US Airstrike Kills 11 Afghani Children

By Jeralyn, Section Afghanistan 2009
Posted on Sun Apr 07, 2013 at 03:44:23 PM EST
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A US airstrike in Afghanistan yesterday targeting a Taliban leader killed 11 children. Also yesterday, 6 Americans including a young female diplomat were killed in a suicide bombing:

The battle unfolded on Saturday, the same day that a total of six Americans, including three U.S. soldiers, died in violent attacks. In addition to the U.S. adviser killed during the operation in the east, two others — a female foreign service officer with the U.S. State Department and an employee with the U.S. Defense Department — died in a suicide bombing in southern Zabul province during a trip to donate books to Afghan students.

The war is in its 12th year, and this was one of the most violent weeks to date.

There are about 100,000 international troops currently in Afghanistan, including 66,000 from the United States. The U.S. troop total is scheduled to drop to about 32,000 by early next year.

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This is what we do... (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by desertswine on Sun Apr 07, 2013 at 07:07:58 PM EST

books in one hand, bullets in the other.

I (none / 0) (#6)
by lentinel on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 07:30:48 AM EST

just don't see the books...


Books (none / 0) (#8)
by ScottW714 on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 08:27:41 AM EST

The three U.S. service members, two U.S. civilians and the doctor were killed when the group was struck by an explosion while traveling to donate books to students in a school in the south, officials and the State Department said. LINK

: Thanks (none / 0) (#11)
by lentinel on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 09:17:41 AM EST

for the info and the link.
Just awful.
So sad.

Well, since we live in an age when wars... (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by Dadler on Sun Apr 07, 2013 at 07:31:00 PM EST

...never end, when they simply drag on "below the radar" and pick off a few people here and there, I guess this is par for the curse, no?

RIP to all the dead, and probably the same to the rest of the living.

: I'm sure (5.00 / 3) (#14)
by NYShooter on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 12:55:19 PM EST

everyone remembers Eisenhower's admonition as he was leaving office, "Beware the Military-Industrial Complex."
Then, fast forward to the Berlin wall coming down which signified the collapse of our prime enemy, The Soviet Union. So, what was the military industry to do, with no real enemy to fight, or prepare to fight?
Answer: manufacture enemies where none existed before.
Our military industry is not unlike our health insurance industry........a business that has become obsolete but not allowed to die a dignified death.
We've decided that some banks are too big to fail; add to them, military companies and health insurance co's.

they're never going to train (5.00 / 2) (#3)
by fishcamp on Sun Apr 07, 2013 at 08:20:17 PM EST

the Afghani people to act like we think they should. they are wild groups of warlords ...always have been and always will be. if they cut my medicare to help those poppy growers, I want my share.

Imho, (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by lentinel on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 04:35:16 AM EST

our presence there is purely colonial in nature.

Nothing to do with helping them do anything.


: Can't stop now! There's still a pipeline to build. (none / 0) (#21)
by Mr Natural on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 09:25:41 AM EST

Not PC. (none / 0) (#4)
by oculus on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 12:44:31 AM EST

Some elements are though (none / 0) (#9)
by Militarytracy on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 08:27:46 AM EST

Did you watch "Vice" on Friday? They interviewed Taliban child suicide bombers, talked about the madrassas where the Taliban indoctrinate their children. They also interviewed one of Osama bin Laden's buddies, and he was careful to not implicate himself in the child suicide bombers but said that it would continue and that Islamic scholars have cleared suicide bombing and the killing of others as well as the killing of other Muslims.

On the other hand there are many people living there that desire to live free of Taliban violence and religious control. They are fewer and fewer because they keep getting killed for what they want.

Spring violence and death in Afghanistan only signals the beginning of fight season though, and admitting that isn't PC either.


It (5.00 / 5) (#10)
by lentinel on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 09:01:13 AM EST

is admittedly a matter of degree, but there is plenty of violence right here. From crazed gun owners, and sometimes from the government in knocking heads of protesters and sometimes killing them. There is still the issue of capital punishment which is a matter of government sanctioned violence. There is the ongoing issue of violence fomented by the idiotic government sponsored "war on drugs".

Violence is as American as apple pie.

And as far as religious control is concerned, we have a long way to go to rid ourselves of the dominance of many aspects of our lives by various religions.

All the candidates and political leaders have to profess over and over again how religious they are. The government holds prayer breakfasts.

They put god on our currency. They make school children recite that we are "under god" in the revised pledge of allegiance.

Opposition to gay marriage has been traditionally been pinned to what people, including Obama before he "evolved", to religious beliefs or upbringing (indoctrination).

Birth control is being increasingly limited due to the influence of various religions.

Stores cannot sell liquor on Sundays, due to the antiquated pressure of religions.

In Boston, all public transportation and night activities used to cease at midnight on Saturday lest it defile the Sabbath.

And yet, I would not welcome some foreign power coming in and "helping" us to resolve this issue.

Especially one that can't seem to avoid blowing up the innocent.

In short, I don't believe that we have to the right to preach to anybody. Let's get our own house in order.


