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On February 12 of this year, U.S. forces entered a village in the Paktia Province in Afghanistan and, after surrounding a home where a celebration of a new birth was taking place, shot dead two male civilians (government officials) who exited the house in order to inquire why they had been surrounded, and then shot and killed three female relatives (a pregnant mother of ten, a pregnant mother of six, and a teenager). The Pentagon then issued a statement claiming that (a) the dead males were “insurgents” or terrorists, (b) the bodies of the three women had been found by U.S. forces bound and gagged inside the home, and (c) suggested that the women had already been killed by the time the U.S. had arrived, likely the victim of “honor killings” by the Taliban militants killed in the attack.
Although numerous witnesses on the scene as well as local investigators vehemently disputed the Pentagon’s version, and insisted that all of the dead (including the women) were civilians and were killed by U.S. forces, the American media largely adopted the Pentagon’s version, often without any questions. But enough evidence has now emerged disproving those claims such that the Pentagon was forced yesterday to admit that their original version was totally false and that it was U.S. troops who killed the women.
[…]
What is clear — yet again — is how completely misinformed and propagandized Americans continue to be by the American media, which constantly “reports” on crucial events in Afghanistan by doing nothing more than mindlessly and unquestioningly passing along U.S. government claims as though they are fact.
Read the rest of the article to see how you’re constantly being lied to. Makes you wonder if you can believe the government on why we’re there at all.
UPDATE: For those people commenting, this article is actually about the media blindly reporting what the government says rather than doing real reporting. Not about the war. That is just the example used. Another example is how the White House reporters don’t ask hard questions so they don’t lose their passes.
Once again proving that the “terror” cannot be taken out of “counterterrorism”. Wasn’t this done back then during the Vietnam War under the auspices of the “Phoenix Program”? And people still wonder how well the war is going when the same ineffective strategies and tactics are being applied to the current wars?
We’re creating new terrorists faster than we can kill the existing ones.
Suggesting that American sheep are overly influenced by what they see and hear on TV?
As a matter of fact, Fox News shows that brainwashing can be privatized.
What is this: bash the military day? How about we show our soldiers some support?
But you still hear people justifying it all with the party line BS. Mindlessly repeating that ‘if we don’t go kill them over there, they’ll come kill us over here’. Every single US citizen is responsible for what the US does as foreign policy, right? Sounds just as crappy as the justification for being there in the first place, the Afghani people aren’t responsible for the terrorists who’ve trained on their soil. Nor are they responsible for their government, are you?
It was suicide.
It is sooo nice to see Hussein Obama use US tax dollars. You all must be so proud!
#4 Benji
Don’t see where this is ‘bashing’ the soldiers. Anybody that’s served will tell you, 99% of the time something like this happens it’s bad intelligence combined with inflexible orders. I might even suggest that these incidences are in line with the true strategic objectives the pentagon has in the region. After all, we can’t afford to have unfriendly nations controlling the middle eastern crude oil reserves, now can we. The clock is ticking on Iran.
What’s really sad is that some that go there to die, believe they’re doing ‘the right thing’.
We don’t report this stuff unless the GOP is in power.
As the article said, it as “a badly bungled American Special Operations assault”. Screw-ups in war are as old as war. Look up Slapton Sands and Exercise Tiger one of these days.
The term civilian can not exist when you have combatants that refuse to wear uniforms.
As for the Rules of Engagement: they are suicide. Either fight to win or go home. The enemy knows our rules of engagement and hides behind women or children, sends women that look pregnant out with explosives around their stomachs, and insurgents will shoot at US soldiers, then drop the gun and run to another position and shoot from there.
The terrorists there are evil and they will come over here and fight us if given a chance.
#11 Benjamin: The fact that you blindly support the military in acts such as these makes me sick. You really need to take a long look at your moral compass.
Joseph Goebbels would be proud.
This is why I never have and never will join the military. I don’t get my jollies off of killing random people in other countries. These military guys get a big O from it.
I’m not an American citizen, and I have more pride and confidence in American soldiers than some of you do. How many of you have read the actual statement from NATO? How many of you bothered to follow the links in the story to find out what the current situation /position is in the investigation?
It was a nighttime raid. “Intelligence” was at fault… the wrong house was targeted. The men who exited the house were armed. You seem so willing to condemn your own side in a war for mistakes, not giving a damn about the rest of your troops there. It’s disgusting!!!
It’s a Fcuking war! Civilians ALWAYS get killed in a fcuking war. It was also a mistake. Mistakes happen in fcuking wars. Why are you so alarmed that NATO tried to cover it up? Why do you think they would do that? Just to lie to you for American public relations? Hah. So self centered!
What about THE REST of your troops? They are targets for revenge now, and you are rubbing it in their faces. Are you happy that the Taliban has propaganda to grow stronger and kill more Americans? Who’s side are you on anyway?
Express your sorrow for the fallen civilians, FIX the “lack of “intelligence”. Stop night raids. But support your troops and protect them with what you say you traitors.
I’m GLAD I’m a Canadian.
#7 Todd.
Twat
I sounds like our armed forces are all toughened up so they can come back home and target us when the economy goes truly sideways and the Big “O” has to declare martial law. I say this only slightly in jest.
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
Mohandas Gandhi
REMIND me again..
About the dictator that was destroying his own country…killing his own people..
And we had to invade them.
WE finally caught him, and WHILE HE WAS IN CUSTODY.. A group broke into the jail and Killed him..
