bush.
The NATO installed Governor in Helmand is reported to be a mass boy child raper
When one does anything (e.g. digging a hole) in Afghanistan and like regions, one ALWAYS attracts a crowd of the curious. It only takes 1-2 people to plant a IED; the rest were curious bystanders.
Why is this so difficult for the military and warhawks to understand?
Last I read the acceptable, for the USA military, number of slaughtered civilians per air strike is thirty, before that it was one hundred
"Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks." - Gen. Buck Turgison, Dr Strangelove (1964).
didn't really say there even was an ied. they thought there was. maybe.
you mean the War Pigs. I think that is more fitting. Or... Vampires and Cannibals
what is wrong with these people don't they want a Mcdonalds and a wall mart. Jorsh darn next thing you know they will be hating me for my freedom.
AS I remember it obomba was going to stop war.. Bomba got so splaining to do...
All I want for christmas is enough money to buy me one of them thar usa
Senators!!!
I love the way you put it !!!! hehe
In a related vein - Just Foreign Policy is mounting a letter writing campaign to the Washington Post calling it on the "combating extremism" spin of the situation:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org:80/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=KsEHSrowcjUbIqiwVGG%2BnnMwzZfA%2B3vC
this arises from coverage of resignation of Matthew Hoh
Meanwhile the D-controlled Congress is set to appropriate yet more 100s of BILLIONS of dollars for the occupation and attacks. On top of the few trillion that have already been wasted. As usual, the ordinary American will suffer for many years to come. The interest payments alone to service the debts are more than the GDPs of many countries.
All that money could have financed public education, provided free University education, universal single-payer health care, public transportation systems etc.
Oh well, maybe in another lifetime. The Empire is slowly collapsing like all Empires do: through financial mis-management. The British did not give up their Empire because they wanted to, they did so because they were flat broke and in debt up to their eyeballs.
The US is approaching the same fate.
As usual, the ordinary American will suffer for many years to come.
==================
that sentence by you is critical .
i have often see-sawed between feeling very concerned and even pity for ordinary americans and anyone living under the "system" of the USA WAR STATE and of saying that in many ways americans allowed such things.
neither americans nor anyone deserve to live under the boot of a few greedy, selfish people , their families, connections, class, etc...
however - americans have had MORE chances . far. far far more than any other citizens of other countries - blessed as they are with what had been great prosperity, the RELATIVE economic and even political freedoms they afforded once largely freed of concerns about having a roof over the head, a tolerably decent means of living, laws that they could have used to ENHANCE their freedom of intellect purely by their own WILL that no coercion could ever have defeated.
BUT americans succumbed and continue to succume to the comforts and what they think are "securities" (having a credit card, "good credit", private insurance, job, car, house , etc.) - that they allow their own intellects to become LAZY and morally to become so fearful of stepping out of the norm to question things, even their own assumptions....
that they have ended up being the "financers" (at least domestically) who NEVER profit from what theyfinance:
WARS for the Corporations and Banks who are their masters and the ones that also pilfer from americans straight out of their pockets every single day of the year, from cradle to grave , straight to their faces.
americans KNOW THIS - you only have to see and hear their OWN daily complaints: whether it is about working too much if they have a full time job - or working so few hours as their employers either can't afford it or are clever to keep workers at "less than full time positions" to avoid paying taxes or health care coverage or other obligations , or how their cars take so much money for gas or repair, or how the water bill is so high, etc. etc. etc...
that's ALL a result of the VERY SYSTEM americans allow to exist. even their COMPLAINTS are products of it.
therefore -- if americans are so QUIESCENT - whether at work among their workmates , or among friends and acquaintances, or among their peers in their community groups such as churchs, parents committees, organizations. etc...and of course on a larger, higher, national level -- THEY DESERVE the kind of situation they are in.
people of other countries with far fewer protections from brutal leaders or repression - or less flexible social norms at LEAST have the EXCUSE of living under conditions where greater individual expression , or freedom from economic want is still a distant dream to allow them to even think of such things as "liberty" or "rights" or "constitution".......
but americans? THEY HAVE HAD EVERYTHING under the sun to have armed themselves with never needing the exploitative conditions imposed on them by their corporate masters and war state.
instead - they squandered it.
it is like looking at a spoiled brat that holds in his hand something others can only look at from afar - and is a privilege to have - and then he destroys it or doesn't take care of it...
and whenever something from it flakes off - he doesn't realize that he's losing it more and more...but he complains just the same that he doesn't have a NICER TOY.
and then he is given newer "toys" and each time they are more and more playful for war...bang, bang, bang....
even the expression "more BANG for the buck" says a LOT about american culture.