Churches here aren't turning out (none / 0) (#16)
by Militarytracy on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 08:11:56 PM EST

Child suicide bombers, and Christians here have not gone so far as to say that God is okay with suicide bombers and killing people who disagree with you. They often worry me the directions they go in at this time, but there is no real comparison.

By the way, I am talking about journalists actually reporting on the existing conditions in the Af/Pak region and not just wishing things were a certain way so that it would fit neatly into their ideology and political agenda.


"Christians" (5.00 / 2) (#19)
by lentinel on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 05:34:41 AM EST

here, in as much as GW Bush described himself as such, had no qualms whatsoever about terrorizing and slaughtering the people in Iraq. You remember. They billed it as "shock and awe". As if it were a light show - instead of a terrorist attack from the skies.

Going back a way, there is a photo of a priest blessing the Enola Gay before it took off on its mission of dropping an atomic bomb on a city at rush hour - incinerating 150,000 innocents.

I don't think you can underestimate the damaging connection between repression, aggressive war, and the pressure from religious interests. Another way to say it is that religion, here as there, is just about invariably used as either a justification for violence, or a motivation for violence and repression.

I am not indifferent to the suffering of people in Afghanistan, or elsewhere.

But we are not the people to fix it.
Either that, or we have to find a way to help people without the collateral result of the slaughter of children.

If we were to set an example, that might be a most effective way to influence others.

But as long as we continue to exploit the weak, here and elsewhere, we haven't a moral leg on which to stand.


That's not fair (none / 0) (#20)
by Militarytracy on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 07:21:09 AM EST

Some Christians did, and they were often shouted at and told to sit down and STFU. Those who beat the war drum got air time, a few of those who challenged it got air time, most of those who challenged it got as much shunning as air time. There was a debate though, the followers of Christ lost, the followers of what I characterize as dogma won.

One Army spouse was shouting in the church parking lot at another church goer though who thought we shouldn't be going to war with Iraq, and the Army spouse was very proud of that. Her husband was also the very first soldier I knew to get out of the service practically the minute his plane touched down from Iraq.

The truth is much more complex than what you want it to be.


It's very fair (5.00 / 3) (#23)
by sj on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 09:34:05 AM EST

by Militarytracy on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 07:21:09 AM EST
Some Christians did, and they were often shouted at and told to sit down and STFU.

The comparisons are very apt. You are saying that the Christian world is not a monolith and I agree with that. You are saying that the Christian world should not be judged by its extremists, an I agree with that. Just as the Muslim world is not a monolith and should not be judged by its extremists.

lentinel is saying that the truth is much more complex than what you want it to be.


I made it very clear in my first (none / 0) (#24)
by Militarytracy on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 10:39:16 AM EST

posting that the Muslim world is not a monolith either. Many Afghans want a peaceful existence and wrote about that. I personally think that the thing that bothers you is that there are Islamic scholars who have approved suicide bombing, the killing of others to include Muslims, and I bring that up. I am supposed to pretend that that doesn't exist even though it does.


: Of course it bothers me! (5.00 / 1) (#25)
by sj on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 11:09:41 AM EST

I personally think that the thing that bothers you is that there are Islamic scholars who have approved suicide bombing, the killing of others to include Muslims...
I find that disturbing in the extreme! I consider myself sane, after all. I find Fred Phelps similarly disturbing. But this?
and I bring that up
Anyone can "bring up" whatever they want, but once they do then others are free to comment on it. I'm not sure why you are picking a fight. Is it that you want to talk about one (Islamic "scholars") without having to acknowledge the other (Christian "scholars")?
It seems to me that you agree more than you disagree with lentinel. There seems zero reason for you to get defensive about this.

Re Bush's "Christianity," one of his BS (none / 0) (#22)
by Mr Natural on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 09:29:47 AM EST

artists died the other day, David Kuo, who realized a couple of years into Bush's admin. that Bush was using religion. Amazing what you can see when you extract your head from a dark, damp place.


I (5.00 / 2) (#7)
by lentinel on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 07:40:47 AM EST

simply don't remember a time when I haven't had to read stories such as this.

We don't pay much attention to it, because there is absolutely nothing that it seems that we can do about it. Our government is unreachable. Both political parties have the same war agenda, and both are willing to accept military measures which inevitably result in the deaths of civilians.

It makes me think about Germany in the 1940s.
We have excoriated the German people for claiming not to have known what was going on. But it seems that the ability not to know is universal.

You could have voted for Ron Paul. (none / 0) (#12)
by redwolf on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 12:18:39 PM EST

But hey, don't let me get in the way of the fact that you all voted for a child murder. How many children has your president murdered this week? How many will he murder next week? According to various media accounts, he signs off on every drone strike. They are his responsibility.


: Can't vote based on one issue (5.00 / 2) (#13)
by Yman on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 12:43:12 PM EST

Well, you can, but then you could end up with a racist, homophobic, conspiracy theorist with lots of other crazy ideas, such as RP's idea to outsource the hunting of terrorists to private mercenaries.
Wonder how much blood we'd have on our hands then ...

Yeah. (none / 0) (#15)
by Chuck0 on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 05:22:47 PM EST

They hate us for our freedom.