A news story that was printed in the SF Chronicle on 6 March 2007, followed by my letter to the editor.
U.S. air strike targeting insurgents kills 9 in Afghan family
Shafiqullah Azimi, Laura King, Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Kabul, Afghanistan — For the second time in less than 24 hours, the U.S. military Monday acknowledged involvement in an incident that caused multiple civilian deaths in Afghanistan — this time, an air strike on a rural compound that killed nine people from the same family, according to Afghan authorities.
A day earlier, at least eight civilians died and dozens of others were wounded when U.S. troops opened fire on a busy highway after a suicide bomber attacked their convoy.
In both instances, U.S. military officials blamed insurgents for placing civilians in harm’s way by deliberately staging attacks that were certain to draw American retaliation, and then using civilians as cover.
But the back-to-back incidents appeared to be raising tensions between allied forces and the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, which is often the target of popular anger when civilian deaths occur.
…
U.S. military officials said in a statement that Sunday’s late-night air strike on a compound in the thinly populated village of Jabar, about 50 miles northeast of Kabul in Kapisa province, was called in after a remote U.S. firebase nearby came under rocket attack.
Men armed with automatic weapons were seen entering the compound, which was targeted with a pair of 2,000-pound bombs, the military said in a statement.
The bombs pulverized the mud-brick structures inside, according to witnesses.
A U.S. spokesman said insurgents had deliberately put the compound’s inhabitants in danger.
The U.S. statement acknowledged “unconfirmed reports” of nine fatalities in the air strike. Afghan officials said the dead were women, children and one elderly man, all members of a single clan.
…
Use of “close air support,” or precision bombardment, has become a crucial component of the allies’ battlefield strategy. But allied troops under fire in remote areas sometimes unwittingly call in air strikes against an area where insurgent have taken cover among civilians — or have melted away altogether, leaving innocent villagers behind, in the path of bombs.
Letter to Editor
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 14:14:00 -0800
To: letters@sfchronicle.com
From: Jeff Johnson
Subject: Letter to Editor
Editor,
There is no such thing as precision bombardment with 2000-pound bombs ["U.S. air strike targeting insurgents kills 9 in Afghan family", 3/6/07].
Imagine the SF Police using 2000-pound bombs to get bad guys. Dropping one squarely on a San Francisco house might kill the targeted “bad guy”, but it would also pulverize the house and everyone else in it, destroy most of the homes on the block and their residents, damage all homes within 2-3 blocks and injure the people inside, and break windows and eardrums up to a mile away. That’s not precision.
Now imagine that the SF Police reacted to criticism of their bombings by accusing the bad guys of causing citizen casualties by hiding among them. We would of course not accept that.
We should also not accept such outrageous malfeasance from the U.S. military. The rules of engagement must be changed.
Sincerely,
Jeff Johnson
