Afghanistan bomb 'kills 11 civilians'

[bemildred]

Source: BBC

A roadside bomb has killed 11 civilians in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, officials say.

The bomb, blamed on Taliban insurgents, hit a coach in Nawzad district, said a spokesman for the provincial governor.

The blast was well to the north of where Nato and Afghan troops are waging a major offensive against the Taliban.

Taliban insurgents have increasingly resorted to using roadside bombs as Nato countries have increased their troop numbers in Afghanistan recently.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8541790.stm

[NJmaverick]

1. This is not going to help the Taliban's cause

[Robb]

2. Mines and IEDs are rather indiscriminate.

DU's moral relativists would do well to remember this.

[Bigmack]

3. NJmaverick and Robb...

What makes you think the Taliban will be blamed by the locals?

None of this shit happened before the US troops came... no IED's... no air strikes. Simple folks, maybe, but they can use deductive reasoning.

The Taliban can simply spread the word that it was another errant US bomb. What can we do to correct that?.... not much, since the locals know that the Afghan government is a US puppet. Hell, Rush, Fox, and the whackjobs can spread bullshit 6 feet deep.. and that's in a country with a literate, educated, population and lots of other media. Imagine what the "Afghan telegraph" can accomplish.

Robb... I don't know what "moral relativist" means. Do you mean that killing is killing? Should we get out now and avoid more killing? Or do you mean we should stay in and protect the innocent, because the Taliban are bad.

Does it make me a moral relativist to get the fuck out of there and let them sort out their own moral (and political) questions?

[Robb]

4. In the event you want answers

What makes you think the Taliban will be blamed by the locals?

Because the locals are not idiots.

None of this shit happened before the US troops came... no IED's... no air strikes. Simple folks, maybe, but they can use deductive reasoning.

Simple folks who used murder and extortion to advance their agenda. Do not attempt to paint a rosy picture of pre-invasion Taliban with me, I will not go down that foolish road with anyone. Afghans who speak well of the Taliban are little different than those who speak well of the drug cartels in other countries -- they are afraid of reprisals or are benefitting from the situation.

The Taliban can simply spread the word that it was another errant US bomb. What can we do to correct that?.... not much, since the locals know that the Afghan government is a US puppet. Hell, Rush, Fox, and the whackjobs can spread bullshit 6 feet deep.. and that's in a country with a literate, educated, population and lots of other media. Imagine what the "Afghan telegraph" can accomplish.

Literacy does not track with intelligence. No one on the ground there doubts what the Taliban are capable of. While it may not be taught in American schools, the "Afghan telegraph" is quite aware.

Robb... I don't know what "moral relativist" means. Do you mean that killing is killing? Should we get out now and avoid more killing? Or do you mean we should stay in and protect the innocent, because the Taliban are bad.

DU's moral relativists are the ones who post fervently about every civilian casualty caused by the US, but are notably absent when a bomb left in a bicycle kills children.

Does it make me a moral relativist to get the fuck out of there and let them sort out their own moral (and political) questions?

No, it makes you an isolationist. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it ignores our role in creating the problem.

[Rage for Order]

5. Excellent point Robb

"DU's moral relativists are the ones who post fervently about every civilian casualty caused by the US, but are notably absent when a bomb left in a bicycle kills children."

You can bet that if the headline said "NATO/US bomb kills 11 Afghan civilians" the outrage on DU would be at a fever pitch, and it would be decried as a war crime. However, a Taliban bomb kills 11 civilians and you can almost hear a pin drop on this thread.

[rollin74]

6. +1

[elias49]

11. How can you NOT consider it a war crime

when US forces kill non-combatants? It's not OUR COUNTRY! And we're not in a declared war. I'm not an apologist for the Taliban, but I refuse to be an apologist for the US/NATO, either.
The US seems to be on a continuum of aggression with no end game. In Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Somalia, in Yemen(?), maybe soon in Iran. We 'pilot' unmanned drones over the mountains of Pakistan as though it was just a video game. This shit has to stop.
I remember a few years ago coming across a video clip of an Apache helicopter taking aim at a 'farm truck' in a field in Iraq and hearing the pilot trying to determine whether it was friend or foe. The truck driver was seen jumping from the truck and taking cover underneath. Then I heard "Hit it!" or something to that effect. And 'hit it' they did. The rounds from that helicopter shredded that 2-ton truck like it was paper mache. The driver? I suspect there wasn't enough left of him for DNA fingerprinting.
This country has to be taken back from the Dept of 'Defense' and/or we have to re-institute the draft. We may soon run out of super-alpha males willing to go to places they don't understand and follow orders from superiors without explanation.
No, I'm not a 'moral relativist', but I think I AM a moral man. And I find nothing redeeming in American men and women killing and dying on the other side if the planet for in some nebulous 'war on terror'.

[Rage for Order]

24. I saw that video clip. It was awesome

I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a helicopter-mounted machine gun

[bread_and_roses]

7. Being "notably absent" when locals/nationals/"insurgents" whatever kill people is totally irrelevant

to our outrage over the US killings. No one is defending any civilian-killers except those defending the US. No one is defending the "policy" of killing and terrorizing the population as legitimate tactic - except those defending the US killing and terrorizing the civilian population as a legitimate, morally justifiable tactic. And no one, btw, has given the Taliban or Al-Q or any other terrorist group a Nobel Peace Prize.

The intellectual shallowness of such a comparison is stunning.

[Robb]

9. You want to speak of intellectual shallowness

...and then suggest the US has a "tactic" of killing and terrorizing the civilian population? Little wonder you're "stunned."

