How sick, to store a massive amount of weapons within a compound where children are!? Shameless and tragic.
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KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) – Six children have been found crushed to death by a collapsed wall after a U.S. assault on a compound in Afghanistan, the U.S. military says.
Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said Wednesday it was not clear whether the children, along with two adults also killed, died as a direct result of the raid on Friday in the city of Gardez.
A day later, nine children died following a U.S. airstrike in the central Afghan village of Petaw, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Kabul.
“After we went in there (the Gardez compound), we determined the next day … the bodies of two adults and six children (were found) under a collapsed wall,” Hilferty said at Bagram Air Base.
“We don’t know what caused the wall to collapse because, although we fired on the compound, there were secondary and tertiary explosions.”
The complex housed a huge cache of weapons of renegade Afghan commander Mullah Jalani , but he was not at the site at the time of the attack, Hifferty said.
Several other people were arrested after the assault by warplanes and troops, he added, but did not say whether the two adults killed were combatants or civilians
that is exactly why you cannot wipe out the terrorist using the "laser guided stray bombs". There has to be more of an effort to send the ground troops, more special ops, more intelligence to avoid such incidents. There is no other way... we already know that Talibans will use any amount of trickery to stay in power. It is up to us to combat it with mor eintelligence than sending heavy bombs on buildings where innocent people may be present.
Kaleem points are valid in the fact that killing innocents, esp. children even by what I see as the fault of the Taliban, will just put the people of Afghanistan against the U.S.
OG, I understand the wars are not fought that way...then agian this is no ordinary war...this is war on terror, it does not conform to any protocols or norms of war. I do not expect a complete sanitary war, however, I do expect more effort to avoid these incidents. In my opinion we can only avoid these incidents if more ground troops are used to detsroy these so called barracks and stockpile of ammo. This is not too much to ask. If we do not at least try, we will produce more terrorist and the cycle will continue. I am sure none of us want that.
I'm siding with Kaleem here. We've become too dependent on aerial munitions.. only large bases or troop formations need bombs, maybe a few other scenarios. That's Clinton style warfare. "Death from above, God forbid any of our own die.. I might lose votes!"
Dude, I agree that everything possible needs to be done to minimize civilian losses. However dealing with ammo dumps which may well be boobie trapped is sometimes done best from afar. Just to eliminate any thinking that people willy-nilly start bombing things, most of these areas have been under observation for sometime, and targets have probably been viewed by unmannded vehicles in the days before. There is a complicated process of completing forms, commander authorization, as well as clearance by civil affairs and the JAG corp. Read a little on what the artillery people do, page 29 of the Jan-Feb 2003 issue:
The way this is described is quite rational, and the fact that the Army Artillery Magazine has an article on “Legal Issues”, should be sort of telling in and of itself.
Can bad things happen? sure. But a bunch of armchair critics pounding on keyboards cannot fathom the reality of fighting a war, conventional or terrorist…
Spoon,
I just don't understand why you say that dropping bombs and not sending in troops is Clinton style warfare. Are you refering to the NATO's missions in Kosovo (6000+ U.S. troops sent) or something else?
The fear of losses and the counterproductive measures taken to assure zero losses is Clinton style warfare.
OG, I well understand the procedure required prior to shelling a site. My point is that we are rushing for results, statistics rather than expending the necessary effort to tackle the job at hand. This is getting the job done quickly, not getting the job done right.