OBAMA IS A BIG DISAPPOINTMENT, CONTINUES HATED POLICIES OF BUSH/CHENEY

On certain decisions, Barack Obama has been a disappointing continuation of George W. Bush:

1. Obama resurrects the hated military commissions for prisoners at Guantanamo. See William Glaberson's article today on the web page of The New York Times.

2. Obama continues Bush's policies of trying to keep information out of the public's hands by claiming "state secrets."

3. Obama continues the dreadful war in Afghanistan. Just a few days ago, U.S. war planes bombed an Afghan village killing over 150 civilians, many of whom were just children.

4. Obama continues to threaten Britain and the British courts with non-cooperation in the future if a British court releases torture memos about what was done to former Guantanamo inmate Binyam Mohamed. See John Burns' report in today's The New York Times.

5. Obama refuses to release photos of American mistreatment of captives in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying it would threaten "national security."

6. Obama refuses to initiate an investigation of the Bush/Cheney policy of using waterboarding and other forms of torture of suspected terrorists.

U.S. AERIAL BOMBINGS KILL MANY CIVILIANS IN IRAQ

Thanks to Juan Cole in his Informed Comment today for pointing me to this important study by Iraq Body Count reporting on the large number of civilian casualties, mostly women and children, killed in U.S. bombing raids.

The New England Journal of Medicine published a new study on fatalities among women and children in Iraq as a result of the U.S. prosecuting the war there. The study, in conjunction with Iraq Body Count, is authored by Madelyn Hsiao-Rei Hicks, M.D., M.R.C.Psych., Hamit Dardagan, Gabriela Guerrero Serdán, M.A., Peter M. Bagnall, M.Res., John A. Sloboda, Ph.D., F.B.A., and Michael Spagat, Ph.D.

Write the authors:

"In events with at least one Iraqi civilian victim, the methods that killed the most civilians per event were aerial bombings (17 per event), combined use of aerial and ground weapons (17 per event), and suicide bombers on foot (16 per event). Aerial bombs killed, on average, 9 more civilians per event than aerial missiles (17 vs. 8 per event). Indeed, if an aerial bomb killed civilians at all, it tended to kill many. It seems clear from these findings that to protect civilians from indiscriminate harm, as required by international humanitarian law (including the Geneva Conventions),4 military and civilian policies should prohibit aerial bombing in civilian areas unless it can be demonstrated — by monitoring of civilian casualties, for example — that civilians are being protected."

STOP DRONE MISSILES KILLING DOZENS OF VILLAGERS IN WAZIRISTAN

Who is the person in the Obama administration who thinks firing missiles into Pakistani villages and killing dozens of men, women and children is effective? Oh, because they are Taliban and Al Qaeda types? It seems to me that everyone in poor Pakistani villages in Waziristan is an "Al Qaeda type." And many certainly are Taliban because they live in a backward uneducated society that has embraced Islamic fundamentalism.

But that does not mean the United States should kill them. And under what rule of law under international law does the U.S. have the right to enter another country's territory and fire missiles from unmanned drones at people's homes?

No matter how many Talibani Americans kill by these missile raids, others will take their place, probably in the ratio of 100 recruits for each person killed. This American program is doomed to utter failure Obama thinks it will decimate the Talibani or the "Al Qaeda types."

Have I mentioned the hatred and animus that these drones are stoking in the hearts of all Pakistanis? No wonder the leader of the Pakistani Taliban warns that his fellow believers will somehow mount an attack on Washington D.C.

Pamela Constable reports for The Washington Post:

"Baitullah Mehsud, an Islamist leader from the South Waziristan tribal area in northwest Pakistan, called several international news agencies in Pakistan to assert responsibility for the armed occupation of the police training compound that ended with 11 people dead.

"He also told reporters that he was planning to attack targets in the U.S. capital in retaliation for more than 30 strikes by unmanned U.S. aircraft that have targeted suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctuaries in northwest Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan.

