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January 14, 2006
Who Are We Killing? And Is Anyone Counting?
Imagine a regular day. It's winter so it's cold. Other than that, it's a regular day. Your children are running around. The little one is still coughing so you make sure he puts his hat on. You worry about how to keep the house warm. You go about your business.
Except some people in the other side of the planet have sent a personless machine to kill you and your childern. And that's that.
Al-Qaida's second-in-command was the target of a U.S. airstrike near the Afghan border but he was not at the site of the attack, two senior Pakistani officials said Saturday. At least 17 people were killed.Citing unnamed American intelligence officials, U.S. networks reported that a CIA-operated Predator drone aircraft carried out the missile strike in the Bajur tribal region of northwestern Pakistan. The two Pakistani officials told The Associated Press on Saturday that the CIA had acted on incorrect information, and Ayman al-Zawahri was not in the village of Damadola when it came under attack
...
An AP reporter who visited the scene in Damadola village about 12 hours later saw three destroyed houses hundreds of yards apart. Villagers recounted hearing aircraft overhead moments before the attack. By their count at least 30 people died, including women and children.
...The official added that hours before the strike some unidentified guests had arrived at the home of one tribesman named Shah Zaman.
Zaman, whose home was destroyed, told AP he was a "law-abiding" laborer and had no ties to militants. He was not hurt but said three of his children were killed.
...
Doctors told AP that at least 17 people died in the attack. But at one destroyed house, Sami Ullah, a 17-year-old student, said he alone lost 24 of his relatives. Five women were weeping nearby, cursing the attackers.
"My entire family was killed, and I don't know whom should I blame for it," Ullah said. "I only seek justice from God."
Zaman said he heard planes at around 2:40 a.m. and then eight explosions. Speaking as he dug through the rubble of his home, he said planes had been flying over the village for the last three or four days.
"I ran out and saw planes were dropping bombs," said Zaman, 40, who lost two sons and a daughter. "I saw my home being hit."
The attack was the latest in a series of strikes on the Pakistan side of the border with Afghanistan, unexplained by authorities but widely suspected to have targeted terror suspects or Islamic militants.
...
Will anyone investigate? Will there be compensation -- even though neither would comfort these distraught parents. Will there even be an "oops, sorry about that" ever uttered?
How can we just kill dozens of people like that? No accountability, no remorse. What would the officials who make these decisions say? That war on terror is complicated and sometimes civilians get in the way? Would that be what Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the alleged target of yesterday's attack, would say about attacking the Towers on 9/11?
If these decision to destroy villages on the other side of the world are defendable, let the men and women who make these decisions please stand up and defend them.
P.S. I'm sorry. The missile had hit a "compound." That explains it all. ::slaps forehead::
Great reporting Knight-Ridder journalists!
A CIA-controlled unmanned aircraft fired a missile Friday into a compound just inside Pakistan's border with Afghanistan after the CIA received intelligence that Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant and other senior al-Qaida members were inside, U.S. intelligence officials said.
Do you notice how what the CIA says is reported as fact --it was a compound-- what the people affected say is always hearsay --the villagers said women and children were killed--.
Posted by zeynep at January 14, 2006 08:33 AM
Comments
"An AP reporter who visited the scene in Damadola village about 12 hours later saw three destroyed houses hundreds of yards apart."
Three houses? What, we bomb the first one, see 'al-Zawahiri' run to take cover in the second, before making another Great Escape to a third 'safe' house?
Or perhaps al-Zawahiri can be in three places at once.
Maybe he can divide himself into three pieces and we were worried that he could function with any one of the three pieces intact?
When will this end? When will we stop our governments' horrors? It's horrendous... But I'm not giving up.
Posted by: Zippee at January 14, 2006 12:03 PM
Our fearless media is terrified that we would ``shoot the messenger'', if they were to be objective about U.S. government statements and motives. Tho', Knight-Ridder was the only mainstream U.S. news service that---until recently---wasn't a sewer conduit for Bush Admin disinfo about Iraq.
Posted by: Paul Lyon at January 15, 2006 12:34 AM