BANG - and - BUCK
GUNS and ALMIGHT DOLLAR
WAR and PROFIT
is it any wonder that americans whose left hand is chained to the Myth of the "greatness" of america which is about BANG, BANG, BANG - VICTORY, CONQUEST , BIG MAN in TOWN
and the other hand is chained to the BUCK - MONEY, DOLLAR, PROFIT, WHAT's IN IT FOR ME....
is incapable of raising his own arms and hands to his temple to SCRATCH and ask:
why something is STILL wrong -- and STILL can't recognize that the answer lies in HIS or HER own very, very poor citizenship?.
the funny thing is:
my personal experience with many americans presently is that:
when I sometimes try to "drop hints" by short remarks :
such as if someone in a group tries to sound off as being very "informed" about the news as they just heard on TV ...or the MSM - and then talks about how "those barbaric afghanis" , or "THESE illegals"..or "china's taking OUR jobs".....
and I drop a FEW summary phrases :
"well.......that's not EXACTLY the complete story...on china ...it's AMERICAN corporations that DEMANDED cheap labor since decades ago -- if you wanna know...here's a short hisorty...do you know who was General Smedley Butler, US marines, 1933...."
or "welllll....Bolivia wasn't exactly BAD UNTIL americans and the corporations started to do sucn and such ...do know WHY chavez or COrrea or Morales said such and such against corporations LIKE america's businesses?...here's where you can find how it is AMERICA that invaded their countries since long ago...whose consequences you see today in waves of poor immigrants that you complain about...and americans AT HOME never gave a damn with what their own country was doing to the south americans....but SUDDENLY when it washes on your own shores -- you are SO incensed about these *illegals*....if anything ...they are merely trying to get back a FEW of the things the USA OWE them...which in reality -- YOU OWE THEM for your prosperity.."
or "welllll......the YUAN of the chinese is low because it all started in the modern world when the USA demanded that all countries must peg to the dollar to peg to the gold to make everyone honest - but then the USA removed itself from that and enabled it to print money without ANY REAL COLLATERAL EARNED and represented IN GOLD - and so WHY shold china sacrifice ITSELF for the sake of keeping american industries in america when it's the US corporations that demanded it because they couldn't compete if ALL fields were REALLY level? you wanna know HOW? here's how - have you ever HEARD of a phrase called : comparative advantage, monetarism, wage arbitration in international relationships? here's how the USA manipulated its way to things that you complain america is LOSING Right now......"
and the reaction:
a cold, silent, glazed over look in the eye...as if they had something more important to do - such as being first in line for LUNCH!
i have found that many americans are SO GOOD at instigating something that SEEMINGLY looks very informed and intelligent and well-reasoned
but when CHALLENGED - suddenly become MUTELY OFFENDED that they were actually asked to confront just how IGNORANT they were when they opened their mouth to spout their "opinion" of
this or "that foreigner, or that country, or THESE people"....
Wow teddy, you raise a bunch of great points. I agree, the other side of the coin is personal responisbility. We can only blame the "system" for so much. Americans have it easy, way too easy. And that is also part of the problem. To be crude: fat ignorant and apathetic is no way to go through life (even though it takes a lot of effort not to be), but that seems to characterize, or stereotype Americans.
I have experienced the very same thing when bringing up complex issues: glazed over looks, immediate loss of attention, looks of disbelief. The only time I am really surprised by this is when it comes from educated people who ought to know better. They don't believe me or anyone else unless they see it on TV.
For example on of my long-time friends who has a PhD in English and teaches for a living, lives in San Francisco (Pelosi disrict). I told him why Pelosi was a corrupt and vile politician and to vote for Sheehan. He laughed it off and smeared Cindy as a whacko, lunatic fringe. I told him so, but now it is too late.
Unfortunately, we're indoctrinated in the USA with a very juvenile view of intellectualism. Basically, you get a specialty, an expertise in something, and you become a highly specialized cog in the brain of the godzilla monster, and you think you're smart, wise, etc. But specialization doesn't bring wisdom. A broad understanding of the world isn't so useful a cog in the brain of the monster. It's more like a pathogen, so it's kept out by the antibodies.