""Soon we will launch an attack on Washington that will amaze everyone in the world," Mehsud told the Associated Press. In a separate phone conversation, he told Agence France-Presse that his forces had carried out the police academy attack near the city of Lahore as an act of revenge for the U.S. drone raids. "There will be more such attacks," he said."

As I said, this reaction is perfectly understandable. If you were a poor Pakistani farmer in some small village, and your neighbor's house was incinerated by an American missile fired from an unmanned drone and piloted by some CIA type thousands of miles away, and you saw your neighbor's whole family, men, women, children all dead from the attack, what would your reaction be?

STOP FIRING U.S. DRONE MISSILES INTO PAKISTANI VILLAGES

I have called for the United States to stop shooting missiles from drones at Pakistani villages in the Waziristan. Why? Because the missiles kill civilians - women, children, non-combatants, non-jihadists. Furthermore, the U.S. has no business trying to kill jihadists. If anything, Pakistan should arrest those deemed violating the law and give them a fair trial. This is the civilized and fair method of punishing law breakers, not targeting them with a missile shot from an unmanned drone and fired by some CIA guy thousands of miles away.

Sunday's The New York Times carries an article by Mark Mazzetti in Week in Review on this very topic. The upshot is that for U.S. officials, sending armed unmanned drones into Pakistan is the best of many alternatives. I object to the policy.

Mark Mazzetti writes:

"But in Pakistan, some C.I.A. veterans of the tribal battles worry that instead of separating the citizenry from the militants the drone strikes may be uniting them. These experts say they fear that killing militants from the sky won’t undermine, and may promote, the psychology of anti-American militancy that is metastasizing in the country.

"“Unless we come up with a coherent Pakistan policy, then nothing works,” said Milton Bearden, who as C.I.A. station chief in Islamabad once led the agency’s campaign to arm Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviet Union."

Imagine having missile-carrying drones flying over your house. What would you think of the country that sends them above your head? Would you fear having a missile blow up your home and family, maybe fired in mistake by some CIA operative who has no idea who you are or where your children sleep or where your elderly parents sit?

The U.S. merely shows its contempt for Pakistani villagers, for human life, and above all for the rights of the individual. Stop the killing of innocent civilians in the quest to kill one Al Qaeda type. Firing these missiles merely tells the world that Americans have no respect for the individual, that they are willing to kill 25, 50 or 100 just to kill some Al Qaeda leader.

Writes Mazzetti:

"Over the last six months, C.I.A. operatives wielding joysticks have launched more than three dozen strikes by Predator and more heavily-armed Reaper drones. Missiles fired from them have hit militants gathering in mountain redoubts, and they have hit truck convoys ferrying ammunition across the border into Afghanistan.

"Some agency veterans draw comparisons to the Israeli policy of “targeted killings” of Hamas leaders — killings that claimed scores of the group’s top operatives in the Palestinian territories, but didn’t keep new recruits from attacking Israel.

"Intelligence officials in Washington and Islamabad said it was nearly impossible to measure the impact of the strikes on the so-called “war of ideas.” Even when precise, the drone strikes often kill women and children in militant compounds. When that happens, local Pashtun customs of “badal” obligate their survivors to seek revenge."

Killing Pakistani villagers by missiles fired from drones will only exacerbate the hatred already felt by Pakistanis towards America. Revenge will be paramount. Having seen their children and family members destroyed by some deadly American missile, Pakistanis in Waziristan will consider any and all options to revenge and redress this cruel U.S. attack from the sky.

STOP U.S. MISSILE STRIKES AGAINST PAKISTANI VILLAGERS

Today we receive another report of the U.S. firing missiles from drone aircraft aimed at Taliban and jihadists living in the Wahiristans in the tribal territories in western Pakistan. The latest strike reportedly killed 27 "insurgents."

The BBC reports:

"The missile strike hit a house in the South Waziristan area, near the Afghan border, which officials said was used as a hide-out for Taleban militants.

"The US has carried out more than 20 air strikes from drones in north-western Pakistan in recent months. . .

