News Item From Afghanistan: The Gang Who Doesn't Know Who to Shoot
TimesOnLine:
Nato troops killed four civilians and wounded 18 others when they fired on a bus in Afghanistan today, the Afghan government has claimed.
President Hamid Karzai said that he “strongly condemned” the shooting in the southern city of Kandahar.
“Opening fire on a passenger bus is an act against Nato’s commitment to protect civilians and is by no means justifiable,” he said in a statement.
International forces attacked the bus as it approached a Nato convoy early this morning. Gul Mohammad, a witness, said he heard the firing and saw the bus skid on the road. When I arrived here I saw they [the troops] were taking out the wounded and a helicopter taking them somewhere. The convoy was there. I think the distance was 70 to 80 metres and they opened fire for no reason.
The deaths are the latest in a series of controversial incidents involving foreign troops deployed in Afghanistan to help the Western-backed Afghan Government defeat the Taleban insurgency
Civilian casualties are a source of anger among Afghans and are often used by politicians and the Taleban to whip up public opposition to the 126,000 US and Nato forces based in the country.
TimesOnLine: Nato troops killed four civilians and wounded 18 others when they fired on a bus in Afghanistan today, the Afghan government has claimed.
This is NOT GOOD, eh? The politics are so completely tangled any more... what sense is it to continue on there?
ReplyDeleteI say again: Obama's adventuresome project to rescue Bush's occupation of Afghanistan is not sustainable.
ReplyDelete"Civilian casualties are a source of anger among Afghans"
ReplyDeleteMasterful bit of analysis by the times.Apparently some sort of tribal muslim thing, antipathy to civilian casualties.
Sustainability is the question. It took generations for the USA to suppress the resistance in the Philippines. And that colony was not land-locked like Afghanistan. Americans cannot make that kind of commitment in Afghanistan, no matter what McCain said about staying 98 years in Iraq. Because if you can't imagine staying indefinitely in Afghanistan, it doesn't make much sense to staying 18 months. That's just like burning million $ bills up and bleeding out priceless blood for nothing. That's what George Will was saying last Sunday. He's got this nailed.
ReplyDeleteI did my best to continue to believe in the Afghanistan mission but our chance there has passed. This isn't the 19th century where Western forces could go into a village and bring peace by killing everyone.
ReplyDeleteWhile there is a school of thought that if you grab a population by the balls there hearts and minds will follow that philosophy did not work in Vietnam were I have read that phrase was invented and it will not work in Afghanistan. The best we can do is get out and let Karzai or whoever takes over after him know that we will turn the place to molten glass if we have information that attacks against the US are being staged there.