Fourty-Seven Afghan Civilians Confirmed Dead In Air Strike
July 11, 2008, Matthew Good According to the results of an investigation into the deaths of fourty-seven civilians last Sunday in the district of Deh Bala, authorities have confirmed that they were the result of a US air strike. Thirty-nine of the civilians killed were women and children. The remaining eight other victims were males between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Nine others were also injured.
The initial figure of fatalities was twenty, with US officials claiming them militants, but locals interviewed during the inquiry have all stated that those killed were members of a local wedding party.
The initial statement released by the US military last week was that militants were killed in the attack. That has now been ambiguously amended, with Lt Rumi Nielson-Green, a spokeswoman for the US coalition, telling AFP that the United States does not target civilians and regrets any loss of life.
The outrage at the heart of the matter seems to rest with the fact that faulty intelligence was used to justify the attack.
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What can you say about such a disgrace like that? It’s horrible. Everything about it. There’s no saving grace to that story at all. Each detail just adds to how sickening all of this is.
Yes, it is war, it wouldn’t be a true war if civilians were not killed. Can you think of a war were only militants are killed or injured, just to play a devils advocate. But I agree this definitely does not help erase the gigantic blemish the Americans have put upon themselves by constantly putting there nose where it doesn;t belong. This is just another exaple of that ignorance. But what do I know I am only a young adult, observing from outside.
If faulty intelligence got them there in the first place, why would we be surprised?
Because we can’t believe that someone would willingly lie to go to war over nothing, or keep lying when they’re caught, or keep lying when people keep dying as a result.
If the pen is indeed mightier than the sword, this as well as other blogs which serve the same purpose should hopefully be able to shake the apathy out of us who read them. In doing so maybe we can in turn shake others and hopefully create a large enough tremor to change the world. As insurmountable a task as that may seem I believe that one person can create large changes and then inspire one other person to do the same.
Thank you Matthew for dedicating so much of your time and energy to maintaining this blog. You are a prolific, and impassioned man who takes painstaking efforts to educate people with facts .
I am so glad that I lurked on this site a couple of weeks ago. Since then, I have been visiting almost everyday.
Matt et al.: I really appreciate the time you take to write informative, thought out, and smart discourse. I also find the comment section a great place for different opinions and new ways of approaching the same topic. This is fast becoming one of my favorite blogs.
This entry is heartbreaking. The situation is frustrating and I feel powerless. It is so important to consider the effect war has on civilians. As a young High School teacher, I speak with students who are uninformed everyday. I feel that if I can share my knowledge with them I am at least spreading it around and giving the students tools to become more informed on their own.
When discussing political conflict and war I like to focus on the civilian experience of war for a few lessons. I find that since we (in Canada and here in Ottawa) are not exposed to war or conflict in our everyday lives, we are able to distance ourselves from the effects. The pain and suffering that we do see is on the television and in the news, it is not something that most of us experience first hand. I try to break down the wall between “us” and “them” and try to get my students to think of the people involved in the conflict as that, people. We all have families, friends, significant others, pets, homes, jobs etc. The difference is, in Ottawa, we don’t have to worry about a wedding party being accidentally bombed by a foreign power set to rebuild our country.
The human aspect of this conflict should not be forgotten and thank you Matt for making sure that doesn’t happen.
[quote comment="58079"]
When discussing political conflict and war I like to focus on the civilian experience of war for a few lessons. I find that since we (in Canada and here in Ottawa) are not exposed to war or conflict in our everyday lives, we are able to distance ourselves from the effects. .[/quote]
Just to remind you that families who have their loved ones serving in Afghanistan (or any other region of conflict) are directly affected by that conflict. This is true even more so if their sons, daughters, … are doing more than one tour of duty. You have to worry about the emotional state that the person will come back in. Will you ever be able to talk to them the way you used to?
They regret any loss of life? They make it sound like they’re correcting an error in the newspaper or raising utility rates: “We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.”
On the Thai-Cambodian border in 1979, a young Khmer Rouge commander recalled the US bombing of his native village eight years before. Two hundred villagers were killed. A twelve year-old survivor,he ran, terrified, into the jungle. Khmer Rouge guerrillas found him and gave him a gun. This boy soon murdered 200 “enemies.” Asked what that feltlike, he patted his right shoulder. “It hurts, here,” he said, referring to the kickback from his rifle butt (related by Staffan Hildebrand to Yale University).
Does this really surprise anyone?
That they relied on faulty intelligence and then lied about who and how many were killed?
Really?
Now, using this as the metric, how many other civilian deaths have been masked as “insurgents deaths”? since 2002?
The shameful thing is this will continue and we will never know what the actual numbers are, let alone, get any closer to the “truth” of the matter.
[quote comment="58082"]They regret any loss of life? They make it sound like they’re correcting an error in the newspaper or raising utility rates: “We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.”[/quote]
So true,
and sad that they treat war like big buisiness.
[quote comment="58081"][quote comment="58079"]
When discussing political conflict and war I like to focus on the civilian experience of war for a few lessons. I find that since we (in Canada and here in Ottawa) are not exposed to war or conflict in our everyday lives, we are able to distance ourselves from the effects. .[/quote]
Just to remind you that families who have their loved ones serving in Afghanistan (or any other region of conflict) are directly affected by that conflict. This is true even more so if their sons, daughters, … are doing more than one tour of duty. You have to worry about the emotional state that the person will come back in. Will you ever be able to talk to them the way you used to?[/quote]
This is exactly what I thought about as well. I was involved in a conversation a short while back with someone who had served with the Canadian forces. They painted a very disturbing picture for me. To be honest it’s the closest I have come to crying in a long time and I think back to that conversation often.
It is so sad to see how fighting in a war still affects a person so emotionally 2 years after they have finished serving.
How can it not?
They go over there and end up being involved in terribly unfortunate stories such as this one. It’s not their fault…their doing what they are told, and what has basically been ingrained into them. On top of that, some of them have the added pain of watching their best friends fall.
My heart goes out to all soldiers who are serving, or have served any time in the military.
We are all indebted to you more than we can imagine.
Awww Matt….Fourty??? Forty….your 3am wake up is catching up with you :)
[quote comment="58074"]Yes, it is war, it wouldn’t be a true war if civilians were not killed.[/quote]
I just don’t get it… on any level.
How many innocents have died because because of actions like this performed by us? And then how many US soldiers have died?
It’s sad that we think so much about the troops getting home because of fear of them dying, yet we think nothing about those innocents that die at the hands of our military.
This isn’t the war on terrorism, this is the war on the middle east. Or at least it seems that way.