"Islamabad has long argued that US air strikes complicate its own fight against insurgents, and violate its sovereignty.

Pakistani leaders had expressed hope that the new US administration of Barack Obama would halt the controversial manoeuvres."

When the U.S. government reports death tallies like the one above, the important question is how many of the dead were women and children? And how many were just ordinary Pakistanis just eking out their traditional lives in a remote rustic village?

These U.S. raids do no good, but, in fact, cause much resentment and hatred by Pakistanis universally for the Americans and for the U.S. Pakistan is a proud country, and the Pakistanis are never going to forget how the U.S. violated their territorial integrity by sending in the drones as well as Special Forces. Just as Americans would be outraged if Russia sent its missile-firing drones into U.S. airspace, so Pakistanis feel about the U.S. actions, which, by the way, clearly and totally Pakistani national law.

Obama needs to bring these raids to an end, once and for all. Military might raining from the sky will never make Pakistani villagers allies of America.

OBAMA MUST END U.S. AIR STRIKES AGAINST PAKISTANI VILLAGERS

Barack Obama has done excellent things in his first three full days in office. He has ordered Guantanamo closed, banned torture and harsh interrogation methods that violate Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, and ordered public agencies to release information freely and willingly.

However, one thing that Obama apparently has not done is to stop the firing of missiles from U.S. drones against suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda members in Pakistani villages. Two were fired today, killing at least nine people, including a five-year old.

The BBC reports:

"The first drone attack struck a house owned by a man called Khalil Khan in the village of Zeerakai at 1700 local time.

"Four Arab militants were killed in the strikes, officials said. Their identities were not immediately clear but officials said one was a senior al-Qaeda operative.

"The second attack was aimed at the house of a Taleban commander about 10km (six miles) from the town of Wanna, local reports said.

"But officials told the BBC that the drone actually hit the house of a pro-government tribal leader, killing him and four members of his family, including a five-year-old child."

These lethal attacks make no sense for a liberal democratic government as Obama personifies. Liberalism puts a value on each person, on each individual, that says that no matter how lofty the goal or purpose, no one else has a right to take that person's life or do him/her injury.

Each person counts just as much as anyone else. And governments can't fall back on the end justifies the means or on the utilitarian bunk that it is for the good of the greatest number.

Firing missiles from an airplane, manned or unmanned, carries inherent risks that the missiles will kill innocent men, women and children. The death of the five-year old is a good example. Neither Obama or the U.S. government has a license to kill the child or anyone else who happens to be around on the basis that the missile is really aimed for "bad guys."

President Obama, call an end to the firing of missiles into Pakistani villages.

ISRAEL TRIES TO BLAME VICTIMS FOR BEING KILLED BY ISRAELI BOMBS

Israel backed by Bush and the U.S. government insists that it is all the fault of Hamas that 350+ civilians have died in Gaza. Even though it has been Israeli war planes dropping bombs and shooting missiles, it is not Israel's fault. If only Hamas would stop shooting rockets, then Israel would not have destroy the fabric of Palestinian society in Gaza.

Where have we heard this bullshit before? Oh yeah, it is the same line of bull that the U.S. army gives out to explain why the Al Qaeda types it kills in Afghanistan turn out upon examination to be women, children and ordinary villagers, trying to subsist in some Afghani farming hamlet. Because the "terrorists" use ordinary civilians as "shields," it is they themselves who are responsible for the deaths of so many children. The fault lies with the jihadists, not with our soldiers. This is of course pure American fabrication.

We hear the same malarkey given out by the Israelis. The lesson is that every aggressor falls back on the same canard, it is not our fault, it is the enemy's fault which causes us to bomb, kill, incinerate civilians.

U.S. AIRSTRIKE KILLS 40 AFGHANIS ATTENDING WEDDING

Once again there are reports of U.S. air strikes killing innocent civilians and townspeople in Afghanistan.

Abdul Waheed Wafa and Mark McDonald report on today's web page of The New York Times the latest attack in which the victims were members of a wedding party.

