The 1991 Gulf War provided the gov. and media the opportunity to redefine civilian deaths as COLLATERAL DAMAGE, thereby making that war and subsequent wars more palatable to American voters.

It worked.

They need to make Afghanistan the forgotten war since it is now the longest war in which the US has ever been engaged.

Every Day is an Anniversary

Every day another death, or more.
Blown apart, shot, starved,
Military or civilian, young or old,
Innocent or guilty, they die.

Looking back through history;
Egyptian, Jew, Babylonian,
Greek, Roman, European or American;
As today, they died.

Peaceful farmers raising their crops,
Came the conqueror, they died.
Poets writing of Peace.
A Dictator’s decree; they died.

Lovers picnic in a mountain meadow.
Overflies the drone, a missile fires;
Blast of fire and steel.
Must have been terrorists, they died.

Collateral damage is a convenient term.
Doesn’t sound like weeping widows,
Crying children and shattered homes.
Just pay them compensation and forget them.

Forget them all, soldiers, civilians, young and old.
Forget the wasteland of war, the trampled crops.
There are always lots more where they came from.
Forget that every day is an anniversary.

Steve Osborn
28 May 2006

Get it straight--No children died, it was just a case of collateral damage!!

Could it be that the Ministry of Truth is controlling all media?

The New York Times put the story on page 4.

"It does a lot of damage to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. You don't win hearts and minds that way."

And that, folks, pretty well sums up the prevailing American attitude toward any and all of the "brave" activities of USA Incorporated's murderous military operations. The dead victims, whether kids or adults and regardless of numbers, are totally insignificant. The only things that matter are the impacts on the American agenda, whether neo-conservative or "liberal" interventionist.

No one but some of America's own dwellers in Fantasyland expects anything better from their media or from their masses.

It's not the numbers of those who need to die to make the news. It's who can be blamed for their deaths. If one Afghan boy is killed by the Taliban and the us can profit by turning the kid into a 'democracy martyr' than you'll never hear the end of it.

Remember that girl, the one without a nose, whose face was plastered on Time magazine? Remember how the mag said that this would happen much more often if the yanks left? Did you remember, or notice, that that girl had her nose cut off while the USA was occupying that nation?

The poor coverage is certainly a siginificant part of this story.

But far more vile is what they said when they did cover it. The "news" in this case being how it affects ME. The killing of the children was "frankly not something I'm particularly interested in" as Colin Powll once said; but how a leader bad-mouthed America The Beautiful over it WAS newsworthy!

USAns are vile, and contemptable lot, aren't they?

If I were President Obomba and had the power to stop the killing, murdering and torturing this would be my statement: I offer my deepest and sincere regrets for the murder of these 9 beautiful and innocent Afghan children that were gathering firewood and to prove I am sincere, as Commander and Chief of the armed forces, I will take full responsibility, so that this never happens again. So as of today, in honor of these egregious and unnecessary deaths of these Afghan children. Starting today, I am ordering a full, complete and unequivocal withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The US, The West does not care about the ‘natives’, never has, never will. It is all about how first the US, second we of the ‘West” can continue consuming far more than our equitable share of the worlds resources. That it is those who own the resources that are dying, means nothing, or it means that there are less people consuming the resources that the west believes belong to them.

Nor was there any mention of the torture of Bradley Manning in these outlets or the NY Times-- top story? Charlie Sheen's drug-induced psychosis (which no one in the media is apparently able to name).

...and all because of 9/11. The day the laws of physics changed and guys with boxcutters turned buildings into dust without explosives and made a giant plane disappear inside an underground Pennsylvania mine shaft.

I think it's obvious, based on our own social policies, that America doesn't value children. They are easily-replaced commodities.

"How Many Afghan Kids Need to Die to Make the News?"

Uhhmmm... all of them?

This was an absolutely premeditated act of terrorism. I could not give one shit less about "the hardships of U.S. military personnel."

BABY KILLING BASTARDS coming soon to a police department near you.

"How Many Afghan Kids Need to Die to Make the News?"

Q: How many US soldiers are needed to change a light bulb or kill 9 afghan kids?

