U.S. A.F. - STOP BOMBING AFGHAN VILLAGES

Once more we see the devastating effect of U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan. A report comes in that insurgents are meeting in some small village. U.S. war planes and choppers rush to the scene, usually in the middle of the night. They fire rockets and drop 500 lb. bombs.

The result? U.S. military spokesmen say they killed so many "insurgents." But the townspeople say 18 civilians, mostly women and children, died in the attack. Even the BBC reports that its correspondent saw bodies of women and children.

"At least 18 civilians have been killed in an air strike by foreign forces in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, reports say.

"A BBC reporter in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah saw the bodies - three women and the rest children - ranging in age from six months to 15."

Stop these inhumane attacks on Afghan villagers. Ground all U.S. war planes. End the practice of dropping bombs and missiles from war planes. Otherwise, more children and innocent civilians will be killed, and the U.S. governement could find itself charged with multiple war crimes.

STOP ALL U.S. AIR STRIKES AGAINST AFGHANI CIVILIANS

The BBC Radio today reports on a story from Afghanistan that government ministers have condemned the killing by U.S. air strikes of more than 90 civilians of a small town in Herat Province in the western part of the country. Many of the 90 killed were children.

I have been saying this for a long time that the U.S. should pull all fighter aircraft out of Afghanistan and stop all air strikes. This is not the first time that U.S. air planes have killed Afghani civilians, and if the U.S. persists in this fooling military action, many more civilians will die.

For each civilian death caused by bombs dropped from airplanes screaming over head in the middle of the night, imagine how many enemies of America are created. Perhaps ten for one, no, even one hundred to one.

Airplanes should be for peaceful purposes only, not to shoot missiles or to drop bombs on a helpless population.

Stop the wanton and indiscriminate killing of Afghani civilians, ground all U.S. military aircraft that carry guns, missiles or bombs.

GET U.S. TROOPS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN

Some are against the War in Iraq although in favor of the War in Afghanistan. I oppose both.

Look at what happened several days ago when U.S. warplanes bombed Afghani "insurgents," who, it turned out, were really innocent civilians travelling to a wedding. The death toll exceeded 20.

How many times has this mistake been made by the U.S. military? The trouble with choppers and war planes is that their pilots really cannot know whom they are shooting and killing. It's merely their best guess that the "targets" are "insurgents." In other words, the U.S.A.F. fires at people knowingly aware of the risk that they could be innocent civilians and many could be children.

What is the solution? It isn't to passively accept these atrocities, with some bromide that things like this happen in every war. The answer is to ground all U.S. war planes and helicopters. The U.S. should not even have an air force. Airplanes should be instruments of civilization, not mechanisms of death.

Stop the killing in Afghanistan. Pull all troops out of Afghanistan. Ground all U.S. war aircraft.

STOP USE OF WAR PLANES FIRING MISSILES IN DENSELY POPULATED AREAS IN IRAQ

Ernesto Londono and Amit Paley report in today's The Washington Post that the U.S. military in Iraq is using more air strikes to kill insurgents in densely populated areas. This means that innocent civilians including women and children are being caught up in the fighting and are being killed indiscriminately.

Write Londono and Paley:

"In recent weeks, Katzenberger and other pilots have dramatically increased their use of helicopter-fired missiles against enemy fighters, often in densely populated areas. Since late March, the military has fired more than 200 Hellfire missiles in the capital, compared with just six missiles fired in the previous three months.

"The military says the tactic has saved the lives of ground troops and prevented attacks, but the strikes have also killed and wounded civilians, provoking criticism from Iraqis.

"On Wednesday, eight people, including two children, were killed when a U.S. helicopter opened fire on a group of Iraqis traveling to a U.S. detention center to greet a man who was being released from custody, Iraqi officials said."

This is what Bush has caused with his War in Iraq - the deaths of innocent Iraqis who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Furthermore, Bush has caused the pilots of these U.S. war planes and helicopters to be in a position where they think that they are doing a service for their country when they pull the trigger that launches the rockets and missiles that incinerate their Iraqi targets.

Londono and Paley write:

"Those civilians include people like Zahara Fadhil, a 10-year-old girl with a tiny frame and long brown hair. Relatives said she was wounded by a missile on April 20 at approximately 8 p.m. in Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City. The U.S. military said it fired a Hellfire missile in Zahara's neighborhood at that time, targeting men who were seen loading rockets into a sedan.