OH! sorry this is Afghanistan…
we went THERE, looking for 1 man. and HE isnt there anymore.
Also the fact that we TRAINED those people to fight against the russians for 10 years. And we made promises to help them AFTER the war..
They came to ask for assistance AFTER the war..BUSH SR. denied them.
soon after the terror started.
I wonder if it would have been NICE of us to Assist them back in 1990, with a couple BILLION$$ insted of spending it NOW.
It’s sad that foreigners always seem to have a greater appreciation for America than actual Americans.
We shouldn’t be in Iraq.
We should get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. Its where countries go to dies. And has been so for centuries.
We shouldn’t be Pakistan.
We shouldn’t be in a convert war in Iran.
We shouldn’t engage in any war that doesn’t have a clear objective. We don’t even have a clear definition of ‘winning’ in our current mess.
9/11 is the justification. But its the wrong answer. You can’t have a country of 300 million people declare ‘war’ on under 1000 people (at least initially) and expect it to work out well. ‘War on Terrorism’ is oxymoron in that engaging in it creates more terror.
We are generating motivated and armed new enemies at an increasing rate. And you can’t really blame them – I mean if a country blew off the arms of your little girl, what would you do? Freedom fighters/terrorists is purely a matter of perspective.
Bin Laden is apparently still out there. So we have so far failed at the most basic and frankly reasonable of objectives. If we can’t do the basic stuff – why do we assume doing more complicated things, like setting up democracy (headed by ‘our man’ who’s considering joining the Taliban)?
Our civil liberties have been eroded – and continue to be by it.
If there wasn’t these wars there wouldn’t be these casualties. The fault is in being there – and staying there. The empire building strategy is wringing the US dry economically and morally.
Time to try something else.
@ #4
No. Not these troops.
Now we just need to spread more freedom and democracy to Yemen.
#15 Skeptic of the AOBCCS, well said.
#12 paddy condemned me, but he has probably never served in the military. Talk to me again when you have served your country in the military.
#14 nolimit662, our soldiers do not kill people because they like it. If you believe that then you are an idiot. You and the rest of the dhimmis need to realize that the military is protecting us from those who would take away our freedoms.
#21 freddybobs68k, what is your solution? What do you think would make the terrorist not attack us? (Your solution cannot result in dhimmitude.)
@ #4
At 900 billion US dollars and still counting, the US armed forces should be grateful to their generous and patriotic nation.
Iraq War Facts, Statistics at March 10, 2010 – Iraq War Casualties, Spending, Iraqi Quality of Life http://bit.ly/eaeo
@Benjamin
Those that would take away our freedoms reside in Washington D.C. not Afghanistan or Iraq. Also, were did the 9/11 terrorists come from? Iraq? No. Afghanistan? No. I think all but one came from our good buddies Saudi Arabia. I wonder why we didn’t invade them? Hmmmm.
If you and/or a family member serve or have served during the war you know there are shtloads of horrendous events that does not get reported.
One of my older brother is still appalled at what he and his heavy artillery battalion had to do during the Gulf War. They fought kids, most less than 16 years old by the looks of them.
If you think reading or listening to our media is all the news you will ever need to learn the truth you’re sadly mistaken. We are feed what anyone is capable of reporting, that’s it.
#24 Benjamin
Focus on prevention and containment.
A great deal of what we are seeing now is blow back from previous US campaigns. CIA operations in Afghanistan for example. We may need to accept that such tactics are not without huge penalties.
There are likely to people who dislike us. Some of those may even wish us harm. Even less some may engage in doing so. We need to bring to justice people that commit crimes against us. If we had focused on Bin Laden + his supporters solely I believe we would have achieved success, and would be generally supported by the rest of the world.
In countries which are undertaking serious crimes against their own people – only engage in military operations with the cooperation of the UN. Not perfect – but requiring it makes it much harder for us to engage in wars, and be more sure about why we are there. Also it will not isolate the US as the ‘bad guys’.
We are the ‘terrorists’ in the eyes of vast segments of the countries were are attacking and occupying. What would you propose those people should do against ‘terrorists’? Your answer cannot be different from what you should propose we should do presumably.
For several decades post WW2 US may countries saw US values as something to aspired to. It’s much harder for people to hate you if you aim to do the right thing. We keep proving our enemies right – by engaging in actions that we accuse our enemies of.
Basically we should be raising our game, instead of continuing down the rabbit hole of military action, perverse convert manipulation and ’empire building’ with huge military base around the world.
Ignoring if it is the ‘right’ thing to do – we should do it if for no other reason that we can’t afford our current direction, or the results.
The similarities to Viet Nam are scary. These kind of wars should not be fought by military men. We continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. Creating puppet governments and making the people we were trying to help hate us. Tell me how this helps anyone?
#4 “What is this: bash the military day? How about we show our soldiers some support”
What? It’s people like you that make holocausts and massacres possible! Don’t question the military…everything our government ever does it right. Dude. It’s not an ALL OR NOTHING proposition you soulless heartless lump. If a US soldier murders people you SHOULD be able to bring that up, question them, make the military make amends and deal with it, not just tell people to shut up because they’re not “supporting” the troops. This wasn’t ALL troops. Most of them are doing a great job. But that doesn’t mean you can’t criticize the ones that AREN’T. Grow a pair and learn to distinguish good from bad and learn that criticism the bad doesn’t mean you’re ALSO criticizing the good. This is the mindlessness from Republicans, if you criticize ANYTHING we do, you hate the troops and America. Grow up.