A: None. US soldiers aren't afraid of the dark, and their light bulbs aren't on... and the kids are killed by remote control anyway. Grunts grunt, technicians kill - and generals generally apologize.

the tone of this article isn't strong enough.
it doesn't matter if you have a real fine apology, hand delivered, maybe with a little pocket change included. i'm sure if msm front pages were used there would still be some spin diminishing the real significance. same with tv and radio - there are large departments within these organizations whose sole responsibility is to make the most odious excrement palatable.
unfortunately, the seriousness of these deaths, as so many others, just isn't important enough news to cause outrage among the masses..
and unjust suffering and death among people of any and all races will not be affected by voting. to start really doing something about it would require a mass "opting out" from the dominant culture and the many bells and whistles it offers to distract. never expect the self-perpetuating structures of a culture, based on genocide to start caring about inflicting too much death.

What M$M Doesn't Report

I have a friend who keeps telling me that she doesn't hear bias or misleading statements from non-Fox media sources. Whether that is true or not, I keep reminding her the bigger problem is what M$M doesn't report.

Were fighting a country that did not attach us. It's interesting that we have made Muslims into something less than human. So its ok to kill them. I think I've figured it out. The Muslim religion forbids usury, meaning they cannot charge exorbitant interest on money loaned. They also have laws that release people from dept after 6 years. My point to all this is, the corporate system that now has 1% of the population with all the wealth, is an abomination to Islam. So to the corporate mind, Islam must be destroyed. Their sense of faiwrness, truth and honesty, is an abomination to corporate capitalism. Fairness and truth cannot be allowed flourish, how can the corporations continue to rob and murder, if they are held to the Islamic standard of truth and fairness. Interesting hoe our politicians who are the biggest liars on the planet, tell us its ok to kill people who's religion demands them to tell the truth.

Without downplaying the sadness of the deaths of these innocent children, I reflect (from Australia) on the number of deaths by firearms in the US. Until this needless slaughter and disrespect for life is dealt with in the World's Greatest Democracy, the mayhem its soldiers visit on others will always struggle for attention.

Whether Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia and on and on...civilians "killed by mistake"? Is terror-prone USA ever going to quit killing people and leaving countries in a pile of rubble? Apologies alone will never do it. Reparations should be paid but of course, this won't happen. And so the US-induced world-wide nightmare continues. When is enough, enough?

All human beings are equal, but for many Americans some human beings are more equal than others. Ergo, American Exceptionalism.

apology costs nothing. keep making them oh there's no cap in the number you're talking about.

How many Afghan Kids need to die to make the news? It doesn't make any difference how many die. The Corporate Media will not tell us about them. Its the same with War Protests, or the Worker Uprising in Wisconsin. The internet said 70 thousand marched in Wisconsin. TV News showed 5 of them.

Dead children is the last thing they will talk about. They don't want anybody to be concerned about such things.

Look, President Obama apologized for this. Saying, "We're sorry", makes it all better. I'm sure if the some military force slaughtered President Obama's children, and then they apologized, he'd understand. And, of course, our military always "regrets the loss of civilian lives."

How Many Afghan Kids Need to Die to Make the News? That's easy, the whole population, that is if at the time it happens the NEWS media isn't running an exclusive story on the life and times of Charlie Sheen ranting on the internet or the many tribulations of Brittany Spears' fragile ego or about how an average american can to get on the short list of the Amerikan Dream and become a zillionnaire doing nothing but selling lies or some new gadget for profit or maybe just ants running amok in the CNN and Fox newsrooms. A lot of things take priority in the US of A rather than "shudder" reality.

yeah ok it should be in the news when it happens.
But more to the point it should not be happening at all. It's stupid for generals to say we are doing everything we can to limit civilian casualties. To do that all they need to do is leave the planes on the ground. In this case whoever did it did know who they were firing at.
ten years now. for what? no afghan has ever harmed the.u.s. There was never any excuse for attacking Afghanistan.

The U.S. has for a long time now been a state sponsor of terrorism. Those people in those helicopters knew exactly what they were doing, and most likely were doing so under orders from their superior officers. There are no words to express the rage and sorrow that I feel.

