U.S. probe into Afghan civil deaths "flawed": group

[struggle4progress]

Source: Reuters

By Jonathon Burch

KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. investigation into an air strike in western Afghanistan last year was "deeply flawed" and casts doubt over the military's commitment to reduce civilian casualties, a human rights group said on Thursday.

The accidental killing of Afghan civilians has eroded support for international forces in the country and opened a rift between President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers.

After a U.S. air strike in Azizabad in August, U.S. forces reported five to seven civilian deaths. Both the Afghan government and the United Nations said more than 90 civilians had been killed.

The U.S. military reopened its investigation after a video emerged showing bodies of victims. The second inquiry, led by U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Michael Callan, found 33 civilians had been killed ...



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSISL40009320090115?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

[LynnTheDem]

1. Still think it's our "freedoms" they hate us for?

[struggle4progress]

2. I doubt if many of the people who popularized the phrase "they hate us for our freedoms"

ever believed it

I suppose some very cynical wingnut @$$h*73s might have smirkingly said it in earnest, knowing full well that what Afghanis hated US on the ground because US freely killed innocents for political gain

The phrase really sounds like an ad-copy-writer's pablum, crap intended to produce a certain emotional impression

* probably said it only because somebody told him to say it, after checking how it played in a focus group

The whores and idiots of the rightwing noise machine repeated it again and again because the little jabberbots believed that they gave * stature by echoing his mindless newspeak as if it reflected some deep wisdom

As with other vacuities, arguing about whether or not they hate us for our freedoms had the unfortunate effect of treating the phrase as if it had some content, about which a person might really hold an opinion -- when it actually had no content at all

And, of course, anyone who argued with it fell into various carefully planned rhetorical traps, by now familiar to many of us

<edit: missing html end tag>

[LynnTheDem]

3. Very well said. Far too well said for the rightwingnuts to understand how deeply stupid

the phrase is, and they are for believing it and/or speaking it.