"An airstrike by United States-led forces killed 40 civilians and wounded 28 others at a wedding party in Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Wednesday. The casualties included women and children, the officials said.

"The United States military and Afghan authorities were investigating the reports about the latest attack, the American military said in a statement, but it gave no confirmation of the strikes or any death toll.

"The reports of the strike, in a region that has become a renewed front line in the battle against the Taliban, showed the raw tensions between the United States and Afghanistan over the toll suffered by civilians in the war, and came just hours after the election of Barack Obama as the next American president."

I have longed call for an immediate halt to U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan. Dropping a bomb on a target inherently involves too much risk of killing people who are innocent civilians.

Furthermore, besides the loss of life, the U.S. demonizes itself in the eyes of all Afghanis every time it drops a bomb and kills innocents including women and children. If the U.S. has any goal of establishing Afghanistan as an ally against fundamentalist jihadism, it must stop this practice of using air power to achieve its political aims.

U.S. AIRSTRIKE KILLS 8 MADRASSA STUDENTS IN PAKISTAN

Another military fiasco by the U.S. in Waziristan. American drones fired two missiles into a village madrassa, killing eight students.

The BBC reports on its web site:

"The school, in North Waziristan, is close to the residence of a fugitive Taleban leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani, witnesses told the BBC Urdu Service. At least two missiles, reportedly fired by pilotless US drones, hit the school early on Thursday."

Perhaps the U.S. was aiming the missiles at the Taliban leader but that is no consolation to the families of the dead students.

This whole military set of tactics that relies on the use of manned and unmanned aircraft needs to stop. It does more harm than good, and has made ordinary Pakistani villagers into allies of the jihadists and Talibanis.

When Obama is elected, I am hoping that he will put an end to the use of American war planes in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The dropping of bombs or the firing of missiles from aircraft is notoriously imprecise, and almost always leads to unintended and cruel civilian casualties. It is totally unacceptable.

Writes the BBC:

"Witnesses told the BBC that the missiles destroyed nearly half of the school building in the Dande Darpakhel area near Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region.

"At least six people were injured in the attack, witnesses say. It is still not clear whether there were any foreign fighters among the dead students or whether it is linked to Mr Haqqani or his son, Sirajuddin.

"Local people have said that most of the injured were local students at the seminary. . . "

"In recent weeks the United States has launched many missile strikes against suspected militant targets in the Afghan border region.

"Washington says the strikes are used against militant targets, but correspondents say that intelligence failures have sometimes led to civilian casualties.

"Figures compiled by the BBC Urdu service show that some 80 people have been killed in a number of suspected US missile strikes in South and North Waziristan region over the past month.

"Earlier in October a suspected pilotless American drone fired missiles in North Waziristan, killing at least six people, Pakistani intelligence officials said."

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.

RID U.S. FOREIGN POLICY OF MILITARY FORCE

We need a whole rethinking of U.S. foreign policy, specifically where it comes to military force. Currently the U.S. maintains military bases in over 100 countries. The thinking is that the U.S. is the enforcer of American values and interests throughout the world. No wonder most of the world's population dislikes America and has a negative view of Americans.

Number one problem that must be changed is the U.S. policy towards Afghanistan. To think that military force can re-make or pacify Afghanistan is pure fiction without any basis in reality. Any peace in that troubled country will come from negotiation and compromise, and such negotiation must of necessity include the Taliban who are mostly Pashtun.

Afghanistan is comprised of tribal groups, such as the Uzbeks, the Tajiks, the Hazaras, the Turkmen, the Qizilbash and the Pastun. The Taliban are mostly Pastun. So the Taliban's interests are not only religious but also involve Afghani tribal politics.

There is no way that the U.S. is going to win hearts and minds of Afghanis, no matter of what tribal affiliation, with its current policy of dropping bombs and firing lethal rockets on Afghan villages and homes from war planes. That approach results in the deaths of mostly Afghan civilians and innocent families. Of course, the U.S. military loves to recite how many "terrorists" it killed through such a destructive approach, but upon inspection, the dead incinerated bodies reveal women and children and mostly poor agrarian farmers.

