Before the leak to the media of this video the Pentagon repeatedly “strongly denied” the mass slaughter of civilians and
backed up its claims with the eyewitness report of “an embedded independent journalist." On Sunday, the Times of London identified that “journalist:” The US military said that its findings were corroborated by an independent journalist embedded with the US force. He was named as the Fox News correspondent Oliver North, who came to prominence in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, when he was an army colonel.
Pardon me while I throw up.
Today, Human Rights Watch is issuing a new report on civilian deaths in Afghanistan - Troops in Contact’: Airstrikes and Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan. Amongst the findings:
In the first seven months of 2008, at least 540 Afghan civilians were killed in fighting related to the armed conflict. Of those, at least 367 died during attacks by the various insurgent forces and 173 died during US or NATO attacks. At least 119 were killed by US or NATO airstrikes. For all periods cited, Human Rights Watch uses the most conservative figures available.
Human Rights Watch criticized the poor response by US officials when civilian deaths occur. Prior to conducting investigations into airstrikes causing civilian loss, US officials often immediately deny responsibility for civilian deaths or place all blame on the Taliban. US investigations conducted have been unilateral, ponderous, and lacking in transparency, undercutting rather than improving relations with local populations and the Afghan government. A faulty condolence payment system has not provided timely and adequate compensation to assist civilians harmed by US actions.
“The US needs to end the mistakes that are killing so many civilians,” said Adams. “The US must also take responsibility, including by providing timely compensation, when its airstrikes kill Afghan civilians. While Taliban shielding is a factor in some civilian deaths, the US shouldn’t use this as an excuse when it could have taken better precautions. It is, after all, its bombs that are doing the killing.”
more at:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/80ad06ae-7d11-11dd-8d59-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1http://firedoglake.com/2008/09/08/ollie-north-rides-again-%E2%80%93-to-an-afghan-massacre/speaking of Oliver North and atrocities:
Interview with Evan Wright author of “Generation Kill”:
For instance, there’s a story in there about a Marine reserve unit that was handing out porn to these Iraqi children, and an elder came out from the village who was really upset by this. The kids ran off, but one of them, through a translator said “Uh-oh, that old man is really mad at you, he’s going to get a rocket launcher and attack you because you are corrupting our morals,” and the old guy walked out with this rusty old rocket launcher tube, and the reservist marines panicked and they launched twenty-six Mark-19, 40-millimeter grenade rounds. They completely missed the old man, because they were reservists and they hadn’t been trained properly, and they dropped them all on this little hamlet. A Mark-19 round, a single one, is a devastating weapon to drop into a mud hut village. They dropped 26 of these in there. Also,
Oliver North,who was working for Fox News as a correspondent was nearby and ran up and was trying to film it, and word was he picked up a weapon and was trying to shoot into the hamlet also. I heard this story—and this is one of the few things in my book that I didn’t witness—and I said this cannot be true. So I went and I interviewed between 15 and 20 participants, including the gunner who actually dropped the rounds on the village. Everybody corroborated it. So yea, there’s some outrageous stuff in the book but it’s all true.
http://oldarchive.godspy.com/reviews/Into-Iraq-With-Generation-Kill-An-Interview-with-Evan-Wright-by-Angelo-Matera.cfm.html
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