Afghan officials: 9 police killed in mix-up

Source: Navy Times / Associated Press

Afghan officials: 9 police killed in mix-up
By Nahal Toosi - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Jul 20, 2008 14:03:04 EDT

KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S.-led troops and Afghan forces killed nine Afghan police Sunday, calling in airstrikes and fighting on the ground for four hours after both sides mistook the other for militants, Afghan officials said.

In a separate incident, NATO said it accidentally killed at least four Afghan civilians Saturday night. A NATO soldier also was killed in the east.

The two cases of accidental killings could further undercut popular support for the government and foreign forces operating here. President Hamid Karzai has pleaded with the U.S. and other nations fighting resurgent militants to avoid civilian casualties.

In the western province of Farah near the Iranian border, a convoy of foreign forces showed up in Anar Dara district and clashed with Afghan police, killing nine of them, said provincial Deputy Governor Younus Rasuli.

Read more: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/07/ap_afghanistan_deaths_072008/

Hairy situation.

Americans are suffering losses specifically because they do not shoot everything that moves and suffer casualties because of that policy. The Taliban has a win-win situation where they ambush and shoot at American troops from civilian houses with the civilians still in them, so they win by killing Americans and if any of the civilians are killed they win again by blaming the Americans for their deaths. There was even a case where children were beaten by the insurgent forces in Afghanistan to stay in the house and they were killed when the house was bombed and the American forces had no idea there were children in there.

Our troops are not baby killing monsters and neither do they get up in the morning and say, "let's go kill us a wedding party". The big difference between the Taliban and American forces is that the Americans go out of their way to avoid civilian casualties. Plus, they're not exactly wearing team uniforms there so you can easily tell who is not on your side.

"Our troops are not baby killing monsters and neither do they get up in the morning and say, "let's go kill us a wedding party".

I will agree with what you say about the majority of US troops, but even in the US military there are certain members who love to fire up any target, regardless of who it is!

negates my point at all that the policy of the military and of the overwhelming majority of our troops is not to kill or injure civilians. They learned from Russia's debacle there that it is counterproductive to kill everything that moves. There is no way to absolutely guarantee that there will be no civilian casualties either by intent, by accident when troops cannot tell who is who, or simply because of fear. There is no perfection in war. Our troops do not want to kill civilians while the Taliban has no problem with seeing civilians killed as the result of their actions.

Indiscriminate overuse of heavy firepower is an American military hallmark.

Has been for the last 100 years and still is today.

In what way are you wedded to the military machine?

wasn't one of them the son of a governor?


Booosh sending a message about supporting Sen. O?