Imagine if you had your child killed by an American rocket or bomb, how you would feel towards the Americans.

The current U.S. military policy, no matter the claims for "terrorists" killed, is cruel as well as counterproductive.

Military force will never obtain U.S. objectives nor will it ever protect "American interests."

The first step must be the grounding of all U.S. bombers and war planes in Afghanistan. A second step would be to officially recognize the futility of imposing U.S. foreign policy by military force.

STOP U.S. BOMBING OF AFGHAN VILLAGES

Now the U.S. army in Afghanistan is admitting that its reckless air strike last month killed 30 innocent Afghani civilians. Remember that the military's first response was that no civilians were killed. Townspeople say that the air strike killed over 70.

The BBC reports:

"A US military inquiry has found that an air strike on militants in western Afghanistan on 22 August killed many more civilians than first acknowledged.

"US Central Command said 33 civilians, not seven, had died in the village of Azizabad in Herat province.

"While voicing regret, it said US forces had followed rules of engagement. "

So the U.S. Central Command voices regrets but says U.S. forces are in the clear because they "had followed rules of engagement." Oh yeah!

If "rules of engagement" allow the U.S. forces to drop napalm, cluster and other deadly explosives on some poor, rural Afghan town, knowing full well that they will incinerate houses and civilians, then we should get rid of these "rules of engagement."

The first thing that must be done: ground all U.S. war planes in Afghanistan. Cease and desist any more bombing runs, any more attacks from the air. Pull all U.S. war planes and helicopters out of Afghanistan.

Otherwise this reckless and inhumane and entirely counter-productive killing of innocent Afghan civilians will continue unabated.

U.S. - STOP FIRING MISSILES INTO PAKISTANI VILLAGES

The United States under George Bush is making the same catastrophic mistake in Pakistan that it has been making continuously in Afghanistan: bombing villages and houses and schools with war planes and/or unmanned drones.

The BBC reports that at least five Pakistani villagers have died in the latest U.S. air strike with a missile from an unmanned drone.

"The officials said missiles hit the village of Baghar in South Waziristan, close to the Afghan border. . . .

"The incident came as the top US military commander met Pakistani officials to discuss growing tension over US attacks along the border.

"At least six people were injured in the attack, according to BBC correspondent Dilawar Khan in the neighbouring North West Frontier Province.

"Four missiles were reportedly fired at the village of Baghar Cheena, about half a kilometre from the Afghan border."

These attacks from the sky invariably kill local villagers, innocent men, women and children. The very nature of dropping a bomb, even a "smart" bomb, kills ordinary people just happening to be in the vicinity. Children are always vulnerable because the "enemy" here consists of heads of households who happen to be religious jihadists angry at Americans for invading and occupying Islamic countries like Iraq. Bush would have us believe that the "enemy" is an organized group that likes to attack Americans. He forgot to say that this "group" mainly is composed of illiterate villagers and farmers who resent Americans occupying or attacking their country and other Islamic nations.

I call upon the U.S. to stop and desist from any further air raids whether with manned bombers or with unmanned drones. Airplanes should not be used to kill and incinerate people on the ground. Airplanes should perform only peaceful purposes.

Furthermore, I want a United States that does not have "enemies." Otherwise, Americans will find themselves in a state of continuous war, whether with Pakistan, Afghanistan, or whomever.

STOP BLOODY WAR IN AFGHANISTAN NOW!

Reports from Afghanistan say that in a four-day gun battle, the U.S. has killed more than 100 "militants." Jason Staziuso of the AP writes in today's web site of The Washington Post:

"The large death toll comes about one week after the U.S. said it killed 25 militants and five civilians during an operation in the Shindand district of Herat province. Afghan officials, however, say between 76 and 90 Afghan civilians were killed in that operation last Friday. The U.S. is investigating and plans to make its findings public."