Focusing on accidental civilian deaths and ignoring deliberate ones is intellectually dishonest, regardless of any beliefs about war in general, or this one in specific.

It's like teabaggers who complain about big government under Obama, and ignore the expansion of government under Bush. You're in excellent company there, nice work.

[bread_and_roses]

12. It is quite obvious to any objective observer that the US considers terrorizing and killing

civilians an acceptable tactic. To call these deaths "accidental" is what is is intellectually dishonest.

[rug]

8. The IEDs were remotely controlled and targetted to kill them?

I better take the Taliban's capabilities more seriously.

[Bigmack]

10. Robb....

Americans are idiots.... look around! What makes you think Afghans can't be idiots?

The "simple folks" I was talking about are the local people. Like us, they just want to live their lives. The Taliban were/are assholes to live under, and just generally bad people, but at least the kids didn't get blown up and you could go to the market without taking a chance on getting blown to hell.

I must be a moral relativist..... I think that Americans killing civilians is worse than the Taliban killing civilians. We're supposed to be the good guys, remember? I don't buy the "collateral damage" theory. Killing is killing... even if we're killing for peace. (How does that sound for you... "killing for peace"? How about "Sorry about turning your country into a target.. it's for your own good. You'll thank us some day." The military knows damned good and well how many civilian casualties there will be. They just choose to let the hoped-for ends justify the means. Now that's morality!

We didn't cause the whole mess in that country, but we sure exacerbate the mess by inserting ourselves into their business. There is going to be a helluva civil war there. Lots of people are going to die. I seem to remember one little dustup we had in the United States... killed about 600,000 American before it was resolved. Too bad we didn't have some omnipotent power step in and show us the right way. (Think of how the North and South would have responded if England had invaded to straighten us out.)

Sorry for the Copy and Paste, but the Commandant of the Marines during the first part of my time in the Corps says it best...
`I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the business of these (Third World) nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the `haves' refuse to share with the `have-nots' by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don’t want and above all don’t want crammed down their throats by Americans.' –
Gen. David Shoup, United States Marine Commandant Medal of Honor recipient.

[Robb]

13. A couple of points, since you're obviously thinking things through

...before you start typing. I miss this in DU lately. :)

The Taliban were/are assholes to live under, and just generally bad people, but at least the kids didn't get blown up and you could go to the market without taking a chance on getting blown to hell.

I don't think you understand how bad it was there in the 1990s. There's no easy American comparison, but it has been a scene of fundamentalist infighting since the Soviets left, and the atrocities of the "Fundamentalist Revolution" in 1992 would make any sane person's stomach turn. There was, and is, a lot of killing. It didn't start in 2001.

The military knows damned good and well how many civilian casualties there will be. They just choose to let the hoped-for ends justify the means.

Probably so. And of course it's easy for either of us to judge from here. Hypothetically speaking, imagine this: there's a guy holding a gun trained on an entire family, and he's going to shoot them. You're a military unit and you come across him, and tell him to put down his gun and walk away. Instead, he grabs a baby from the mother and holds it in front of him, between you and him, and starts picking off the family one after another.

Do you shoot and risk hitting the baby?

Unfortunately, that's http://www.isaf.nato.int/en/article/isaf-releases/taliban-seen-using-infants-as-human-shields.html">not exactly a hypothetical situation at the moment. Fortunately things are ending well so far. I think we can both feel glad we aren't in charge of making the decision whether or not to shoot the baby.

We didn't cause the whole mess in that country, but we sure exacerbate the mess by inserting ourselves into their business.

That's a heck of a can of worms there. I'll boil it down and say I am not alone in feeling we absolutely caused the situation in Afghanistan that allowed the Taliban to seize power. Nutshell: we armed them to fight the Soviets, then split, leaving only anger, poverty, desperation and guns.

By no means am I suggesting we got into Afghanistan in this generation because we suddenly felt responsible. If anything, it's a "happy" accident. The cynic in me couldn't understand why we didn't pull out immediately after China locked up the Turkmen gas in December, frankly. The "treasure" of the region has been spoken for, in a completely different direction that needs Afghanistan's stability not one whit. Astoundingly, the only reason left for us to be there is actually the moral one: to clean up our mess.

Lastly, on Gen. Shoup: it's a reasonable position to take, but I don't think it's a particularly progressive one. The onus should not be on the oppressed to free themselves. It usually is, of course. But it shouldn't be.

[scottsoperson]

14. general petreaus says

torture is counterproductive.

[Robb]

15. Apropos of nothing, you're correct.

I'm dying to hear what relevance that has to the conversation, though.

[scottsoperson]

16. who believes in freedom and democracy?

who?

[classysassy]

17. What would we do

if an invading army was over running our country,would we use land mines,but bet your sweet ass we would.?

[JackRiddler]

18. How many such "collateral damage" attacks would be accepted in the United States?

Easy answer. Zero. Absolute zero. One time, and we'd be bombing the designated suspects first, asking questions later.

[Robb]

19. Not a good question. A better one

...would be how much would be acceptable were we living in the same conditions as Afghanistan, with decades of similar history.

[JackRiddler]

20. So you're accepting that human lives should be valued differently in Afghanistan than in the USA?

[Robb]

21. That wasn't what you asked.

You asked "How many such "collateral damage" attacks would be accepted in the United States?"

I said in order to have any idea what would be "accepted" by us, we'd have to be in a similar situation as Afghanistan. We're not, so it's not going to be easy to guess.

[JackRiddler]

22. No, that was the implication I drew from what you said.

Now you're being even clearer: "We" are strong and could resist. They are not, so they are likelier to accept.

[Robb]

23. You're only half right.