printWhen American armed forces working for warbotObama kill non-combatants in the Afghan theater, they are referred to in the press as NATO forces. MSNBC.com leads with the story that “A NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan killed at least 33 civilians, the Afghan cabinet said Monday, an incident that is inflaming already heightened sensitivities over noncombatant casualties in the war.”
On the 15th, at least 10 people, including 5 children, were killed in Marja, with American rockets.
Face it, the forces might be deluding themselves that they are killing bad Taliban in Afghanistan, but they don’t really know who they are targeting. “NATO forces confirmed in a statement that its planes fired Sunday on what it believed was a group of insurgents in southern Uruzgan province on their way to attack a joint NATO-Afghan patrol.”
It turned out they were women and children.
On the other hand, the Israelis—in a spectacularly surgical operation—remove the blight of a terrorist from the face of the earth and the world, Israelis included, is fulminating.
‘If you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Don’t know where that little proverb came from but it fits.
The Dutch Government coalition has collapsed over the Afghanistan War. Geert Wilders is an opponent (I don’t think people would accuse him of being pro-Taliban!).
I was trying to find out more info on the strike but the media seems very uncurious on the whole thing. My suspicion is that some “friendly” Afghan decided to finger some Afghans who weren’t paying him off or whom he had a grudge against and that the NATO/US/ISAF people bought the bad intelligence.
Sometimes the Israelis get it right. I am not sure they can do much on the “Iranian nuclear program” that would not spin out of control.
The Vietnam Veteran and uber-cynic Fred Reed’s latest take on our great Victories in Afghanistan:
http://www.fredoneverything.net/McChrystal.shtml
Re:WarbotObama Kills More Non-Combatants
I have to admit I have been struggling with how to deal with effectively Al Qaeda. Clearly we can’t force regime change in every Muslim country in the world. The United States maybe a super power but it is not Colonial Great Britain.
As much as I believe that people long for freedom, I also know that a civil society requires a level of tolerance to differing views not found in many Muslim dominated populations. I may be overstating this a bit however, when I look to so called “Arab Street” this is what I see.
At some point populations must take responsibility or ownership of their own desires for freedom. Clearly certain populations in Eastern Europe, e.g., Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, under the tyranny of the Soviet Union took this responsibility with a heavy price. If these populations ask for help from the United States I believe that we should help in ways that are constructive to the cause.
Ok now that I’ve gone to Orlando, Florida via San Diego, California I must get back on point!
There are two major elements to our battle against Al Qaeda the first is to protect our borders and the second is the approach the Israelis appear to be using against Hamas. Covert operations performed by the CIA or Special forces to directly take the war to Al Qaeda.
Finding the internal threat will be much more difficult. However, in the long run border protection will help make the internal threat easier to manage. Overcoming our current environment of Political Correctness would also be huge help in dealing with the internal threat.
[Too long. Please read Posting Policy.]
Suggested viewing: “Why Real Conservatives Are Against the War on Terrorism”
This was a forum held @ CPAC. Two part video.
http://www.fff.org/comment/com1002f.asp
My apologies to everyone on the blog for my longwinded entry. It won’t happen again.