Our tax dollars at work under Bush:
Our tax dollars at work under Obama:
Can you spot the difference?
I couldn't wait for Bush to quit being President so we could quit having photos of dead and/or injured children, killed by our bombs, and our soldiers, paid for by our tax dollars, greeting us in the news.
So today I come home from work, and discover this:
'More than 100' die in US-led air strike in Afghanistan.
That's more than 100 civilians.
Now try as I might, I can't remember when Afghanistan attacked the United States of America.
I can't think of one Afghani involved in 9/11.
Yet here we are slaughtering Afghan civilians in remote villages halfway around the earth, in the name of the "war on terror".
Why?
The Taliban isn't even a threat in Pakistan, in spite of all the hype and bullshit coming out of Washington:
The myth of Talibanistan
Pakistan is not an ungovernable Somalia. The numbers tell the story. At least 55% of Pakistan's 170 million-strong population are Punjabis. There's no evidence they are about to embrace "Talibanistan"; they are essentially Shi'ites, Sufis or a mix of both. Around 50 million are Sindhis - faithful followers of the late Benazir Bhutto and her husband, now President Asif Ali Zardari's centrist and overwhelmingly secular Pakistan People's Party. Talibanistan fanatics in these two provinces - amounting to 85% of Pakistan's population, with a heavy concentration of the urban middle class - are an infinitesimal minority.
The Pakistan-based Taliban - subdivided in roughly three major groups, amounting to less than 10,000 fighters with no air force, no Predator drones, no tanks and no heavily weaponized vehicles - are concentrated in the Pashtun tribal areas, in some districts of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and some very localized, small parts of Punjab.
To believe this rag-tag band could rout the well-equipped, very professional 550,000-strong Pakistani army, the sixth-largest military in the world, which has already met the Indian colossus in battle, is a ludicrous proposition.
So again, I have just one question, as to why we're STILL seeing pictures of children felled by our bombs and our money, and authorized by the President of the United States, the new "change you can believe in" President, Barack Obama:
Why?
UPDATE:
So Alternet has the story this morning, where they are quoting the NY Times as reporting that:
In a phone call played on a loudspeaker on Wednesday to outraged members of the Afghan Parliament, the governor of Farah Province, Rohul Amin, said that as many as 130 civilians had been killed, according to a legislator, Mohammad Naim Farahi. Afghan lawmakers immediately called for an agreement regulating foreign military operations in the country.
"The governor said that the villagers have brought two tractor trailers full of pieces of human bodies to his office to prove the casualties that had occurred," Mr. Farahi said. "Everyone at the governor’s office was crying, watching that shocking scene."
Mr. Farahi said he had talked to someone he knew personally who had counted 113 bodies being buried, including those of many women and children. Later, more bodies were pulled from the rubble and some victims who had been taken to the hospital died, he said.
And the Red Cross is complaining that one group of victims were a Red Crescent worker and 13 of his familiy members:
The International Committee of the Red Cross, however, has stated bluntly that US airstrikes hit civilian houses and revealed that an ICRC counterpart in the Red Cresent was among the dead. "We know that those killed included an Afghan Red Crescent volunteer and 13 members of his family who had been sheltering from fighting in a house that was bombed in an air strike,"
And NBC is reporting that the Pentagon is planning an attempt to whitewash this by blaming it on the Taliban:
NBC News is reporting that the US military is preparing to blame the deaths of several Afghan families—that were reportedly killed in US bombing raids this week in Farah Province—on Taliban fighters. The network’s Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski said military sources told him Taliban fighters used grenades to kill three families to "stage" a massacre and then blame it on the US.
Which is kind of odd because even Karzai, the U.S.' own man in the country, is saying otherwise:
In Afghanistan, the office of the US-backed Afghan president Hamid Karzai described the deaths as "unjustifiable and unacceptable".
Is the Pentagon suggesting that Karzai is a stooge for the Taliban.
I'm sure this story will continue to develop.