The whole scene in Afghanistan is horrific. The United States should not be going around the country engaged in fire fights with local Afghan "militants" and killing civilians by mistake. This is not how I want the U.S. to pursue foreign policy. I call upon the U.S. military and Defense Secretary Gates to end this bloody useless war and pull all American soldiers out of Afghanistan.

There is no need for the U.S. in the year 2008 to have any "enemies." No other country or people should be on an "American enemies list." That includes Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, Venezuela or whomever.

Nothing is ever solved by killing an "enemy." Just like the U.S. has done nothing of benefit when it kills insurgents or militants. If you were an Afghani farmer, would you like American soldiers busting into your house or patrolling your village? Or how would you feel about U.S. war planes buzzing overhead and dropping bombs on your house and home? Don't say that you would not be pissed off enough to start making home made bombs or to take up arms against the foreign invaders.

The war in Afghanistan is and was a catastrophic mistake, as bad as the war in Iraq. We must end it now.

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.

STOP U.S. BOMBING OF AFGHAN CIVILIANS

The BBC reports that the mayor of a small town in Herat Province in western Afghanistan says that more than 90 civilians were killed in U.S. raids on his town today. The U.S. military denies that its forces killed any civilians.

This is depressingly similar to all those other cases where the U.S. sends in war planes to attack "insurgents" and they wound up killing women, children and ordinary civilians.

That's why this dirty war in Afghanistan must come to a stop. First, stop using war planes to bomb Afghan towns and villages. Withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan. They are fated to lose just like every other invading and occupying foreign army in the whole history of Afghanistan. Make the war into a police action. Allow Afghanis to fix and settle their own "government" and social customs, however distasteful they are to the West.

END OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN

The BBC reports that nine U.S. soldiers have been killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. This follows a week in which U.S. war planes killed 42 Afghan civilians mistaking them for insurgent fighters.

All this loss of life means that the United States should not be in Afghanistan. Americans should stop the killing of Afghanis and stop, at the same time, the loss of life of American soldiers.

The way to solve seemingly intractable problems and conflicts is not through tanks and bombs but through talk and negotiation. The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war has been shown ineffective and life destructive.

Pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. Let Afghanis determine their own government and their own society.

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."

NATO PLANES KILL 14 AFHGAN CIVILIANS IN RECKLESS BOMBING RAID

Here's another case of NATO (read U.S.) war planes dropping bombs on innocent Afghan civilians. Abdul Waheed Wafa writes in today's The New York Times that 14 Afghan workers were killed on Monday by a NATO air strike.

Waheed Wafa writes:

"The strike occurred late Monday night in the Norgram district of Nuristan when the Afghan workers of Amerifa Road Construction Company were sleeping in tents after a day’s work.

"“Fourteen of our mechanics and laborers were killed as they were asleep in their tents,” said Nurullah Jalali, the executive director of the construction company. “We just collected pieces of flesh from our tired workers and put them in 14 coffins.”

"The governor of Nuristan, Tamim Nuristani, said he could confirm that 13 workers had been “mistakenly” killed when NATO forces bombed the area based on what he said was an intelligence report that insurgents were infiltrating the area.

"“All these victims are civilians, and they were from nearby provinces,” Mr. Nuristani said.
A NATO spokesman said its forces had struck the area in an attack on what it believed were Taliban insurgents but could not confirm that the road workers had been killed."

I have commented many times before on the destruction to innocent life from NATO and U.S. war planes in Afghanistan. When the U.S. drops a bomb, the chances are that there will always be civilian casualties including women and children.

This is sufficient reason to end all air strikes. The airplane should not be used for dropping bombs or inflicting death. The U.S. Air Force and other military services should stop all combat flights over Afghanistan and Iraq. The killing of civilians is a certain result of a U.S. pilot dropping bombs on houses, villages, towns and cities. Because it is a foreseeable effect, the laws of war should be upgraded to ban such flights. No country, including the U.S., should be allowed to intentionally kill civilians even if insurgents or enemy soldiers are present.