President Obama, in the name of the Nobel Peace Prize, put a stop to this, NOW:
"Within a yard?" These rockets missed their intended target by 300 yards.
This is how we intend to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people? And how many recruits will the Taliban gain from this? Only the number of casualties in the days, weeks, months, and years to come will tell us the answer to that question.
"MARJA, Afghanistan -- An errant American rocket strike on Sunday hit a compound crowded with Afghan civilians in the last Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, killing at least 10 people [the number now stands at 12], including 5 children, military officials said.
...The strike came after American Marines and Afghan soldiers had been taking intense small-arms fire from a mud-walled compound in the area, American officers said. The answering artillery barrage instead hit a building a few hundred yards way, striking with a roar and sending a huge cloud of dust and smoke into the air. As the wind pushed the plume away, a group of children rushed outside.
...It was unclear whether one or more rockets hit the building. Officers said the barrage had been fired from Camp Bastion, a large British and American base to the northeast, by a weapons system known as HIMARS, an acronym for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. Its munitions are GPS-guided and advertised as being accurate enough to strike within a yard of their intended targets."
"Within a yard?" These rockets missed their intended target by 300 yards.
This is how we intend to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people? And how many recruits will the Taliban gain from this? Only the number of casualties in the days, weeks, months, and years to come will tell us the answer to that question.
"You know that peace can only be won,
When you blow 'em all to kingdom come.
And it's 1, 2, 3, what are we fighting for,
Don't ask me I don't give a damn,
Next stop Afghanistan."
This is why right-wing warmongers want to censor war news. They want to hide the atrocities. So next time they want to invade some 3rd world country, most will have forgotten how horrific war really is.
Ever notice how the warmongers make a bunch of dirt farmers out to be a huge threat to America. Just plain ridiculous.
Here is a video of the MLRS, a system similar to what was used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7fj97-UckI
The world has never seen a military power like the U.S. We stand towering above anything that has come before us.
Arthou, this is why your blind right wing partisanship is not taken seriously by anyone...other than your fellow blind right wing partisans.
You believe what you want to believe and dismiss anything that doesn't fit into a nice neat right wing Pollyanna.
I support the Afghanistan mission and this offensive, but this incident is a horrific tragedy. Your gullibility in readily believing this Pat Tillman style whitewashing is offensive and disrespectful to those fighting and dying for what is hopefully a just cause.
According to the NY Times, first hand eyewitness accounts of Marines directly involved in the fighting and pinned down by the insurgents acknowledged the wrong house was bombed.
" 'The rocket hit the house that we wanted it to hit,' an American officer said at a briefing the briefing with General McChrystal and Mr. Wardak. 'We didn’t know there were civilians there.'
But that explanation did not square with accounts from Marines on the ground. The Marine company commander said that he and his men were startled by the missile strike, of which they had no prior warning. Earlier in the day, the company commander said, he had requested a rocket to be launched at a building next to the one that was eventually hit, from which the Marines were taking small-arms fire. The permission was denied, he said."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/world/asia/16afghan.html?hp
...it now appears that the rocket was on target...why, because the taliban were fighting from the houses that were hit (either theirs or someone elses)...how do you deal with people that have no regards for civilians lives...how do you deal with civilians that take side and aid the enemy...
...oh, and are you going to create some cute little ditty about the taliban or the people who giving them aid and shelter...how about this...
you can't always get what you want
you can't always get what you want
but if you try sometimes, you just might find
you get waht you deserve
Rocket that killed 12 civilians hit target, official says
WASHINGTON - A rocket that killed 12 civilians during the NATO-led offensive in Afghanistan hit its intended target, but the troops who fired it did not know that civilians were inside the building, a senior military official said Monday.
The civilians were killed Sunday by a rocket fired during Operation Moshtarak, the biggest offensive that the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force has conducted since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The offensive aims to force the Taliban from Marjah, a regional center in southern Afghanistan.
ISAF issued a statement saying the 12 civilians were killed when a rocket hit about 600 meters from its intended target. A senior ISAF official, however, said the rocket was not off target at all. The official said troops hit the building they were aiming for but did not know that civilians were inside.
The official has direct knowledge of the incident, but he declined to be named because an investigation is under way. Coalition troops targeted the building after taking "constant fire from five locations" in its immediate vicinity, the official said.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
You could just as easily have run this EXACT SAME STORY 20 years ago about Iraq/Kuwait or 40 years about VietNam.
...1) contrast the reports coming out theater on how nato, the us military and the karzai government will address this tragedy and with how our enemy (taliban and aq) would do so...oh, excuse me, they wouldn't - they are free to use and sometimes kill innocents w/ disregard and w/o being subjected to less original variants of protest song of yesteryear and 2)war is inexact and chaotic ...
...actually, guess we should scratch the aq as our enemy since the vp has now told us they are gone...both the american people and the administration should pray he is right, our collective safety and the administrations political future both depend on it...
"Karzai has called for a thorough investigation into the airstrike. Differing accounts have emerged about the details.
On Monday, Afghan Interior Minister Atmar said at the briefing in Lashkar Gah that nine civilians and two or three insurgents were among those killed, suggesting that insurgents were firing at troops from a civilian home.
"The reality is this ... the enemy did capture some civilians in their house and they were firing at our forces from this house. Unfortunately our forces didn't know that civilians were living in that house," he said.
The top NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, apologized for "this tragic loss of life" and suspended use of the sophisticated rocket system pending a thorough review."