A Nato air strike in eastern Afghanistan has killed 10 civilians, five of them children, and wounded five other children, Afghan officials said.
[...]
A single home in the remote Sultan valley, in Kunar province, was hit by bombs around 3am on Wednesday, said Wasifullah Wasifi, spokesman for the provincial governor.
Four Taliban commanders were also killed in the attack, said Farid, chief of staff for the Kunar governor.
[...]
"Four women and five children were killed, and five children wounded. One man, who was the leader of the family, was also killed, according to reports from the site," Farid told the Guardian by phone from Kunar.
"Four Taliban commanders were also killed in this incident, but it is not clear in what part of the site they were, whether they were inside the house. We have sent a delegation to the site."
UK Guardian
[...]
A single home in the remote Sultan valley, in Kunar province, was hit by bombs around 3am on Wednesday, said Wasifullah Wasifi, spokesman for the provincial governor.
Four Taliban commanders were also killed in the attack, said Farid, chief of staff for the Kunar governor.
[...]
"Four women and five children were killed, and five children wounded. One man, who was the leader of the family, was also killed, according to reports from the site," Farid told the Guardian by phone from Kunar.
"Four Taliban commanders were also killed in this incident, but it is not clear in what part of the site they were, whether they were inside the house. We have sent a delegation to the site."
UK Guardian
NATO apprently is allowed to target homes. And by our new rules, anyone in them is considered enemy combatants as long as there is at least one enemy combatant presumed to be amongst them. I can't begin to imagine why they hate us. Unless they're just jealous of our freedoms.
The younger troops fighting in Afghanistan right now were seven years old when American boots hit the ground in 2001. They've known nothing but their country at war. Now they represent a generation, a moment in America as America moves on.
The drone strikes will continue, as will secretive raids and small, hot flashes of combat, but will there ever be another war that requires so many bodies for the same effect?
And that's another legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe mine will be America's last generation of war veterans.
[...]
Several years ago, I spent time with an Army infantry platoon at an outpost on a mountainside along the Pakistan border. A year later, American forces destroyed the outpost and withdrew from the area, essentially ceding the territory back to the insurgents. I asked one of the soldiers I'd been with what he thought of that. What was that for? he wondered. That was a year of our lives.
I thought my part of the Long War — as an infantryman in Iraq — unnecessary, and the preceding sales job to the American people dishonest. But I hoped to someday look back and see it was all worthwhile, because otherwise it would be too painful, too disheartening, to think about sacrifices made, about the friends wounded and killed. I'm still waiting for that verdict.
Brian Mockenhaupt
The drone strikes will continue, as will secretive raids and small, hot flashes of combat, but will there ever be another war that requires so many bodies for the same effect?
And that's another legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe mine will be America's last generation of war veterans.
[...]
Several years ago, I spent time with an Army infantry platoon at an outpost on a mountainside along the Pakistan border. A year later, American forces destroyed the outpost and withdrew from the area, essentially ceding the territory back to the insurgents. I asked one of the soldiers I'd been with what he thought of that. What was that for? he wondered. That was a year of our lives.
I thought my part of the Long War — as an infantryman in Iraq — unnecessary, and the preceding sales job to the American people dishonest. But I hoped to someday look back and see it was all worthwhile, because otherwise it would be too painful, too disheartening, to think about sacrifices made, about the friends wounded and killed. I'm still waiting for that verdict.
Brian Mockenhaupt
In this, as in many things in life, this man will just have to be satisfied with making up his mind that it was worthwhile, if that's what he wants it to be.
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