McChrystal says :
".....undermines the WESTERN MISSION"....
but the PROBLEM IS -- THE WESTERN MISSION.
the problem is Trying to WESTERNIZE the EAST.
period.
you don't do that, sir. it's like going inside someone's house, uninvited and even IF invited ....or simply by accident you find yourself there -
you TELL the Homeowners to behave according to YOUR wishes.
what are you-- their lord and master?
you're nothing but an interloper - a stranger in a strange land whose ONLY business should be to GET OUT of there if you are asked to leave or if you are ALLOWEd to stay -- respect the home you are given a single moment to have a seat on your journey BACK TO WheRE you came from.
isn't that what americans LOVe to say to "foreigners" in the USA that "act so foreign"
considering that america ITSELF or the WEST itself has been nothing more than a TINY SLIVER of the world's civilizations that just happened to use a twisted application of "firepower" to land itself in places far away where it doesn't belong?
whatever happened to the OLD USA reason for wars and invading countries:
"TO defeat GODLESS people"?....against russia's communism or china's?
Teh TALIBAN are largely rather GOD FEARING TOO....
so --- what happened?
maybe all this US talk against "godless barbarians" is really that
THEY SHOULD FEAR GOD - meaning _ AMERICA *IS* god.
but of course BEHIND that is
AMERICA's REAL god IS capitalism Money, and profits.
so - there ya go.
the earth and its peoples OUGHT to be FEARFUL of GOD - AMERICA's GOD of PROFITS. and they should BOW in abject adoration. or ELSE!!!
we want it... we take it... God Bless America.
been doing it since we ran the native americans off their land.
Justification: America's "Interests".
translation: global corporate profits. a.k.a. cheap energy... cheap labor... cheap natural resources... (cheap)low/no government regulations...
cheap inputs + consumption = corporate profit. period. nothing more to see here.
as for the deaths. matters not WHO did it... WHY they did it... if the locals BELIEVE foreign forces are responsible for civilian deaths... or the presence of foreign forces are responsible for civilian deaths... that's going to live in their minds... well... for at least a generation...
9/11... terrorism... pollution... environmental damage... civilian collateral damage... et al ad nauseum... = cost of doing business. period.
ignore it.
justify it.
demonize "them".
"explain" it away.
set up think tanks... co-opt media... to "message" it.
cheap inputs + consumption = corporate profit. period. nothing more to see here.
McChrystal says :
".....undermines the WESTERN MISSION"....
but the PROBLEM IS -- THE WESTERN MISSION.
the problem is Trying to WESTERNIZE the EAST.
period.
you don't do that, sir. it's like going inside someone's house, uninvited and even IF invited ....or simply by accident you find yourself there -
you TELL the Homeowners to behave according to YOUR wishes.
what are you-- their lord and master?
you're nothing but an interloper - a stranger in a strange land whose ONLY business should be to GET OUT of there if you are asked to leave or if you are ALLOWEd to stay -- respect the home you are given a single moment to have a seat on your journey BACK TO WheRE you came from.
isn't that what americans LOVe to say to "foreigners" in the USA that "act so foreign"
considering that america ITSELF or the WEST itself has been nothing more than a TINY SLIVER of the world's civilizations that just happened to use a twisted application of "firepower" to land itself in places far away where it doesn't belong?
General McChrystal -- you SIR and your kind , with your uniforms and medals, and guns and bombs , and mentality ARE the REAL PROBLEM - it's YOu and your meddling in the affairs of other cultures to make them behave in your imagined "superiority" even if all you've shown is you're nothing but a bunch of greedy, murderous, thieving hypocrites that can't really survive without the rest of the world putting YOU and your countries on WELFARE with THEIR riches and wealth of THEIR people that you just managed to STEAL.
How can you tell a person is Taliban or a Militant when they are dead?
Early in the Iraq war there was a youtuve video of a night mission by a US helicopter. It shows people in a field at night.
The voiceovers immediately claim "it looks like people planting bombs or some such" so they proceed to slaughter everyone in that field.
It was a FARMER and his family. They objects they were dropping were fenceposts inside a field. Many farmers work in their fields at night to avoid the heat.
The last image shown was a person coering under a tractor, the crew strafing it with them 20 some odd thousand rpm machine guns and hollering as they shouted we got him!
This turned out to be a 13 year old girl who had been riding behind her father on the tractor.
"How can you tell a person is Taliban or a Militant when they are dead?"
Simple, you ask if he's a civilian and if he doesn't reply, then assume he must be a fighter.
If they run they are Taliban,
If they dont run they are well disiplined Taliban.
The killing of civilians is meant to terrorize communities. Mothers will beg their sons not to fight against the occupiers, to just stay low, don't make trouble.
These people ought to know better than to look suspicious!
The #1 rule is to never do anything that could be misinterpreted as terrorist activity.
Remember, appearance is everything!
"Annotate This: Obama's Speech on National Security"
www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6152
Progressives will not be heard by the President until they start talking about the same war that he does.