While everyone’s focus has been on Yemen – with reports that targets are being examined for possible retaliation attacks by the US – the US war in Afghanistan continues to go bad.
Yesterday, 10 Afghans were killed by US forces. The UN Observer writes:
Afghan investigators today accused US-led troops of dragging ten civilians from their beds and shooting them dead during a night raid. Officials said that eight children and teenagers were among the dead and all but one of the victims were from the same family.
With demonstrations in at least two major cities calling for an end to such civilian killings, President Karzai pointed out that eight of the victims were “school students in grades six, nine and 10.”
Today, a suicide bomber entered FOB Chapman in Khost, a base “used by the CIA.” At least 8 (and later reports say 9) CIA operatives were killed as was an Afghan civilian:
The bomber managed to slip past security at Forward Operating Base Chapman in the eastern province of Khost before detonating an explosive belt in what one U.S. official described as a room used as a fitness center. The blast also wounded eight people, several of them seriously, U.S. government officials said.
It was not immediately clear how the assailant was able to infiltrate the U.S.-run post, which serves as an operations and surveillance center for the CIA near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. U.S. sources confirmed that all the dead and injured were civilians, adding that most of them were probably CIA employees or contractors. At least one Afghan civilian was also killed, the sources said.
Also today, an IED also killed 4 Canadian soldiers and a journalist from the Calgary Herald while an Afghan soldier opened fire and killed on US soldier and 2 Italians.
The LA Times mentions that this last attack “comes amid a new outbreak of tensions between Western commanders and the government of President Hamid Karzai over the issue of civilian casualties.”
There’s no way to know how many of these attacks on US and allied forces were specifically a response to the killing of the 8 schoolboys but when you drag children from their beds and shoot them, there’s going to be a reaction.
Note on the video: This report from the Iranian Press TV is the only footage currently available of the demonstrations today in Afghanistan. Note that Press TV attributes the deaths of the schoolchildren to “air strikes” but reports from investigators at the scene describe not an air strike but an operation with the victims taken from their beds.



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Why is this accusation being reported as a fact?
God bless America. Oh wait?
The concentration of death – inflicting it on many members of the same family, clan, village or town – concentrates the hatred and resentment against those who caused it. Repeating it across Afghanistan, Iraq or Yemen will make hatred of the US enduring. Vendetta may be the Italian word for it, but it is a universal phenomenon.
This way we expand our enemies faster than we convince them we’re not their enemies. Great for those in the bidness of death. For everyone else? Not so much.
Wow, this war is going sideways fast. Thanks, Dick Cheney!
Excuse, Siun. Rush Limbaugh taken to the hospital in serious condition.
What in the world does Obama hope to accomplish in Afghanistan?
Pipeline dreams… and MIC spending.
The report that a suicide bomber was able to enter a CIA facility and blow himself up is pretty startling … the report of the deaths of the children is sadly not so surprising in contrast.
Certainly unsurprising that U.S. media appears to be covering only the recent U.S. and Canadian casualties.
agreed
Yanno, I live in a dreamworld.
I have this crazy notion that if the US would withdraw it’s forces from EVERYWHERE, as soon as logistically possible starting tomorrow, said a big loud “We’re Sorry, and We’re Not Doing This Anymore” and told Israel, “Look, you bomb these people next door to you, we’re gonna have some serious problems, and to prove it, you get no further monetary aid or weapons from us” that we, the World, just MIGHT end up ok.
Cause we would be bending those swords into plowshares, right?
I know. It’s a dreamworld.
A pity for Mr. Limbaugh and whomever he calls friend or family.
It is ironic that he was spending his year-end in a foreign location like Hawaii, when his political helpmates were condemning Mr. Obama – who grew up in our 50th state – for doing the same. Given the massive cutback in state services, I hope the taxpayer-funded ambulance arrived in time to take him to take him to hospital.
Makes sense to me …
Afghan and Yemeni killed and wounded count as much as the Iraqi ones. Not at all.
It is a good dream, despite the infinitesimal likelihood it will ever come true.
No announcement, though. Just pull our people and equipment out. Just don’t deploy the next group and the next after that.
Cool! Then I now pronounce you to be
Siun Tzu
:) We just don’t need to fight.
Aloha Siun and Ya’ll! From a foreign country, even…! ;-)
Anybody take a gander yet at this…
‘A Different Kind of War’
It’s the one Richard Engel was holding up on MSNBC last nite…
Good, it’s only 422 pages, this will take a couple minutes.
oh thank you … for the new name but more for the wonderful quote!
And Hi CT … thanks for linking that report up! it’s quite something.
I expect a full report by Late late Night…)
Don’t think so. That’s the Army’s history of it’s operations in Afghanistan 2001-2005. It’s 442 pages long, whereas the report Engel had was 25. I’ve been looking for the damn thing all day. One would think MSNBC would scan it and put it online. What’s up with that?
