... and this is now ... it will turn out that this round of usa killing unarmed men, women and children is also policy, authorized at the highest levels, per rules of engagement, to be revealed many years later ... and believe you voted for bush, no? that little girl's blood is on your hands. no?
iht.com
Rights group assails U.S. marines in killings of Afghans
By Carlotta Gall Published: April 15, 2007
KABUL: U.S. marines reacted to a bomb ambush in eastern Afghanistan last month with excessive force, hitting groups of bystanders and vehicles with machine-gun fire in a rampage that covered 10 miles of highway and left 12 civilians dead, including an infant and three elderly men, according to a report published by an Afghan human rights commission.
The report, which was released Saturday, said families of the victims had said that they demanded justice last week from the U.S. military and the Afghan government and that they described the aftermath of the shootings, in Nangarhar Province.
One 16-year-old newly married girl was cut down while she carried a bundle of grass to her family's farmhouse, according to her family and the report. A 75-year-old man walking to his shop was hit by so many bullets that his son did not recognize the body when he arrived at the scene.
In the weeks immediately after the episode, the U.S. military began an investigation, and it is exploring possible criminal charges, senior military officials said. The marines involved in the episode are being kept in Afghanistan, but the rest of their 120-man company has been pulled out of the country.
A U.S. spokesman in Afghanistan, Lieutenant Colonel David Accetta, said Saturday that the military was in the final stages of approving condolence payments for families of the wounded and dead in the shootings.
In its report, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission condemned the suicide bomb attack that initially struck a convoy of a Marine Special Operations unit March 4, wounding one American, and said there may also have been small-arms fire directed at the convoy immediately after the blast. But it said the response had been disproportionate, especially given the obviously nonmilitary nature of the Marines' targets long after the ambush.
"In failing to distinguish between civilians and legitimate military targets, the U.S. Marine Corps Special Forces employed indiscriminate force," the report said. "Their actions thus constitute a serious violation of international humanitarian standards."
A spokesman for the military's Central Command said the Afghan report had been forwarded to Admiral William Fallon, the senior U.S. officer in the region, for review.
The deputy director of the human rights commission, Nader Nadery, warned that incidents like the highway shooting had undercut efforts by coalition forces to win people's support away from the Taliban.
"There is a high level of frustration among the public and civilians that they are victims of both sides of the conflict," he said. |
