The US Military Approves Bombing Children

Dissent, discontent, and diatribes on the American Empire

The Empire isn’t even hiding its bloodthirsty megalomania anymore. Here’s Robert Dreyfuss at The Nation:

In October, I blogged about an incident in Afghanistan in which three small children were killed in a US airstrike.

In that one small incident, which drew little attention at the time
and since, three children aged 12, 10 and 8 were blown to smithereens in
a NATO bombing while they were out gathering dung for fuel.

Now, in a despicable article in Military Times,
the US military says that children are legitimate targets in the war in
Afghanistan because sometimes the Taliban and other insurgents use
kids.

In the original incident, which I cited in October, The New York Times reported it this way:

The…case of three children allegedly killed in a
coalition strike was reported by local officials in Helmand Province’s
Nawa district. The officials said that the children were killed in a
NATO strike on Sunday afternoon as they were gathering dung to burn as
fuel, a common practice in the desert reaches of southern Afghanistan
where there are few trees.

“When we reached the area I saw the three bodies of children, two
boys and one girl, ages 8 to 12 years old. They were from the same
family,” said Haji Hayatullah, a member of the tribal council in the
Nawa district. Their family is in the livestock business and raises
goats and sheep on government land, he said.

Mr. Hayatullah added: “They had been collecting the animal dung and
were heading home. I saw a sack of dung and another sack that was
contaminated with their blood, and I saw three to four holes in the
area. It seems the insurgents were digging them to plant mines, but I
did not see any men’s bodies.”

The children were identified as Borjan, 12; Sardar Wali, 10; and Khan
Bibi, 8, said Haji Abdul Manaf Khan, the governor of the neighboring
Marja district. The deaths occurred near the border of the Marja and
Nawa districts.

The Marja governor said that NATO forces watched as improvised
explosive devices were being planted, and targeted the insurgents
planting them. “As a result two I.E.D. planters were killed and the
shrapnel killed the three children who were wandering nearby,” he said.
Other reports said that three insurgents had been killed.

A spokesman for the international forces, Maj. Adam Wojack, said that
the coalition forces were aware of the allegations and that the episode
was being investigated. “I.S.A.F. did conduct a precision airstrike on
three insurgents in Nawa district, and the strike killed all three
insurgents,” he said.

“None of our reporting shows any civilian casualties or any children.”

But on December 3 Gannett, which owns Military Times, ran an article headlined: “Some Afghan Kids Aren’t Bystanders.” It said:

When Marines in Helmand province sized up shadowy figures
that appeared to be emplacing an improvised explosive device, it looked
like a straightforward mission. They got clearance for an airstrike, a
Marine official said, and took out the targets.

It wasn’t that simple, however. Three individuals hit were 12, 10 and
8 years old, leading the International Security Assistance Force in
Kabul to say it may have “accidentally killed three innocent Afghan
civilians.”

But a Marine official here raised questions about whether the
children were “innocent.” Before calling for the M142 High Mobility
Artillery Rocket System mission in mid-October, Marines observed the
children digging a hole in a dirt road in Nawa district, the official
said, and the Taliban may have recruited the children to carry out the
mission.

Shockingly, the article quotes a senior officer saying that the
military isn’t just out to bomb “military age males,” anymore, but kids,
too:

“It kind of opens our aperture,” said Army Lt. Col.
Marion “Ced” Carrington, whose unit, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute
Infantry Regiment, was assisting the Afghan police. “In addition to
looking for military-age males, it’s looking for children with potential
hostile intent.”

“Opens our aperture,” indeed.