Afghans: US Troops Shot at Civilians

[proud2BlibKansan]

Afghans: US Troops Shot at Civilians
By Rahim Faiez
The Associated Press

Sunday 04 March 2007

Jalalabad, Afghanistan - U.S. Marines fleeing a militant ambush Sunday opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians on a busy highway in eastern Afghanistan, wounded Afghans said. Up to 16 people were killed and 34 wounded in the violence, officials said.

A suicide attacker detonated an explosives-filled minivan as the American convoy approached, then militant gunmen fired on the troops inside the vehicles, who returned fire, the U.S. military said.

As the Americans sped away, they treated every car and person along the highway as a potential attacker, said Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief of Shinwar. But Maj. William Mitchell, a U.S. military spokesman, said those killed and injured may have been shot by the militants.

More than a half dozen Afghans recuperating from bullet wounds told The Associated Press that the U.S. forces fired indiscriminately along at least a six-mile stretch of one of eastern Afghanistan's busiest highways _ a route often filled not only with cars and trucks but Afghans on foot and bicycles.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030407A.shtml

[Monkeyman]

1. Dammit I waited for full report I will say this again These kids are not trained right

[EFerrari]

3. They have NO leadership. Their @sses are out in the wind.

We need to bring them home now. :(

/oops

[Monkeyman]

4. Agree 100%

[Kagemusha]

5. I'm not sure any amount of training would help in such a bad situation

All it takes is one person imagining a gun or hearing something like a gun and in a split second you think guns are everywhere. (Especially after a bomb's gone off.)

[Monkeyman]

6. Been there done that in this report there is no excuse

If you are trained you know how to react . I am adding this my first fire fight I was scared shit less but we had good NCO's that kept our heads in the fight.

[Kagemusha]

7. Ah, I'm not trying to excuse it.. just saying that it can happen.

But preventing it requires stopping unnecessary civilian casualties from being a priority. My understanding is that much political effort has been expended ensuring that rules of engagement do not punish soldiers for shooting civvies up because anything else would be considered hamstringing the troops and adding to their casualties. (No different from shaming Democrats into supporting every Pentagon spending request under the sun.)

[Monkeyman]

8. Ok I agree but this point rules of engagement civvies should never be in the line of fire

Caught in a cross fire means move till you have clear shots.

[Kagemusha]

12. That would mean not assuming the civvies are insurgents.

In which case the civilians are in the line of fire because they are the intended targets...

All matters what assumptions you put into the split second decision making process. The Afghan guy saying they assumed everyone was a potential hostile was generous - the assumption was probably, safe to bet they're all hostile so suppress them and get the hell out of Dodge. Maybe it saved American lives, maybe it didn't. It sure guaranteed killing a bunch of Afghans though, with no way of knowing in that time frame, on the move, if they were really insurgents or not.

I think of it as penny wise, pound foolish ROE.

[izzie]

2. It is the Bush plan for winning hearts and minds.

And we can not figure out why these people hate us. Really this is madness.

[The_Casual_Observer]

9. Looks like after the bomb went off they slaughtered anybody

and everybody that was nearby they ought to just admit it. They have no tangible mission, it's all meaningless patrols, it's a waste of time. The "bad guys" are up and out of reach.

[Forkboy]

10. We need to make holes in the bodies to plant the flowers they keep throwing at us

[ConsAreLiars]

11. Five years of murdering people in Afghanistan, and now they hate the occupation forces and wish

for the good old days of Taleban rule. Those who are old enough to remember the days before the US turned their land into a killing field in the name of the Cold War, probably see that time as near utopia, comparatively. At least then, the bandits were lightly armed and fought face to face, rather than from bombers, helicopters and computer consoles on carriers.

The short documentary I linked to in this post http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x338676 describes how Afghans are reacting to the invasion and occupation. Worth viewing.