"Her face drained of color and her legs scarred by shrapnel, Zahara spoke haltingly when asked what she thought of U.S. troops.

"They kill people," she said. Lying in bed, she gasped for air before continuing. "They should leave Iraq now."

U.S. DROPS BOMB ON BRITISH SOLDIERS IN AFGHANISTAN

Here's another example of the awful destruction of human life caused by war planes dropping bombs. Reuters reports that three British soldiers were killed by a U.S. war plane dropping bombs, supposedly on Taliban fighters, in Afghanistan.

Human civilization needs to get rid of war planes and the whole notion that dropping bombs on your enemy is moral or even reasonable. The practice is a barbaric act of trying to incinerate a human being on the ground. I call upon the U.S. Air Force and all civilized countries to put a stop to this barbaric and immoral bombing.

U.S. BOMBING KILLS 30 IN SADR CITY, REPORTS OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN AMONG DEAD

Once again, we see the U.S. military claiming to kill so many "militants" in Iraq, only to learn afterwards that many of the killed were women and children.

The BBC describes the results of a U.S. air raid on Sadr City yesterday :

"US-led forces have killed 30 militants in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, the US military has said. They said most had died in an air strike following a raid in the Shia district of Sadr City. Twelve people were also detained in the operation.

"The US military said the dead were part of a network that was smuggling weapons from Iran, but witnesses said women and children were among those killed."

First, why is the U.S. command and David Petraeus ordering air strikes of residential areas such as crowded Sadr City? As I have opined here before, air strikes are notoriously imprecise and can be expected to kill many innocent bystanders, residents and civilians. Air planes are instruments of war atrocities, right from the beginning of the use of the air plane in war fare.

Furthermore, killing women and children will never gain "hearts and minds." Imagine if your wife or husband, your child or your mother was the victim of a U.S. bombing raid. How would you feel towards the U.S.? How would you treat the U.S. soldier on the ground patrolling your neighborhood?

Those of us who protested going to war against Iraq could foresee all of these atrocities. This is why Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell and all the rest who supported or enabled the war are all implicated in war crimes and should be held to account.

U.S. BOMBS CIVILIAN HOMES IN BAGHDAD, KILLS WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Juan Cole points me to this McClatchy story by Hannah Allam and Jenan Hussein about the casualties from a U.S. air raid against two homes in the northern outskirts of Baghdad. Residents claim it was women and children who died in their beds. The U.S. military claims it killed six "insurgents."

"The U.S. military said the dead were insurgents and the homes in the Husseiniya district probably served as weapons depots; troops observed seven or more secondary explosions after the air assault. By the military's tally, six fighters were killed and five wounded.


"Iraqi residents told a different version: the dead came from two Shiite Muslim families who lived in an area controlled by the powerful Mahdi Army militia. The bodies pulled from the rubble, locals say, were ordinary parents killed with their children in the middle of the night. Locals counted 11 corpses - two men, two women, and seven children. Another 10 were injured. Some Iraqi authorities put the death toll as high as 18."

I have called for an end to U.S. bombing raids before. See here and here and here. The U.S. military has no justification in sending war planes and/or attack helicopters to bomb and strafe residential neighborhoods. I don't care whether the generals think there are insurgents hiding out somewhere in the vicinity. Bombing and killing civilians is a war crime that should never happen.

I repeat what I wrote back on June 30, 2007,:

"Because of incidents like the above, my solution is simple. Ban all war planes, do away with the American squadrons, retire everyone in the Air Force. Air planes must be restricted to peaceful purposes, such as commercial aviation. No one should be allowed to shoot a cannon from an air plane, or drop a bomb."

The U.S. needs to ground all of its bombers, all of its killing machines that fly. Otherwise this slaughter of civilians in their beds will continue until the last soldier has left Iraq.

BUSH - STOP U.S. BOMBING OF AFGHANI CIVILIANS

The U.S. campaign in Afghanistan is just as immoral as Bush's war in Iraq. AlJazeera reports today that U.S. and NATO forces bombed an Afghan village in Helmand Province killing over 25 civilians. That means women, children, older people, human beings all and all killed indiscriminately.

The bombing must end. The killing must end. The war must end.

Mr. Bush loves to remind us that he is "commander-in-chief of the army and navy." If he is the commander-in-chief, then I call upon him, Mr. Bush, stop the killing of civilians in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Order the U.S. Air Force to ground all bombers. Tell U.S. corporations, stop the manufacture of incendiary and cluster bombs and all other bombs.