U.S. Strike Kills Afghan Wedding Party Goers
November 5th, 2008Via: Reuters:
A U.S. air strike killed a number of Afghan civilians, officials said on Wednesday, as President Hamid Karzai called on newly elected Barack Obama to make it his priority to stop the killing of innocents.
Scores of civilians have been killed in U.S. air strikes this year leading to seething resentment against the presence of foreign troops and a rift between Karzai and his Western backers.
Karzai referred to the incident in the Shah Wali Kot district in the southern Taliban heartland of Kandahar province.
“By bombing Afghanistan, the war against terrorism cannot be won,” Karzai told a news conference. “As we speak today, we had again civilian casualties … In Shah Wali Kot of Kandahar we had civilian casualties,” he said.
Karzai did not give any more details but several villagers who had taken a group of wounded to the hospital in Kandahar city said more than 90 people had been killed and dozens more wounded in the air strike Monday, which they said hit a wedding party.
The U.S. military said it was checking reports.
“The coalition and Afghan authorities are investigating reports of non-combatant casualties in the village of Wech Baghtu,” said U.S. forces spokesman Commander Jeff Bender.
“If innocent people were killed in this operation, we apologise and express our condolences to the families and the people of Afghanistan,” he said in a statement.
{SIGH!} It seems as if every few months I find myself reading about a wedding party in either Iraq or Afghanistan that ends up becoming a bloodbath because of the ineptitude or callousness (take your pick) of the US military.
Congratulations to anyone who longed Credit Default Swaps on Pentagon-backed condolences.
It’s useless enough when friends give you condolences on a tragedy, but when it’s the murderers themselves, well, that’s just not classy.
One can only pray that the Obama administration returns the sense of morality that the Bush administration lacks.
@ Larry Glick
Obama’s plan for Afghanistan: Escalation of the war.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1105/p99s01-duts.html
US troops will be pulled out of Iraq in the next 16 months, while the American force in Afghanistan will be substantially reinforced, reversing what is widely seen as one of the fundamental strategic blunders of the Bush era. The US military effort is to be focused once more on al-Qaida and its allies. Obama has vowed that if necessary, American forces would, as under the Bush administration, cross the Pakistan border in pursuit of al-Qaida targets.