...In a pre-taped interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Karzai suggested that the United States risked losing a “moral” fight against the Taliban if too many civilians died in American attacks. But Mr. Karzai has also come under pressure from the United States for what advisers call inadequate efforts to fight corruption, and received a similar warning on Sunday by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.
The security adviser, General James L. Jones, spoke six days after Afghans blamed United States airstrikes in western Afghanistan for the deaths of scores of civilians. American officials apologized for the deaths and said that they are investigating the incident. Still they say that reports of a death toll exceeding 100 were exaggerated and that Taliban militants who were being targeted might have forced civilians to serve as “human shields.”
“We’re going to take a look at trying to make sure we correct those things we can correct, but certainly to tie the hands of our commanders and say we’re not going to conduct airstrikes would be imprudent,” General Jones said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We can’t fight with one hand tied behind our back,” he said, without flatly ruling out the possibility of a change in approach...
Besides, General Jones loves the aroma of burning flesh bubbling with phosphoric acid as the phosphorous burns in the morning. You can't use napalm anymore, after all.
But this is one pissed puppet. The UN human rights watch has been called in, and in news feeds more detached than the D.o'D.'s propaganda machine you can see it is getting ugly:
...US forces in Afghanistan denied they had used the chemical, and have also said claims that up to 147 civilians were killed were grossly exaggerated.
As with previous such tragedies, both sides have made wildly different claims, with the Taliban seeking to exploit popular fury and US officials attempting to limit the damage and blame the Taliban for allegedly using civilians as human shields.But members of the human rights department at the UN mission in Afghanistan have been appalled by witness testimony from people in the village, according to one official in Kabul who talked anonymously to the Guardian.
He said bombs were dropped after militants had quit the battlefield, which appeared to be backed up by the US air force's own daily report, which is published online. "The stories that are emerging are quite frankly horrifying," the official said. "It is quite apparent that the large bulk of casualties were called in after the initial fighting had subsided and both the troops and the Taliban had withdrawn.
"Local villagers went to the mosque to pray for peace. Shortly after evening prayers the air strikes were called in, and they continued for a couple of hours whilst the villagers were frantically calling the local governor to get him to call off the air strikes."
He said that women and children hid inside their homes while their men went on to the roofs with guns. US forces say these men were militants, but the UN official said they were simply villagers and "it is totally normal for them to have guns". Also contested is an incident immediately after the battle when people from the village took piles of corpses to the governor's compound in the provincial capital.
The UN official said their willingness to ignore the Islamic custom of organising burial within 24 hours of death showed the level of anger. A statement by US forces said insurgents forced tribal elders to parade the corpses through neighbouring villages to "incite outrage"...
Well certainly. If you're not with us, you're against us, right? Even if you're a charred and bubbling mass of burning flesh that was simply trying to stay alive as the precision weapons came down on exactly the wrong group of people.
Again.
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