Somehow I'm reminded of My Lai, where US troops murdered innocent women and children. It would have been worse, but an Army pilot named Hugh Thompson Jr. landed his helicopter between the fleeing Vietnamese and the advancing americans.

Saved like 30 people from certain death.

And for his actions, the US Army ostracized him.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Will someone please explain to me why are at war in Afghanistan when our enemy, Al Qaeda, is safely tucked away in Pakistan, a seemingly impotent ally in the international war on terror.

There was a time when Afghanistan was an important front for American objectives. I don't see why it is today. We aren't killing our enemies. We are just killing people, for no particular reason other than our frustration.

The policy of war is not working and we need to change it. We need to find some other way of limiting the appeal and the effectiveness of international terrorist groups. You can't swat a fly with a sledgehammer. We need new ideas.

Sioux Rose

GW NORTH: Right on analysis!

Of course as I always say, it's about MARS rules, and notice the logo here in this pattern of cowardice (soldiers blaming others for their trespasses) is MARSoc... the mark of the beast right there live and in color. If militarism has its stamp on it, then killing is (whether on a small or massive scale) falsely-justified from those under the purview of this false deity that too many take for Creator.

u.s. drones are recruiting for the taliban. as the say. " the enemy of my enemy is my enemy."

What a coincidence that after killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan, the marines come up with the same type of lame alibi that NYC cops used after shooting down Sean Bell three years ago, namely, we did it in self defense. And that in the marines' latest mass-killing, as in the cop-killing of Sean Bell (all cop-killings, for that matter) on the eve of his wedding, the initial response of the perpetrators (or their spokesperson) was something like "We sincerely (no matter whether it's the marines, army, NYPD) regret the loss of life, but pending the result of our official investigation, cannot comment on what happened. Translation? Give us time to concoct a story. A coincidence, too, that much of the public buy into these made up stories. Why? Has to do with cognitive dissonance, the anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory beliefs or attitudes, such as, on the one hand, the U.S. Marines &/or the NYPD can do no wrong, and on the other, they're cold-blooded murderers.

"These killings will only strengthen the Taliban"

That headline gives me the creeps. Can't anyone, even sympathetic observers get this story straight? It will NOT "only" strengthen the Taliban, and who gives a f anyway? what these killings do is spread really unimaginable grief and misery among the way past war weary, tormented Afghans. Did you notice the part where they said it's hard to do a body count because these innocents were so totally blown apart? Tell me how a mother feels, or a father, or a surviving child wandering among that level of carnage. Of course you can't. but you can be certain of this much: none of the people who are still alive (while waiting helplessly for the next bomb) will ever be anything close to normal again. Their lives have also been destroyed, even if they can still walk around, as surely as have those whose shattered bodies cannot be counted.

At this point there are only about 15,000 Al Quida fighters. (If the "Jarheads" and our government keep playing this game there's no telling how many more angry civilians will join them each day.)

Most Pakistanis don't like or want Al Quida or the Taliban with their fundamentalist ways to be there. Pakistan just fought for and got a democratic government. Why would they want Sharia law that comes along with the Taliban?

However our goofy government keeps wanting to scare us into thinking that all 15,000 Al Quida and their old Kalishnikovs are going to take over the Pakistani army and get the bomb and destroy the world.

Much of Northern Afghanistan is rugged terrain and hasn't been controlled since before Alexander the Great (except by tribal warlords) yet our president says that we must militarily control that area. We obviously haven't learned much about Guerilla warfare even though we've lost a few of them.

Our invasion of Afghanistan is the reason that the Taliban is in Pakistan. If we left Afghanistan the Taliban would go back there and peacefully supervise the growing of poppies and make a healthy profit and continue to enslave the Afghanis until they get tired of it and rise up.

Good Luck Obama! Keep dreaming or smoking whatever your smoking.

By the way, where is Osama bin Ladin?

The Taliban has already been strengthened by the US and Europe financially and then militarily. When these helpless civilians are fed up and feel like no one is looking out for their lives or safety, the Taliban can easily cash in on those weaknesses and use them as pawns and then dispose of them once done like they have always done.

