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 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.

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.

OBAMA SHOULD END WAR IN AFGHANISTAN, NOT ASK FOR MORE TROOPS

Barack Obama's speech before the Victory Column in Berlin showed off his oratory skills, but did he need to badger the Germans for help in Afghanistan?

The French, Germans and other Europeans are reluctant to commit troops to the fighting in Afghanistan, and they have good reason. Has any invading and occupying foreign force ever defeated the Afghans. Or has it been an exercise in futility, where the clans and tribes one way or another outwit the foreigners and inflict severe losses and punishment upon them?

Instead of fighting a way in Afghanistan, this should be a police action. Soldiers will never win in that strange land.

So instead of asking for more soldiers, Obama should be figuring a way to extract those already there, and bring this bloody war to a quick end.

PULL U.S. TROOPS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN

Before committing more troops to Afghanistan, Barack Obama should take a step back and re-think the whole role for the United States in Afghanistan.

First, from a historical point of view, has there ever been an occupying force that invaded Afghanistan and defeated the local inhabitants? If there has, they are very few. Afghanistan chews up invaders, mauls them, bloodies their armies, then spits them out.

Second. If the people of Afghanistan wants to adopt an Islamic fundamentalist government, that is their business, and the U.S. has no right to interfere.

Some will say that Bin Laden's attacks on 9/11 show that the U.S. must of necessity defeat the Taliban. But this is not true. Bin Laden and the rest of the Islamic fundamentalists attacked to right what they saw as an unjust occupation by the Americans of Islamic lands like Saudi Arabia where the U.S. insisted on maintaining bases and non-Islamic troops. Were it not for the presence of Americans in Islamic countries, there would have been no 9/11. If you don't agree with this, ask yourself why bin Laden did not attack Japan or Norway. The answer is because those countries did not and don't try to establish air bases in Egypt or Qatar.

Yes, the U.S. under Obama will pull out of Iraq. But Obama should also call for an end to the Afghanistan campaign. The U.S. must withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan sooner rather than later. Otherwise, the Afghanis will add the U.S. to the list of those foreign "invaders" and "occupiers" who found out when all was said and done that they made a big mistake in lives and money by trying to control that fierce land.