US Bombs another Wedding in Afghanistan
by Charles Coughlin
What’s possibly the worst thing you can do to tick off a native population and ruin any chance of a successful occupation? Some may answer setting up secret prisons and torture facilities. But there’s something worse: Bombing a wedding party.
A BBC article reports “At least 20 people have been killed in a missile strike by coalition forces in Afghan’s eastern Nangarhar province. Local people say that the group was a wedding party and that most of the dead were women and children. But the US has denied this, saying those killed were militants involved in previous mortar attacks on a Nato base. Meanwhile Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered an investigation into a missile attack by US helicopters on Friday in which 15 people died. The BBC’s Martin Patience in Kabul says the issue of civilian casualties is hugely sensitive in Afghanistan.”
If this were the only time the US bombed a wedding party, then it might be believable as an accident. Unfortunately this is at least the third time that a wedding party has reportedly been bombed. Either we’re bombing these wedding parties deliberately or our soldiers are so culturally inept that they keep making the same mistake over and over. (more…)