There was a recent air strike by an AC-130 in support of an ongoing joint Afghan National Army (ANA) - U.S. Army Special Operations raid on a compound in Afghanistan.
Operations day-report said: civilians fled the compound; 4 dead civilians in a crossfire; 2 more wounded and med-evac'ed by U.S. Forces; 20+ Taliban fighters dead.
Afghan local governor said: more than 60 women and children killed; He dodn't mention any Taliban.
Afghan National Government investigates by interviews in the area, and U.N. reviews of the same: 90 civilian dead, mostly children; "some" Taliban fighters killed.
U.S. DoD says: Five Civilians, Twentyfive Taliban
Please don't try to win me over to one position or the other, but feel free to validate or invalidate any or all of the claims.
If you need a hint as to my opinion, see all the press reports of mistreatment of al-qur’ān (the Koran) over the years.
edited: correction to line 1. h/t: mr. bill
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With that much firepower targeting a village, I'd tend to believe the highest casualty count with the greatest ratio of civilians to Taliban. This Administration has pretty consistently hidden the true cost of the wars whether it be material or human costs.
What I don't believe is that your first paragraph isn't even a sentence. Sheesh!
re: targeting -- It wasn't a village as you know one. It was a walled compound of several structures however.
re: hidden true costs of wars. -- YES; actually it seems to be a feature of war on all sides these days to play fool with the numbers. Thus, my opening this topic.
re: "Sheesh!" -- damn, I *knew* there was a reason I invited you to join us... My mistake; correcting it now.
Thank you, Bill.
I'd take the DOD line, though I know why the Afghan government says what they said, They need popular support from the population and makng the Americans take the blame (or certain politicians making the Americans' take the blame).
However if I am wrong, I dont' particuarly care, as insurgents like that are helped by a sympathetic populace. Total War and all that...
Scott
'tut 'tut now, all that Total War thinking was supposed to have gone into the pages of history back on 21.Oct, 1950 (See your Fourth Geneva Convention and all). Applies to "our" side even if it isn't complied with by "them"
Let's not muddy the issue with such matters.
I don't believe either number, but I bet the DOD is closer to the truth. One big problem is your typical terrorist looks *just* like a civilian once his weapons have been reclaimed. Some pictures of purported victims appear to have been totally staged, up to and including identifying a living child as being dead.
As far as counting child casualties, I'd really like to know more about the ages involved. 12-15 looks like a child to western cultures, but there are plenty of examples of soldiers that young. A 12 year old with a kalashnikov can still put a bullet in you.
aw gee... someone let the cat out of the bag:
"Claims of civilian deaths also can be tricky. Relatives of Afghan victims are given condolence payments by Karzai's government and the U.S. military, providing an incentive to make false claims."
Joint Afghan-US-UN probe launched into deadly raid.
Lengthy article from The AP
Kudos to writer FISNIK ABRASHI as it looks like he got the details right.
Usually when you have counts that are so distant one from the other the truth will be somewhere in between. The Taliban is trying (and having some success?) in making inroads in Afghanistan and one way it can do this is by making the coalition look like "killers of civilians". For the Taliban, people are expendable. Us hiding the true count? Perhaps to a degree because the war is so unpopular. (LDG, trying to help with your blog count- sorry I can't stick around more; not for another 2 weeks)
One death of an innocent person is too many~
Happy Blog anniversary- one month today!
I hope you get email updates on these things.
I saw a report on this, albeit from a "liberal" source, that stated there was an "independent journalist" embedded with the force that did the shooting. Now, it turns out, that "independent journalist" was neither independent, nor a journalist, but a fellow named Oliver North. There is, apparently, a DoD investigation on-going into just what did happen and who did get killed.
But if you can get confirmation on any of that, even better.
I can confirm O. North, acting as a war reporter, was on "embed" with the ANA and U.S. forces. Here's a link to text about his 5-part filing from the trip:
Scenes from a Forgotten War
It is my understanding that several non-military bits of evidence are out there... the FOXNews footage; an Afghan partisan source offered a cellphone video of the dead; the local Afghan governor's investigator...
...and they all point in different directions.
Yes, the investigation is being revisited and the DoD and the CG in-theater are saying the reinvestigation is "total".
There has *got* to be some reason why the Karsai administration will not let go of this issue. He's not in the business of casually distaining U.S. and NATO efforts, let me tell you.
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