Hi, CT *g*
“The Soviet Afghan War” by the Russian General Staff says pretty much the same things about the Afghan Army when the Soviets were there. Inflated troop levels, desertion rate, etc.
These fools just don’t want to learn.
RF can do it! LOL!
It’s just impossible to know what to believe in this all. The one thing that stands out to me is that it is all out control.
Not that I don’t think Karzai is a corrupt crook- but was that a bit overdone to be able to minimize any outcries about the civilian and other carnage?
Who all – and what all – is operating in the Assassination Airspace of Afghanistan? What does “US Forces” mean?
I come back to what is going on over the airspace over the BLM Lands in the western U. S like Idaho, Oregon and Nevada.- which is being kind of rented out – (if they promise to buy airplanes from Boeing and their ilk and bed-down their planes so the Mountain Home or some other Air Force Base does not get cut by the base closure folks) – to foreign Air Force “friends”.
This is simply sickening. From where does the insane thinking that drives our national leaders and the military to believe that the murder of children will establish any authority to prevail come? Madness. They are all mad.
I know I’ll be posting a diary or two on it…! ;-)
Isn’t that where the Israeli Air Force held major exercises a few months ago?
I’ll grade that report! *g*
give the CNC a nobel prize for this and much more to come…
You may be right… The Grey Lady is touting it as such…!
You’re also right that we just never learn…! ;-)
The doc NYT has is part 1 of an anticipated 4-part series from the Army. Engel’s doc was a briefing paper to be used to brief the top brass.
Try to go through some pages on NYT. It’s fucked up.
Interesting that PRESSTV is covering demonstrations. In Afghanistan
They sure didn’t show much stuff about demonstrations lately
Except for the big story that they’re currently running about the MASSIVE demonstrations of outrage …. at the demonstrators.
You can’t help but love these PRESSTV guys and their coverage.
The Combined Arms Center at Leavenworth usually is the one that briefs the Brass, heck, they teach the Brass…! All LTC’s and Col.’s looking for their stars are required to attend classes there…! ;-)
Jeez. If there could just be more real media coverage of all the facts of how the wars are being conducted, I do believe we could get the people in the US into the streets. We did as to Vietnam. Of course a lot of those demonstrations were by people subject to the draft. This time it will just be outrage at the shame our way of doing war is bringing to us.
Why do you dispute the accusation, patriot?
On the other hand, take the Nobel from Obama and give it to someone who actually deserves it (even for only ideas of peace): Kucinich.
Larue – move a couple flights up; Thers is on, and it’s ROWDY!
1) Seek means to help influence and control gas, oil, drugs and their pipeline distributions.
2) Seek to keep China and Russia from same.
3) Test and use military strategy and weapons and weapons systems.
4) Enrichen the coffers of contract services across the board, be they services or arms and munitions.
There’s more, no doubt, that’s just off the top of my head . . . ;-)
I’d doubt the two are not connected . . . we mess them up, they mess us up.
Someone gave away all the secrets (be they weak ones) about how to get INTO said USA turf.
Said info was being sat on till a reason to USE it was to appear, and YOUR post pretty much seems to offer reason enough for the Afghani’s to strike back.
This is a lose lose ops, in AFPak, as have been all the USA incursions into foreign nations since WW2.
Yah, I know, Hello Choir . . . thanks Siun for keeping it out front for us to see . . . on we hope.
Hoss, those are the only dreams keeping a lot of us old DFH’s sane and hopeful anymore . . .
You dream, hoss, you fucking dream.
Yer dreaming for many of us.
Why bother to read it?
We’ve all been following it forever, we KNOW the story, the facts, the details.
This is just a newly released rehash of what we know, no diss to CT for posting it . . . it’s a piece that SHOULD go into one’s bookmarks for reference . . . and thanks CT for posting it, BTW . . . .
Bob will have it done before Rat’s finished reading it . . .;-)
Thanks, I’m a bit late to it all . . . *G*
Thanks, Siun, for staying on this. The murders are SOP counterinsurgency. Strategic hamlets and assassinations redux (from Vietnam). Obama’s version of Camelot II is as false as that of Jack Kennedy. The Democrats seem bent on recreating th 60s, one way or another.
Happy New Year, y’all!
Thanks Jeff.
I think we always need to stay mindful of the innocents who pay for our folly.
I agree with your point that this has hurt our position with some Afghan civilians but I disagree that the claim has been verified. As near as I can tell someone in Kabul called someone in a Taliban controlled area and asked who died. Do you trust the person on the phone to give an honest answer given Taliban threats to those who don’t cooperate with them?
Other points:
- For thsoe who think we are staying in Afghanistan for resources or
military advantage, this is why it is so important that we fully
withdraw from Iraq to give lie to this claim.
- For those who view the counter insurgency strategy for Iraq or
Afghanistan as similar to Vietnam, you must be kidding. Vietnam,
isn’t and wasn’t a tribal society split along both ethnic and
religious lines.