The question was, Where is Osama? He is living well at the Bush Ranch in Crawford Texas.

Of course this is true. If you proclaim someone as an 'enemy,' that is what you get. No enemy can exist without its opposite, its nemesis. This is true of us in our daily lives as well, no? We always have some nemesis, obstacle, or enemy we feel we must defeat--or battle against to defeat. The imaginary self creates an imaginary enemy, but the bloodshed is all too real.

Must we not applaud the plucky Taliban for defending their homeland against a brutal foreign attacker? We would expect no less of good Americans.

I really would not mind if a group of the Taliban could sneak in and search out everyone involved, starting with Bush and Cheney, Condi (the Kings second wife)Rice on down. Clean out the Fox propagander network,Rush (dope head) Limbaugh. After they have taken care of them just sneak out back home and be good. The Bush?Cheney regime has really ask for it. Yet our now Gov. wont do anything about it. If it was the Democrats doing the war crimes in the past you can bet they would be in prisons waiting to be hung. This might also happen since Obama and Eric Holder are upholding the war criminals.

" .....117 civilians were killed, including 26 women and 61 children."

Yet another heartbreaking statistic in 100 + years of Americas' murderous imperial militarism.

Let's try to get a dose of REALITY in this Taliban business. The truth is that the same Pashtun tribesmen and civilians that are now being killed by the US and the Punjabi Pakistan military were once the darlings of the alCIAda, the Washington politicians (Charlie Wilson's War)and the regional powers who wanted the USSR defeated. The Taliban are the direct result of Saudi Wahabbi fundementalism, Pakistani ISI regional spoiler role, and US ignorance and incompetence to read the local conditions.

Pakistan is a very corrupt and fragile artificial state created by the British imperialists at the end of their Indian Raj. The Brits wanted India fragmented and destabilized on communal basis and this new unviable unsustainable "homeland for Indian Muslims" was created on the most volatile ethnic fault-lines in the world.

The Pashtuns and Baloch (largely Iranic people) never really wanted any part of Pakistan dominated by Indian Punjabi converted Muslims more akin to their Sikh and Hindu brothers in India's East Punjab. The other disaster in 1947 was the forced inclusion of East Bengal's Muslim population into the fragile Pakistani confederation which soon gave way to an independent Bangladesh in 1971 following mass Punjabi genocide and rape of the Bengalis.

The same corrupt brutal Pakistani Punjabi military is now America's "best ally" in the region. The insanity of such an ignorant and self-defeating policy can not be emphasised enough. The weak and shattering Pakistani failed state comprises four distinct ethnic regions (Punjab,Pashtunistan-NWFP, Sind and Balochistan) mixed-in with Indian refugees (Mohajirs in Karachi) and a sprinkling of Kashmiris in the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). All these dispirite groups, and there has always been in-fighting, have largely been kept together by force and manipulation by a US and UK supported Punjabi dominated army.

However, the resentment amongst the ethnic groups and separatist tendencies have been escalating rapidly since the Afghan-USSR war in the 80's and the militarization of the corrupt Pakistani state. The Baloch and Pashtun have largely bore the economic and social brunt of Punjabi chauvanism. All military dictators in Pakistan from Ayub to Musharraf have played on these regional differences to perpetuate their rule. The "civilian" politicians are mostly corrupt, weak and tools of the military establishment. However, the ominous creation and expansion of radical Wahabbi fundementalist groups was direct result of ISI, US and Saudi influence. Now this cancerous genie is out of the bottle with very destabilizing long term consequences for the region, US and the survival of the imploding Pakistani state.

The current military campaign in the Pashtun areas will turn into an all-out ethnic conflict between the Pashtuns (60 million in Af-Pak)and the Punjabis, destabilizing the region for decades. The US will be sucked in deeper in a quagmire that will literally make Iraq look like a barn dance. Impoverished and war-torn Pakistan and Afghanistan have a combined population of over 200 million. GO FIGURE.

Little Wheels Spin and Spin Big wheels turn around & around

Turn your back on weeds you’ve hoed
silly sinful seeds you’ve sowed
Add your straw to the camel’s load
Pray like hell when your world explode

Someday, the wheel will turn around on us.