Let's get some sense of proportion and humanitarian progress in the ever improvement in individual safety worldwide.

The 20th century was the most horrific in world history with something like 200 million humans killed in wars and genocides within about 40 nations. More humans were killed by Mao and Stalin of their own citizens then by the wars started by aggressors other then America. America became involved in the wars against Hitler's Germany, Stalin's USSR, and Imperial Japan's stated goals of world conquest. America stood against murderous communism in Korea and Viet Nam, until communism destroyed itself in the USSR. We are in Iraq and Afghanistan to stand against stateless terrorism and to protect America's interests in the middle east. Without middle eastern oil, the world's economies and ways of life would be in much greater distress then even now.

Without America's involvement in WWII, Hitler would have become the sole atomic power and would now be on his way to his thousand year reich. And you and I would be dead - or speaking German and in slavery.

Since America's involvements in making the world a better and safer place, it has become just that. Since Mao's death there has been a steady decrease in the number of humans killed in wars and genocides due to America's involvement and in cooperation with other like minded peoples.

As compared with the carpet bombings of WWII and other wars, our military and industrial complex have developed weapons and strategies that pinpoint individual identified enemies. Rather then tens of thousands killed by the old bombings, now only individual enemies - or on ever decreasing occasions a few are killed by human error - not purposefully as in the past. Our new strategies and tactics, called "the surge" has as its goal safeguarding the general population of a nation. This was successful in Iraq and is attempting to be used in Afghanistan..

Articles, such as this one, ignor the 25,000 children that die every day from hunger, disease or other preventable causes. It ignors the plight of women in fundamental Islamic nations that are the mistreated slaves of their men. Young women are raped, and then executed by their fathers and brothers because the girls have dishonored their family.

This is where the outrage should be. This, and other articles, dishonor America and our armed forces that have done much to make this a better and safer world.

Who are you people - with your conspiracy theories, and no sense of history or prproportion? You ignor the bloody mountains of history and find a conspiracy under every molehill. You build on nine boys killed and ignor the 200 million slaughtered less the a hundred years ago - and the real humanitarian challenges that still exist.

fredynick,

You have not a clue. Where is our sense of proportion with respect to history? Rooted in the concept that man belongs to the earth and not the other way around. The people that we slaughter year after year, decade after decade, have that in common -- a belief that man belongs to the earth. They are but obstacles in our imperial plans and hence statistics, not people. They take of the land what they need and leave the rest. We take what we think we may someday need and more without slightest thought to consequences.

Your premise seems to be that this country should be given a pass because it has become more efficient in its mode of slaughter. I'm sorry, but Pope's "damning by faint praise" comes to mind here. For the fact that the 9 children that were involved has us enraged, I apologize. But that type of senseless act demands more than an apology (much less a quasi-justification).

You mention the imperial intentions of Germany, the USSR and Japan without concession one to our own desire to rule the world. What are you reading these days? You talk about disrespected women and starving children around the world as if we are on the right side of this equation. Why don't you start with "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and read almost any of Chomsky's stuff. It might help you gain some 'real' perspective.

The slaughter of people in Indonesia, other parts of the Far East, and in South America was done primarily by us and those placed in power by us. Your notion that we saved the world from Hitler rings hollow. His thousand year Reich has been picked up by neo-fascists here.

As to the dig against conspiracy theories, if you refer to 9-11, then you're the only 'nut job conspiracy theorist' on the page. Evidently, you believe that 19 Arab teenagers, led by a Muslim on dialysis hiding in a cave three months short of his death, planned ahead of time, without being detected by the most sophisticated intelligence network in the history of the planet, the simultaneous hijacking of at least four commercial planes, and, though 'manned' by kids who could barely pilot Cessnas, succeeded spectacularly in 3 of 4 instances in hitting targets that experienced pilots have stated they could not have hit, in the process defeating the most sophisticated air defense system in the history of the planet, and brought down the towers thus, in defiance of at least 3 laws of physics.

Good luck with your belief system.