- The voices of gloom are ignoring the fact that the Pakistani political
and military have come to view the militants on their territory as an
existential threat. The campaigns in Swat and South Waziristan have
been a success in the sense that the military is holding these areas
rather than just visiting them. Meanwhile we are expanding our presence
in Helmand province without a lot of casualties and in a way in which
we have a chance to stop much of the drug exports that pays the Taliban
foot soldiers.
Trying to hold Afghanistan together isn’t just about Afghanistan. It is
in our national interest to maintain the current national borders to avoid
potential chaos across the region and in particular to maintain the status quo between India and Pakistan.
Check out:
- The number of Kurds spread across Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran in one
contiguous area with enough oil around Kirkuk to support the creation
of a new nation.
- The number Azeris in northern Iran (more than 18 million) who might
want to join Azerbaijan and cut off Iranian access to the oil around
the Caspian Sea.
- The Baluchs in eastern Iran and Western Pakistan that have natural
resources and feel totally exploited by their respected governments.
- The Iranian Arabs along the Persian Gulf who are also discriminated
against.
- In fact you discover that less than 60 percent of Iranians are Persians.
- The number of Pashtuns in Afghanistn and Pakistan are approximately
equal to the population of Afghanistan yet there is no Pashtun nation.
- The Tadjiks and the Uzbeks in northern Afghanistan who might prefer
to be part of a greater Tadjikstan or Uzbekistan.
We really really don’t want any of these countries to in any way come to
resemble Somalia which truly is a hidden front in the battle against
terrorism and which lacks any meaningful central or regional authority.
hmm. Somalia doesn’t have a meaningful authority because of what the US did there.
Doesn’t the US destroy anything it touches?
Obama drank that Power Kool-Aid innaugaration night, or Bush/Che’ Blend Coffee the next morning, and hasn’t been right since.
Dick Cheney had nothing to do with the death of these 8 children.
Their death and any others since Jan 20 of this year lie squarely on Obama. He alone is directing this monumentally ill conceived campaign of chasing after people for the crime of hating the US. And in the process killing anyone unlucky enough to be in the way.
He is exactly on a par with Cheney as far as these deaths are concerned and he has in fact taken up Cheney’s mantle and his mission. The killing of innocent civilians is just the same whether Cheney or Obama are giving the orders.
In everything you have chronicled you seem to have overlooked one small point. That is that no country by law is permitted to interfere in the affairs of sovereign nations.
By your reasoning because the US in pursuit of it’s interests can enter other countries unbid and kill their people, then the Afghans, and Pakistanis and Yemenis and Iraqis have every right to come into the US and start shooting and dragging 8 year old kids from beds at night and killing them point blank. In fact 19 Saudis are perfectly justified to fly into New York and kill 3,000 Americans.
What is the difference?
How did we get to a place as a society where we discuss the brutal murder of children by U.S. military in any others terms than “murder”? If I remember, there were only a few of the soldiers involved who thought the My Lai Massacre was funny. Most of the U.S. and the rest of the world were outraged and demanded justice (which didn’t actually happen, Not really.)
I don’t know the particular timing of various foreign military training operations over the U.S. – but I sure wouldn’t doubt it.
Mountain Home now officially has had the Singapore Air Force bed down – after they bought planes from Boeing. I had also heard a year or so ago that “the Israelis and Germans are next”. I do know that for years British and German planes were training at times in this airspace.
There is now a MHAFB airspace expansion proposed – under an EA – to take up more airspace and terrorize wildlife and the public on the public lands of Nevada – because they have run out room for all the “training” going on in the existing Mountain Home MOAs. Including expansion over the Jarbidge Wilderness and other areas.
And I can tell – you a couple months ago -I was camping one night and there was aircraft noise hell out there – worse than even usual. Also to the south: In UTTR domains – a big supersonic proposal under an EIS.
Bottom line: Big military airspace grabs over the public land – and at least some of this is being done to accommodate foreign countries – what woudl be the word for that? Nation mercenaries?
By Nation Mercenaries I was referring to whatever the warped cycle is of essentially selling out your airspace to countries to have enough funds to buy planes to keep Boeing afloat (Singapore) and also to pore into the Military Base in Idaho to keep it from being canceled by the Base Closure Commission – saying this is needed because there such good allies – and we need them training with us and blah, blah, blah.
So then – after Singapore, Israel, whoever – gets trained – WHAT do they do with those trained pilots and fancy F-15 Strike Eagles? Is Singapore out there bombing villages in Afghanistan in our name? But maybe mercenary doesn’t quite cut it – they essentially bribed us – buying Boeing planes to keep Boeing plants and politicians in WA state or wherever happy, $$$ pumped into base to keep wackos Rep. pols in Idaho happy. Is there a term for this? And I understand a horrific plane, the F-35, is next up for MHAFB. What foreign countries will by buying those from a U. S. aircraft maker,and where will all will they be training and what all will they then be doing? AND you just gotta wonder about all these other countries military aircraft zipping thither and yon over the Homeland. How super-safe is that? Just one pilot to go crazy … or to methodically plan something …