The Pathos and the Evil of It All

Afghan relatives of those who died [in the NATO strike last week...] said that those killed were young boys who had taken their sheep and goats to graze outside the village. They were cold and gathered under a rock and lighted a small fire to warm themselves. That was the place where they were struck by bombs. Photographs of the dead shown by Mr. Safi at a news conference this week included some of badly bloodied young boys and a couple of young men who might have been older. The father of one of the boys who was killed said that his son was 12 and that two nephews who were killed were younger.

[...]

Brig. Gen. Lewis Boone, the NATO spokesman here, said ... [the boys] “appeared to be carrying weapons and heading for nearby mountains. They were moving in open terrain in a tactical fashion and clearly keeping a distance from each other.”

  NYT

This New York Times story provides a clear lesson -- not only for "young Afghans," but for all of us in this increasingly drone-covered world:

Do not, under any circumstances, "move in a tactical fashion."

  Chris Floyd

If that is not terrorism, I don't know what is. NATO terrorism. US supported terrorism. Who is terrorizing whom? Who is in danger from another country? Oh, yes. We are. They'll kill us all if we don't kill them first. Am I right?

Commodore Wigston said NATO had sent the camera footage to a forensics lab.

“We have had conflicting statements on the ages,” he said. “Our view is that initial assessment suggests they that they are closer to 15 to 16 with one older.”

  NYT

And that would make it okay.

General Boone and Commodore Wigston said that NATO was committed to helping improve the lives of the people in Gayawa, the youths’ village, which has no school or clinic or even a road.

“I spoke to the elders and I saw for myself the conditions the people live in,” Commodore Wigston said. “That is why we made our offer to make life better. A road to the outside world would be a very important part of that.”

Yeah. Or just maybe the possibility of not being bombed when they are tending their sheep might be a good start on a better life.

[In] announcing the results of its investigation into the deaths, NATO officers described it as a “very sad event” and expressed their “sincere condolences.”

As always. And there'll no doubt be a sum of cash sent to the families. What more do you want?

I would be hard pressed to argue with any of our screaming banshees these days that "they want to kill us all." They probably do at at this point. If they don't, they are saints. The horror we rain on these people on a daily basis simply cannot be understated.